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Bolivia: Apps to find suitable technical training and professional services

Bolivia
Initial vocational education and training, Labour market insertion
15.09.2021
Given the economic situation in many countries in Latin America, it is more important than ever to provide a perspective for young people and create employment opportunities. Through the Professional Technical Training project in Bolivia, Swisscontact has been supporting the development of different digital applications. Swisscontact has done this for example with two apps that aim to help young people and job seekers integrate into the labour market. 

A new app to find technical professionals

In April 2021, the start-up Chamba, in coordination with the Professional Technical Training project executed by the Swisscontact-FAUTAPO consortium, launched the mobile app Chamba PRO which seeks to make it easier for employers and job seekers to connect. It facilitates the interaction between technical professionals such as electricians, metalworkers, designers, computer scientists, accountants, and other technicians, who are in demand in the Bolivian labour market.

The Chamba platform aims to generate more employment opportunities for people in various sectors. Cecilia Lazarte, manager of the Professional Technical Training project, indicated that unemployment has hit many young people and women since the pandemic. She pointed out that a digital platform like this can be a new way for people with experience in technical roles to look for jobs in an effective and dignified manner.

Matching professional profiles with companies

The Chamba PRO app provides a platform for people to make their skills and services known. It has a section that links professional profiles with the needs of several companies. Conversely, it allows companies to search for specific sets of skills and experiences for their open positions. Similarly, the app establishes the necessary links between work internships and young people in training centres.

Three months after the launch of this service platform, the app was downloaded 4,788 times, there were 413 job applications and 87 people applied for internships. In addition, 920 resumes were received, 66 formal businesses applied to seek professionals and 263 companies received resumes from technical professionals.

An innovative solution for youth to access income opportunities

The Professional Technical Training project works in 43 municipalities throughout the country with more than 70 technical training centres. About 15,000 youth are trained in different productivity areas to have better tools to access the labour market. Initially, the project is supporting 2,000 young people from public technical training institutes in Bolivia and who will enrol in this platform during 2021 and 2022. At a later stage, it is planned to extend the platform to include internships for young people.

Sara Pauli, Swisscontact Country Director of Bolivia, mentioned that Chamba PRO is an innovative solution where young people can access job offers and promote their services. Swisscontact aims to encourage training for more technical professionals who are needed in the Bolivian industrial sectors.

The first Bolivian app to help young people discover their future profession

Around 196,000 students yearly graduate from high school in Bolivia. At that point, many of them are not sure about which profession they want to pursue. This is why Swisscontact promoted the development of an application that guides high school graduates in choosing their subsequent vocational training. Since the launch of the app "Discover your vocation" in 2019, around 10,500 young people in Bolivia have downloaded it, of which 5,855 are women and 4,730 men.

The app combines aptitude tests as well as information on training centres

The app combines an international vocational orientation test and a multiple intelligences test. It takes into account the preferences entered by the users and points out a suitable career path or a training process, thereby encouraging them not to drop out of the higher education system.

Moreover, it is the only app in the country that includes information on higher technical training centres in different regions where the technical training courses are offered. 
Learn more about this app

"We want to help our graduating students so they can choose a professional career that will develop them further so that, based on their knowledge, they will be able to contribute to their community. We believe that a technical career is an option for young people, you just have to make the options known, and you have to promote them continuously."
Prof. Crisostomo Tarqui, director of the Juan Pablo II" B "Educational Unit
"This application is very important because many of us do not yet have an exact idea of the degree we want to study for and we don’t have information about all technical institutes, so this application will be very useful to us. I know that in other places you have to pay for a vocational test, but with the application that was we can see that we have three different course options."
Paola Espejo, a high school 6th grader of the Juan Pablo II "B" Educational Unit in the city of La Paz

Both apps were developed within the Professional Technical Training project of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, which is implemented by a consortium of Swisscontact and The Education for Development Foundation FAUTAPO.