World Youth Skills Day: Here's all you need to know about the UN event

The United Nations observes the World Youth Skills Day on July 15th of every year. This day is of special importance as it celebrates skills for entrepreneurship, employment, self-sufficiency among young people across the world. The UN also acknowledges and commemorates the path-breaking work of the youth in their respective fields and encourages and equips others with technical and vocational training to reach their goals.

The day came into existence in July 2014. Since then, the UN has provided "a unique opportunity for dialogue between young people, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, firms, employers’ and workers’ organizations, policymakers and development partners." This year the World Youth Day is taking place during the unprecedented circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)  has made sure to arrange online regional forums to highlight project results and impact, based on the implementation of technical and vocational education and training (TVET).

The strategic importance of World Youth Skills Day:

In 2014, the United Nations General Assembly declared 15 July as World Youth Skills Day, to celebrate the strategic importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work, and entrepreneurship, the UN agency wrote in the current year's 'Reimagining Youth Skills Post-Pandemic' press release. This year the UNESCO and the UN are set to celebrate the resilience and creativity of youth in the wake of the pandemic. The theme this year is 'Reimagining Youth Skills Post-Pandemic.'

The theme: 'Reimagining Youth Skills Post-Pandemic'

The pandemic has left a huge impact on the TVET process of youth empowerment and education. "World Youth Skills Day 2021 will take place in a challenging context, with the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in the widespread disruption of the TVET sector," UN informed. However, the agency has hoped that "vaccination rollouts" would provide quick recovery to the setback. Nevertheless, the UN has also acknowledged that "TVET still has a long road to recovery, especially in those countries which continue to be overwhelmed by the spread of the disease." Moreover, youth skills development is also expected to face a range of unfamiliar problems emerging from a crisis where training has been disrupted in an unprecedented manner on a virtually universal scale.

According to the UN directives, a virtual event will be organized by the Permanent Missions of Sri Lanka and Portugal to the UN, the Office of the Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth, UNESCO, and ILO will offer an opportunity to reflect on skills that are needed today and for the future. Next, the participants will take stock of how the TVET sector has adapted to the pandemic and recession, think of how TVET institutions can participate in the recovery, and imagine priorities they should adopt for the post-COVID-19 world. The forum will also mark World Youth Skills Day, and include representatives and direct beneficiaries from the participating countries; relevant TVET stakeholders and partners; regional and international TVET experts, and youth representatives and organizations, the UN directives concluded. 

(Input: UN/UNESCO/Twitter)