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Skills For All – Let’s Celebrate World Youth Skills Day 2021!

Skills- A Most Valuable Asset

Skill is something that can get you to where you want to go. Whatever you want to accomplish in your life, which is usually getting a job or starting a successful business, is all based on your skills. As we can see, the majority of today’s youth are unemployed and battling for work. Why do you think they didn’t get the job despite having good educational degrees? There could be hundreds of reasons for this, but the most common one is a lack of skills or experience. Those young people would have gotten the job if they had the necessary skills. A person’s greatest and purest asset is their skills. When you have a skill in something you enjoy doing, it will lead you to your life’s main goal. Skills reveal your greatest self, which is buried deep within you. The more you develop your skills, the less doubts and fears you will have.

Celebrating Adaptability- World Youth Skills Day 2021

Young people all over the world have shown incredible resilience and adaptability in the face of a global pandemic that has harmed not only their society’s health, but also their lifestyle and, in some cases, their ability to acquire job skills. Amidst the second wave of COVID -19 in Nepal; which is still very uncertain and looking over all the circumstances, young people have fought back in glorious ways. Young people are attempting to gain as much knowledge as possible. They have also discovered new creative outlets to hone their skills and learn how to use them. Now, this is a high-five time to celebrate skills and adaptability.

Every year on July 15, World Youth Skills Day (WYSD) is observed to promote the development and abilities of young people. The goal of WYSD is to emphasize the critical role of skilled youth in addressing current and future global challenges by recognizing the strategic importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, jobs, and entrepreneurship opportunities.

The WYSD is an opportunity to recognize the importance of skill development for young people. This day is recognized for bringing to light the mechanisms required to operationalize lifelong learning. The 2021 World Youth Skills Day theme is “Celebrating the resilience and creativity of youth throughout the crisis.” Its goal is to recognize youth’s resilience and creativity throughout the crisis, as well as to draw attention to how technical and vocational education and training (TVET) systems have responded to the pandemic, participated in the recovery, and imagined priorities for the post-COVID-19 world. 

In December 2014, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution designating July 15th as “World Youth Skills Day”. This day was established and recognized in order to assist young people in achieving better socioeconomic conditions as a means of raising awareness about the growing trend of unemployment and underemployment, not just in Nepal but around the world.

Many young people, public and private sector stakeholders, and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions were able to come together to celebrate and recognize the importance of technical employment skills training, jobs, and entrepreneurship.

Importance of World Youth Skills Day

One of the most pressing issues confronting economies and societies today is the rise in youth unemployment in both developed and developing countries. Globalization and technological advancements have increased the demand for people all over the world. To meet this demand, a variety of consumer goods and services are being developed. The market is thriving because social complexity is increasing. This burgeoning market necessitates the hiring of highly skilled workers. 

According to the UN website, the goal of the World Youth Skills Day is to “identify the tactical importance of preparing young people with employment, decent work, and entrepreneurial skills, as well as highlight the significant role of trained youth in the present and future.” The importance of this day reflects the global economic, employment, and development crises in developing countries.

Identifying the skills that youths will require in the future workplace

Today digital and technologies are blooming and transforming the workplace, and that today’s workforce will need to learn new skills and adapt to new learnings on a regular basis. In the competitive market place new skills will be required to ensure youths’ ability for the future world of work—but which ones? 

According to the research by McKinsey,” The research identified a set of 56 foundational skills that will benefit all citizens and showed that higher proficiency in them is already associated with a higher likelihood of employment, higher incomes, and job satisfaction.” 

According to the academic research and McKinsey’s experience; they formed skills into four categories—Cognitive, Digital, Interpersonal, and Self-leadership—then identified 13 separate skill groups belonging to those categories.