World Youth Skills Day to be marked on July 15

Author: APP

World Youth Skills Day will be marked on July 15 (Saturday) across the globe including Pakistan which aimed to encourage youth to celebrate the value of acquiring skills like building, making, and creating as a way to achieve personal success and fulfillment.

By empowering young people, they can better advance the broader mission of the United Nations (UN) for lasting peace, sustainable development, and human rights for all, according to UN Secretary-General António Guterres. A UN resolution to establish a World Youth Skills Day was adopted by the General Assembly on December 18, 2014.

On the UN’s website, they state that education and training are the keys to success in the workforce. However, unfortunately, existing systems are failing to address the learning needs of many young people.

A large number of youths have low levels of achievement in basic literacy and numeracy, according to surveys. Skills and jobs for youth feature prominently in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Both the resolution and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) quote an International Labour Organization (ILO) publication which states that 73.4 million young people were estimated to be unemployed in 2015, which equated to a 13.1% youth unemployment rate. The figure was expected to increase in most regions by 2017. UNESCO states that one reason for youth unemployment, which affects all regions around the world, is a mismatch between the skills workers can offer and the skills that are in demand. This is known as structural unemployment.