Invest in skills to prepare youth for work: UNESCO
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Developing young peoples skills for work a must: UNESCO
An estimated 200 million young people in developing countries have not completed primary education and will need alternative pathways to help them get the basic skills to land a job.
That's according to a new report from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched on Tuesday.
The report says it will cost $8 billion to provide lower secondary education to young people in the developing world, and it calls on governments, donors and the private sector to help fill the funding gap.
Charles Appel reports.
The 10th Education for All Global Monitoring Report finds that while the world's youth population is larger than ever, over a quarter of people between 15 and 24 years of age are trapped in jobs which keep them on or below the poverty line.
And while acquiring secondary education is a minimum to gaining the skills to find decent jobs, it reports that 250 million primary age children today cannot read or write.
UNESCO says the best answer to the current economic turmoil and to youth unemployment is to ensure that young people are equipped to enter the work force with confidence.
One of the recommendations in the report is for a balance between vocational and technical skills in the upper secondary school curricula.
It also emphasizes transferable skills such as confidence and communication which UNESCO describes as being indispensible for the work place.
Charles Appel, United Nations
Duration: 56″
