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Employability skills should be a necessity for every Technical and vocational education and training graduate. The need for employability skills is important to prepare the students to enter the labor market.
Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) systems play an important role in equipping youth and adults with the skills required for employment, decent work, entrepreneurship, and lifelong learning. In the present development context, TVET can equip youth with the skills required to access the world of work, including skills for self-employment. TVET can also improve responsiveness to changing skill demands by companies and communities, increase productivity and increase wage levels. TVET can lower barriers that limit access to the world of work
Green Skills
Human activities, as well as occupations in the workplace, need to be carried out in a way that is sustainable and environmentally friendly. Since many human activities in the past have not achieved this, there is a need to adapt the processes in personal consumption and occupations that are carried over from the past and develop new sectors of activity to replace environmentally unfriendly alternatives. They are essential to create a more sustainable society: for instance, developing skills and promoting the study of technologies that lead to avoiding as far as possible the use of irreplaceable raw materials, recycling waste, minimizing energy use, and avoiding pollution of the environment. The opportunity to develop entrepreneurial learning through vocational education and training could also lead to creating sustainable enterprises and social enterprises that work for the common good of society. [1]
Green skills are needed to reduce environmental impacts and support economic restructuring to attain cleaner, more climate-resilient, and efficient economies that preserve environmental sustainability and provide decent work conditions.
They can be classified as generic competencies and specific competencies that are required for particular occupations. Both types of competencies are used within specific contexts and require knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
Green Economies
The greening of economies is causing unprecedented shifts in skills requirements. These changes include shifts in how jobs are performed (which lead to a need to retrain and upskill displaced workers to be employed in other sectors); the emergence of new skilled occupations. Achieving a green economy requires more integration of skills and employment development policies into a green economic agenda. In some cases, there are skills shortages due to people reaching retirement age without new individuals having been trained to replace them, the small number of trained and qualified personnel available, or a lack of specific skills and competencies that hinder technological and market-related expansion.
The greening TVET is a new socio-economic idea and a shift in the paradigm, which seeks to achieve economic development while at the same time protecting the environment and achieving sustainable economic and social development. This entails transitioning to green jobs and green skills and creating new jobs related to the greening of workforces. Green jobs are relevant across all key sectors: agriculture, manufacturing, building, transport, tourism, and renewable energy. Skills acquisition and enhancement have great positive implications for all aspects of education and training and businesses. Over the past several decades, technological developments have been phenomenal due to globalization and regional advancements. Rapid environmental shifts are causing fundamental transformations that cause a dramatic impact on the management of organizations in general and TVET. The world of organizations and management is changing. TVET must respond and acquire a modern strategic mindset in meeting the future at the forefront of global challenges.
Do We Find Green Trends in TVET?
At this point, TVET should further realign itself to be sensitive to the present and upcoming trends, issues, and challenges that will chart its direction in making itself a significant and much-needed alternative to mainstream education. This would require extensive efforts to identify present trends, learn from past experiences, and chart future directions as guided by the findings from the past and present. There is a need to shift the TVET Institutions’ strategies in regards to planning on program offerings specifically on the jobs that will be soon will become ‘obsolete’ because the jobs of most industries will require “green jobs.”
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere.
Population: 746 Million people (2018)
A report about Green TVET in Europe
A report published in 2019 provided a synthesis of information analyzed in six European countries showes major changes in green jobs and employment since 2010 [2]. The report concludes with the following:
- different countries have experienced different patterns in the development of green skills and jobs
- different countries have defined green jobs and green skills in various ways
- green skills and green jobs tend to be dealt with as a part of different policies and strategies covering environmental as well as employment, and skills issues
- green skills are typically covered by general skills anticipation mechanisms
- monitoring and evaluation of policies and/or activities relevant to green skills are rare
- little or no consideration has so far been given to gender balance in occupations affected by the greening of the economy
References
[1] Greening Technical and Vocational Education and Training, UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for TVET, 2017 [2] Skills for green jobs: 2018 update: European synthesis report. European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), 2019Lucubrate Magazine June 2021
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