Policy highlights:
- Skills development is crucial for both economic and social reasons, as it helps people gain marketable skills and find decent employment. A radical shift in skills development is needed to ensure its effectiveness. This shift must respond to the increasing demand for training opportunities with greater private sector involvement and coordination.
- Other parties, most likely governments or NGOs, must take steps to stimulate private sector involvement. These include: Making the benefits of involvement apparent to private sector businesses and stimulating a favourable business environment with minimal bureaucracy.
- Skills development programmes should 1) include technical as well as soft skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, respect for colleagues etc; 2) provide off-the-job as well as on-the-job training; and 3) take account of the type of skills demanded by the (informal) labour market.