PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Egypt has a very youthful society, with 60% of its population under the age of 30. This brings an opportunity for Egypt’s growth and development, but also the challenge to provide the youth with sound education and skills, able to answer to the labour market needs. The youth unemployment rate is at 29%, and even higher for graduates of the TVET system; this reflects a mismatch between the skills provided and the needs of the labour market. The strong demand for skilled workers in the labour market further reinforces this assessment. There is very limited information about the labour market relevance of TVET in Egypt and the transition to work of TVET graduates, although this information is crucially needed, to enhance the TVET relevance to labour market needs.

The consortium led by ICON-INSTITUT tackles this situation by setting up a system to regularly conduct employer surveys and graduate tracer studies. Suitable instruments are developed to identify, collect, structure and analyse the labour market demand for skills and to track the transition to work of TVET graduates. Employer Survey Units with participants from the private sector and involved ministries are established and trained, to regularly identify the demand for skills in pilot economic sectors. Tracer Study Units in the relevant Ministries systematically conduct tracer studies of TVET graduates to evaluate the labour market relevance of the training. The produced information from the employer and tracer studies lead to recommendations for decision makers and program developers to improve and adjust the TVET programmes.

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