Widening Opportunities for Youth Employability

 

Designed in response to the great demand in Egypt and Tunisia for a future in which young people can develop the skills they need to enable themselves and their societies to flourish, ‘Widening Opportunities for Youth Employability’ has three broad goals:

To nurture entrepreneurship and build work-based skills, British Council works with partners in Egypt and the UK to support the development of high quality apprenticeship programmes across Egypt aimed at preparing young Egyptians for the workplace. We run National Enterprise Awards in Egypt and Tunisia that provide young people with enterprise training and celebrate the most innovative and creative business ideas. And we provide training, mentoring and useful resources to support the development of small businesses in both Egypt and Tunisia. 

 

To help improve perceptions of skills, British Council works with employers, ministries, training institutions, young people and media representatives in Egypt and Tunisia on initiatives aimed at addressing the often negative image of skills. In Tunisia we are also supporting the development and implementation of a national strategy aimed at providing careers guidance to young people, allowing them to make informed decisions about their future career path. To increase the profile of skills nationally, provide users with valuable guidance to enhance their employability, and ensure that young people’s views are heard we have launched a skills social networking initiative in Egypt, with a similar initiative for Tunisia. 

 

To build effective links between employers and education, British Council is running an initiative in Tunisia that brings together all key stakeholders and is aimed at developing and showcasing models of good practice and identifying practical measures to help ensure that training in Tunisia is industry-led. In Egypt we initiate and fund partnerships between UK Sector Skills Councils and their counterparts in Egypt that assist these key Egyptian bodies to facilitate effective employer-education engagement. And in both countries we are supporting partnerships which have at their heart employer-education engagement and the development of training tailored to the current and future needs of industry in Egypt.