ILO training strengthens employment counselling in Uzbekistan

TASHKENT (ILO News) – The International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Ministry of Employment and Poverty Reduction have delivered a series of interactive training sessions that strengthened the interviewing and assessment skills of employment counsellors from Tashkent, Fergana, Nukus and Bukhara. The training aimed at helping employment counsellors better identify jobseekers' needs and provide more tailored employment support.

The training equipped employment counsellors with practical techniques to conduct more effective interviews, assess individual circumstances and develop personalized action plans for jobseekers. Through case analyses, role plays and peer learning based on realistic employment service scenarios, participants strengthened their ability to understand clients' situations and recommend suitable employment and training opportunities.

© ILO

© ILO

A key achievement of the training series is the transfer of knowledge and ownership to national institutions. The final training in Bukhara was facilitated by a trainer from the Ministry's Training Centre for Staff Professional Development, who had previously completed the training in Fergana. This demonstrates that the knowledge, facilitation skills and interactive methodology introduced through the pilot are now being adopted within the Ministry itself, creating a sustainable model for future capacity building.

"What makes this methodology particularly valuable is that it is highly interactive and engages participants through discussion, role play and real-life cases rather than passive learning. It is also flexible. As labour market challenges evolve, we can easily update the case studies, introduce new scenarios and adapt the training to emerging issues while keeping the same effective learning approach," said Khayrulla Toxtabaev, trainer at the Ministry's Training Centre for Staff Professional Development.

Looking beyond the completion of the training series, the Ministry aims to continue delivering the programme through its own institutional training mechanisms, ensuring that both newly recruited and experienced employment counsellors continue to strengthen their interviewing skills using the interactive methodology.

"This training series has demonstrated that interactive learning can deliver practical results for our employment counsellors. The Ministry highly values this initiative and is committed to building on its results by strengthening our internal training system and further developing the professional skills of employment counsellors through national trainers and sustainable capacity-building efforts," said Nilufarkhon Kamalova, representative of the Ministry of Employment and Poverty Reduction.

The Ministry is laying the foundation for continuous professional development within Uzbekistan's public employment services by embedding practical, learner-centred approaches into its training system. The Ministry now has greater capacity to supporting employment counsellors in providing more individualized and effective employment services to jobseekers across the country.

This UN Global Accelerator joint programme is supported by the Joint SDG Fund with generous contributions from the European Union and the governments of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland in accelerating progress towards the SDGs.