Context
The Egyptian labour market faces enormous challenges. Well trained non-academic skilled workers are in short supply, and youth unemployment is high. Women are at a particular disadvantage.
The Egyptian technical and vocational education and training system is inadequately funded and not very efficient. It is not able to guarantee training that meets the needs of the labour market. There is a lack of recognised, high-quality vocational qualifications, and a shortage of qualified staff and technical equipment in technical schools.
The National Technical Education Reform aims to improve technical education and the image it presents, as well as increasing its relevance in the labour market.
Objective
Implementation of Egypt’s technical education reform is more transparent, better quality, more relevant to the labour market and more gender-equitable.
Approach
The project contributes to further development of the reform in four priority areas:
Financial management: It promotes transparent and efficient financial planning and monitoring of technical education at the Ministry of Education and Technical Education. To achieve this it ensures alignment with the Ministry of Finance’s guidelines, builds capacity to analyse financial processes and examines successful case studies from other countries.
Reform of the labour system: The project is introducing a test system in line with national standards so that acquired skills will be recognised. To do this it sets up test centres, involves the private sector as external testers and provides advice on the regulatory framework.
Support for technical schools: Labour market information is used to improve the development of technical education provision. To this end the project it cooperates with network schools, involves the private sector in training and digitalises school planning.
Digital learning pathways: The project builds innovative digital courses, with a particular focus on women. It improves curricula and trains teaching staff in digital methods.