Framing Presentation

Skills Development and Sustainable
Development Goals: Issues and Trends
Jonghwi Park

Head, Innovation and Education Programme
UNU-IAS

Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

Outline
1. Skills development and SDGs
2. Issues in skills development
3. Promising cases

Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

Sustainable Development Goals:
A Rise of Skills Development

Roles of Education in SDGs

Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

Three explicit targets by 2030
• Target 4.3 Equal access to technical, vocational andtertiary education• Target 4.4 Youth and adult with relevant skills foremployment• Target 8.6 Reduction of the proportion of youth notin employment, education or training

Share of TVET enrolment in upper secondary (%)
40363435303025232220131510650WorldSub-Saharan Northern Africa
Africaand West Africa

Central andSouth Asia

Oceania

Source: UNESCO, 2019. Global Education Monitoring Report 2019, Paris: UNESCO.

Latin America Europe andand theNorth America
CaribbeanIssues in skills development

Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

Growing uncertainty in skills needs
What will be the jobs of the future and what skills will
they demand?
(ILO. 2021. Shaping Skills and Lifelong Learning for the Future of Work. International Labour Conference Report VI.)

The World Economic Forum 2021 estimates that by 2025,
85 million jobs may be displaced by a shift in the divisionof labour between humans and machines.
Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

Literacy and economic growth• Literacy vs. GDP• R2=0.44

Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

Reading proficiency around the world (Gr3)0Sub-Saharan Africa

102030405060708090100

17.5
14.75

Central and Sounthern Asia

47.8

36

Nothern Africa and Western Asia

5141

Latin America and the Caribbean

52.5

Eastern and South-Eastern Asia

69.6
69.3

79.8

Europe and Northern America

86.3

World

45.3

Reading proficiency prior to COVID 19

Reading proficiency at the end of 2020

Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

Source: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2021/goal-04/

54.4

92.5

Participation in job-related adult learning:
20% low skilled adults vs. 58% high skilled adults

Souce: OECD (2019), Getting Skills Right: Engaging low-skilled adults in learning, (www.oecd.org/employment/emp/ engaging-low-skilled-adults-2019.pdf)

Mismatch: supply and demand
Youth not in education, employment or training (NEET):• Kenya: 19.7% (2019) Nigeria: 28.1% (2019)• Ghana:30.4% (2019) Rwanda: 31.0% (2020)• South Asia: 29% (2020) Japan:3.1% (2019)

Source: https://go.manpowergroup.com/hubfs/Talent%20Shortage%202021/MPG_2021_Outlook_Survey-Global.pdf
Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

Common Barriers in Effective TVET
• Lack of technical and institutional capacity offormal TVET systems, including teachers;• The outdated or inadequate delivery of TVETcurriculum• Weak knowledge base (due to lack ofinvestment in research);• Lack of partnership among key stakeholders(e.g. between industry and schools);

Source: UNESCO. (2015). Unleashing the Potential: Transforming Technical and Vocational Education and Training. Paris: UNESCO.

Promising cases

Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

Support basic skills• Online Learning for the Certificate II in General Education programmefor Adults (Challenger Institute of Technology (CIT), Australia)• Mature students returning to work/education, disadvantaged
students, students with special needs, limited education backgroundor undertaking training as part of welfare programmes.
• The fully online version of this programme is designed for distance learners:• More individualised, student-focussed learning experience;• More productive, supportive learning environment with strong support
relationships between teachers and students;• More flexible, accessible learning environment
Source: Tang and Park. 2019. Beyond Access: ICT enhanced innovative pedagogy in TVET in Asia Pacific. UNESCO.
Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

ICT for authentic and simulated learning
ChallengesSolution• Expensiveequipment• Dangeroustraining• Still needfor handson training• Virtualtraining• Pedagogicaldesign oflearning
activities

Source: Tang and Park. 2019. Beyond Access: ICT enhanced innovative pedagogy in TVET in Asia Pacific. UNESCO.

Agribusiness for Refugees• Providing an Agribusiness course from ArizonaState U in a refugee camp in Uganda in 2019
• SolarSPELL technology(offline digital library with solar power) – 95%
offline, 5% online• Key factors: Facilitator training, local partners,
M&E• 87% completion rate with significant
improvement in student confidence in digitallearning
More info: https://edforhumanity.asu.edu/

Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

Regional Centresof Expertise on
ESD (RCEs)• A network of formal, non-formal and informal education
institute for localizing ESD• About 180 members as of February 2022
• www.RCEnetwork.org
Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

RCE Greater
Eastern Uganda• Aims at stopping deforestation ofthe world of the 10 restoration
hotspots in Uganda• Led by Busitema University,
involving Busia Local Government,
private sector, conservation
agencies, and the local community• Trained local people for effective
management of forests as well asorganic farming to generate theirincomes without cutting andselling the trees
Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

Skills for sustainable development• RCE Denmark• Certificate of Sustainable
Construction• Partnership between TVET
institutions and industry• Curriculum on:• Sustainable construction materials and methods(with the least amount of impact on theenvironment as possible)• Equality (gender and indigenous)• Recycling and waste sorting
Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

Final words

Is skills training a solution to
unemployment?
• Requires a new generation of skills and a lifelong learning ecosystem

Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

References for the cases

Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022

Thank you!

Jonghwi PARK
Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability
United Nations University
jonghwi.park@unu.edu
Jonghwi Park, UNU-IAS, 28 Feb 2022