WorldSkills and UNESCO-UNEVOC team up to celebrate World Youth Skills Day 2023

Today’s youth face unparalleled challenges to enter the labour force successfully. The ILO reports that in 2022 there were 69 million unemployed youth across the globe. Rapid technological, economic, and societal changes have transformed the world of work. To be successful and achieve their full potential, young people are now required to attain new, transversal, agile skills.

To celebrate the strategic importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work, and entrepreneurship, the United Nations General Assembly declared 15 July as World Youth Skills Day. This day serves as a platform to raise awareness on skills development, foster collaboration, and empower young people so that they can change their worlds through the power of skills.

For 2023, WorldSkills and UNESCO-UNEVOC have joined forces to celebrate World Youth Skills Day, with support from WorldSkills Germany. Under this year’s theme – Skilling teachers, trainers, and youth for a transformative future – this joint partnership has brought youth in VET to the centre of the conversation.

The hybrid event will kick off with a youth focus group discussing the finding from the survey, followed by the first panel which aims to highlight how teaching and learning processes can be optimized to prepare young people for a changing labour market, and a second panel will reflect on UNESCO’s Global Skills Academy and its work to scale up youth skills development.

In recent weeks, young people between the ages 15 and 29 have been sharing their visions, priorities, aspirations, challenges, concerns, and expectations for skills development. The insights from this survey will inform a hybrid event titled Empowering youth for a sustainable future: Building skills for tomorrow (PDF, 155KB), which will take place both in Bonn, Germany and online on 14 July from 10.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. (CEST).

The first panel will discuss how teaching and learning processes can be optimized to prepare young people for a changing labour market, and a second panel will reflect on UNESCO’s Global Skills Academy and its work to scale up youth skills development.

Former WorldSkills Champions Trust representative for Africa, Euphrasia Mulenga, and Aswatha Narayana Sanagavarapu, gold Medalist in Water Technology at WorldSkills Kazan 2019, will be part of the discussions. Under this joint collaboration, other WorldSkills Champions and youth enrolled in VET have spoken their minds. In a series of question and answer videos, they help teachers understand how to better equip youth for the future of work, tell decision-makers how to support youth employment, skills development and entrepreneurship, and motivate other young people to join vocational education and training.

Browse the UNESCO-UNEVOC’s playlist to hear WorldSkills Champions Trust representatives share their insights.

In a series of videos that will be shared across WorldSkills social media channels during July, WorldSkills Champions will show how a day in the life of a skilled youth looks like.

Happy World Youth Skills Day 2023!