Closing the Skills Gap – Business Commitment Framework

Background
It is now well-recognized that the disconnect between education systems and labour markets, coupled with technological disruptions, is creating instability and insecurity to the livelihoods of many. Governments are under increasing pressure to nd solutions, including by involving the private sector in change efforts, although few are able to act rapidly and few work in close collaboration with private sector actors to reform education systems. Businesses are initiating their own rapid skilling, upskilling and reskilling
of their workforces, or more broadly in their communities, although few are able to affect systemic change alone.
Objective

The Closing the Skills Gap Project serves as a platform to focus fragmented actions within one overarching mission to gather business commitments that address future-oriented skills development, while at the same time supporting constructive public-private dialogue on urgent and fundamental reform of education systems and labour policies to prepare workforces for the future of jobs.

The project leverages existing business communities and partnerships established through the World Economic Forum’s New Vision for Arab Employment, the Africa Skills Initiative, and the Europe Skills Initiative.

The project aims to gather commitments from these leading businesses resulting in skilling, upskilling and reskilling for 1 million people by January 2018, to be announced publicly at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2018, followed by a target of 5 million by January 2020. In addition to the direct impact of the business commitments, the project will indirectly assist millions by incentivizing and inspiring thought leadership, best/practice sharing and policy change.

Call For Action

The System Partners for Education, Gender and Work are leading the way in building a skilling consortium. Additionally, all members of the World Economic Forum with operations in Africa, Europe, and MENA, inclusive of the Regional Business Council members in the respective regions, are invited to make a pledge towards these efforts in the form of speci c quanti able commitments, which will be aggregated by the World Economic Forum as well as segmented by region, industry and skill type. These business commitments will help build a body of knowledge that will be complemented through new insights and research continually developed by the World Economic Forum.

Businesses are invited to design new initiatives or align existing business-led education and training initiatives that address at least one of the following target areas:

– Basic education
– Technical vocational education and training (TVET)
– Higher education
– Adult learning

The four target areas follow a lifecycle approach to transforming education and training ecosystems and prepare businesses to successfully navigate and manage the new world of work. At its core, the lifecycle approach supports and promotes the concept of “lifelong learning”, which
can be understood as all learning activities undertaken throughout life for the development of competencies and quali cations.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at Closing the Skills Gap – Business Commitment Framework

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