Reimagining Youth Skills Post-Pandemic

Geneva (ILO News) – World Youth Skills Day, observed annually on 15 July, celebrates the importance of equipping young people with skills for decent employment and entrepreneurship. This year’s World Youth Skills Day again took place in a challenging context, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and with education and training systems yet to return to pre-crisis conditions.

The focus this year was to celebrate the resilience and creativity of youth throughout the crisis and discuss how technical and vocational education and training (TVET) systems have adapted to the pandemic and participated in the recovery, and imagine priorities they should adopt for the post-COVID-19 world.

The virtual event of this year’s World Youth Skills Day was co-organized by the Permanent Missions of Portugal and Sri Lanka to the United Nations, together with UNESCO, ILO and the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth.

During the first interactive panel of the event, Martha E. Newton, ILO's Deputy Director-General for Policy, engaged in an interactive dialogue with a young workers’ and a young employers’ representative, and discussed the skills that are needed today and will be needed in the future. Against this background, ILO DDGP launched the ILO Global framework on core skills for life and work in the 21st century. This new global framework reflects the ongoing transformations and the emerging opportunities in the world of work, and proposes nineteen core skills to strengthen people’s capacities. DDGP Martha E. Newton also highlighted the importance of partnerships in supporting young people and mentioned the UN Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth as ILO’s foundation for partnering effectively to scale up action and impact on youth employment.

A second panel reflected on TVET stakeholder partnerships for scaling up youth skills development and debated on prospects for skills development and the world of work as economies recover.

The event this year presented a valuable opportunity to assess the situation of young people regarding skills and work during and after the COVID-19 pandemic; learn how they have been living through the crisis; and to highlight success stories of youth innovation and resilience despite the crisis.