Vocational Training and Skills Development for Children
in the North-Eastern Province Affected by War
| Time-frame |
Donor(s) |
Duration: 3 years
Starting date: January 2004 |
US Department of Labour (USDOL)
Government of Norway
AusAid |
The Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam) have undertaken steps to improve the living conditions
of children and youths in the war-affected areas by developing a
National Plan of Action (NPA) in 2003, with assistance from UNICEF.
The plan covers the North-Eastern Province and includes ten technical
areas for which external technical and financial support is critical.
The waraffected children need urgent assistance to reintegrate into
their communities, to re-join the educational system, or to gain
technical skills and find decent employment.
The ILO, under the NPA, has the mandate for providing vocational
training to an estimated 5,000 children, including 1,200 ex-soldiers,
as well as building the capacity of key stakeholders. UNICEF and
the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) are overseeing the release
of these ex-combatants to their homes via transit centres; they
are also instrumental in identifying other vulnerable groups of
children in the villages.
IPEC has adopted a dual strategy to address the short-term and
long-term needs of children affected by war. The short-term goals
are to provide immediate assistance to children who are currently
in transit centres and wish to opt for vocational training, and
to ensure that children do not end up in the worst forms of child
labour. It is essential that basic services are provided as quickly
and realistically as possible, and existing structures and service
providers are utilized to ensure the smooth transition to normal
life.
The long-term objective of the project is to build the capacity
of the various actors in the field to ensure that the benefit of
the project continues long after its termination. Under the NPA,
it is envisaged that IPEC will provide vocational training to approximately
5,000 children affected by the war. In order to be able to achieve
this target, IPEC works in close coordination with local partners
such as the TRO, WUSC (World University Service of Canada), FORUT,
(a Norwegian NGO), Swiss Contact (a Swiss NGO) and GTZ (German Technical
Cooperation Agency), and other implementing agencies in the North
and East. The focus is on capacity building, mapping of vocational
training providers, developing child friendly teaching tools and
methodologies, making linkages with the employers, and developing
life skills packages.
The life skills packages will be integrated into both the non-formal
education (NFE) curriculum as well as the vocational training curriculum
in the North, East and South of the country, to address the gap
in the education system and make up for the regional disparities
in service delivery.
Similarly, the NFE curriculum will be fine-tuned with an activity
based methodology to fill the gap in theformal education sector
and will be used throughout the country. It is expected that the
IPEC initiativewill support the Government to introduce this curriculum
through the Education for All policy framework.
The ILO is currently implementing some pilot projects in the North
and East using a more holistic approach, as these projects were
designed prior to the NPA. However, in the long term, IPEC will
focus on the vocational training component of the NPA.
The whole project is linked to the IPEC global initiative on prevention
and reintegration of children involved in armed conflict, funded
by the US Department of Labour.
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