ILO launched the Training of Trainers course on skills anticipation and STED

In response to demand from the ILO constituents, ILO’s Skills and Employability branch (SKILLS) has been developing joint tools with international and EU agencies on skills needs anticipation and matching. SKILLS branch collects and identifies good practices on systems of skills anticipation and development, including sector level, and on evidence of conducive institutional frameworks to skills development. Based on these evidence and research, a capacity building training course on skills anticipation and matching has been developed and delivered regularly for the ILO constituents.

In addition, SKILLS branch through the Skills for Trade and Economic Diversification (STED) programme offers a pragmatic approach to integrate skills development into sector, trade and development strategies for enhancing competitiveness, productivity and economic growth. The programme works with national and sectoral partners in tradable sectors to understand the strategic development needs of each target sector, the contribution that skills development can make to address those needs and to develop strategies to meet skills needs identified. This diagnostic phase is followed by an implementation phase where partners implement these skills response strategies.

Over the years STED has benefited from practical experience through application in a dozen widely different countries. As a result, the methodology has evolved, and STED has moved from focusing only on diagnosis to providing support with implementation and developing in-country capacity to mainstream STED as a tool to integrate skills policies with development planning. A STED training course has been developed and has been delivered in a number of countries to support institutionalisation, sustainability and upscaling of STED initiatives at country level.

With an aim to solve the ongoing challenge of responding to ever increasing capacity development requests by the ILO constituents, the SKILLS branch has merged the above two courses mentioned above and has developed an overarching ToT course on “Skills Anticipation and STED”, with one week devoted to topics on broader conceptual issues of anticipating skills needs for the labour market and another week devoted to STED diagnostic analysis and process. The 2-weeks’ course objective is to broaden the reach of ILO capacity building activities and allow to cascade the programme and rely on the network of skills anticipation experts and STED practitioners in the implementation and capacity development workshops, and in the technical support to STED implementation.

ToT course structure

The ToT course was designed in a blended format: it contains an e-learning pre-course module, a face-to-face training of two weeks, and a post-course module. Following the e-learning pre-course module during 15-30 of January 2020, the face-to-face module was successfully delivered on 3-14 February 2020 at the ILO-ITC Center in Turin, Italy.


The 2-weeks’ long face-to-face course was organized as following:

• First week (PART 1): ToT on Skills anticipation and matching
• Second week (Part 2): STED Certified master

Objectives of the course

Part 1: ToT on Skills anticipation and matching

• Understand critical milestones, questions, objectives, beneficiaries & target groups of skills needs anticipation and matching;
• Learn about principles of skills needs anticipation, different methods & tools: quantitative and qualitative analysis;
• Understand skill anticipation needs in a wider system of labour market information and intelligence;
• Understand different institutional approaches to skills anticipation and matching;
• Analysis and translation into policies and planning of skills development;
• Analyse and anticipate skill needs in sectors that have the potential to increase exports and to contribute to economic diversification;

Part 2: STED Certified master

• Improve the ability of participants to identify priority export-oriented sectors with growth potential in line with sector development strategies through using available trade and labour market information;
• Enhance their knowledge on anticipating those sectors’ development and growth opportunities based on their global competitive position market development;
• Acquire a constructive method for identifying emerging skill needs and understanding the outlook for existing and future skills gaps in export-oriented sectors with growth potential;
• Examine issues through a coherent framework linking exports, employment and skills;
• Gain knowledge in integrating skills development in sector growth strategies, in building up and using labour market information, and in strengthening institutions for social dialogue to link trade, employment and skills policies;
• Formulated skills-related strategies and actions for the improved competitiveness of the tradable sectors with growth potential.
• Plan for and enable the effective implementation of these strategies.

Thirty four pre-selected participants attended the ToT course and are expected to complete the post-course module by the end of 2020. Upon the successful completion of the course, the participants will be certified either as an accredited trainer on skills anticipation or certified as a STED practitioner.