The struggle to learn skills in the city

UNICEF’s flagship annual report, launched today, focuses on the lives of marginalized children in urban areas. The State of the World’s Children 2012 finds that children in urban environments are often denied their right to education, leaving many without the skills they need to find a good job. Almost half of the world’s children now [...]

Listening to the voices of young people

No one feels more strongly than young people themselves the mismatch between the jobs that are available and the skills that they acquire in education systems. Or, for many, the skills they don’t get a chance to acquire: 74 million adolescents aren’t even enrolled at school. That’s why we are currently listening to the voices [...]

Who is responsible for developing youth skills?

What role should the private sector play in developing the skills of young people? That’s one of the questions likely to come up at two international events on the theme of our upcoming 2012 Education for All Global Monitoring Report – how skills development can improve marginalized young people’s opportunities for decent jobs and better [...]

Why school should speak your language

People whose mother tongue is different from their country’s official language can find this a barrier to thriving in society. But does that mean children should be educated only in the official language? It’s a complex question. As we found in the 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report: Reaching the Marginalized, educating children in their [...]

World Youth Report puts focus on skills

As youth unemployment figures continue to rise in many parts of the world, the need for young people to have the skills that employers want is drawing more and more attention – not least from the young themselves. Their voices can be heard in the latest UN World Youth Report, “Youth Employment: youth perspectives on [...]

How do skills develop? Cognitive neuroscience offers some insights

By Helen Abadzi, Senior Education Specialist, Global Partnership for Education Developing countries want their citizens to acquire and use complex skills, but there is much debate over the best ways to achieve this (as the 2012 Education for All Global Monitoring Report will examine). Yet specific answers do exist, and they come from cognitive science. [...]

Can the ‘German model’ bridge the skills gap elsewhere?

By Léna Krichewsky, research officer, Education for All Global Monitoring Report What do all those experts and politicians mean when they point to the “German model” as a kind of magic recipe to solve the problem of youth unemployment by improving the skills of the young? The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, announced a few days [...]

Help us picture the future!

We’re running an artwork contest for young people on the theme of youth, skills and work – the focus of our forthcoming 2012 Education for All Global Monitoring Report. The winner’s work will be used in the report. The contest is open to those aged 18 to 24, and the deadline is 1 April 2012. [...]