Blogs
July 15, 2021 • 2 min read
Sinead Healy
July 15th marks the United Nations ‘World Youth Skills Day’ and this year, GOAL will join others around the world to pay tribute to the resilience and creativity of youth throughout the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Young people aged 15-24 have been even more severely affected by the Covid-19 crisis than adults. Globally, youth employment fell by 8.7 per cent in 2020, compared with 3.7 per cent for adults.
UNESCO estimates that schools were either fully or partially closed for more than 30 weeks between March 2020 and May 2021 in half the countries of the world. In late June, 19 countries still had full school closures, affecting nearly 157 million learners. And 768 million more learners were affected by partial school closures.
On a global scale, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that youth employment fell 8.7 per cent in 2021, compared with 3.7 per cent for adults with the most pronounced fall seen in middle-income countries. The consequences of this disruption to the early labour market experiences of youth could last for years.
This World Youth Skills Day will focus on the dialogue between young people, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, firms, employers’ and workers’ organisations, policy makers and development partners.
Looking beyond the Covid-19 crisis, recovery is essential. The youth population will grow by more than 78 million between 2021 and 2030. Low-income countries will account for nearly half of that increase. Education and training systems need to respond to this challenge.
To address this challenge sustainably, GOAL partnered with the Mastercard Foundation. With Markets For Youth , young Ugandans, aged 16-35, will get access dignified and fulfilling employment over the next five years.
The project will leave no one behind and amongst the 300,000 young people taking part 15,000 are young people living with disabilities, 30,000 are refugees and 210,000 are young women.
Note: Statistics taken from The United Nations World Youth Skills Day page
