Upskilling and reskilling

By 2030, between 10 and 50 per cent of any country’s workforce will need to find alternative occupations due to automation. Changes in technology and economies place new skill demands on workers and employers every day. Lack of skilled staff limits productivity growth and threatens business survival for enterprises. A further challenge lies in the field of up- and reskilling where private sector expenditure goes towards formal education and certification from training providers whose offers may not meet industry standards.

Up- and reskilling: for personal development and improved competitiveness for economies

Swisscontact builds capacities of stakeholders active in upskilling and reskilling, like governments, training providers, private sector associations and enterprises. The goal is to develop and implement policies and programmes which will improve the long-term employability of working women and men and the viability of enterprises. Our interventions seek to promote continuing education in enterprises. Through formalisation, upskilling and reskilling can be integrated into the system of vocational education and training.

The productivity of enterprises and the competitiveness of economies depend on the skills, adaptability and capacities of working women and men. We need to ensure that offers for upskilling and reskilling are widely available, relevant to current and evolving needs of the economy and supports individual’s professional and personal development. By doing this, we guarantee the development or preservation of a resilient society. 

Fostering change

Upskilling and reskilling  benefits to all working people. Our interventions focus on ensuring access for low-skilled women and men, particularly those from disadvantaged groups. 

Our role is that of facilitator and capacity builder. We catalyse innovations and bring together the relevant actors to embrace change and ownership for delivering better and more relevant services.

Through our projects, we contribute to the transformation of existing systems of vocational education and training, and the provision of training. We do this by building the capacities of enterprises and industry associations. Together with our partners, we start interventions locally before working on scaling up and creating sustainable system impact.  

Our fields of activity in upskilling and reskilling

We believe that upskilling and reskilling is fostered by partnership-based governance  and encourage government incentive schemes to increase the range of, and access to, continuing vocational education. Linking enterprise-based training to qualifications and educational frameworks provides for recognition and mobility.

We support the strengthening of services including:  

• recognition of prior learning and certification
• digitisation of training provision and blended learning
• curriculum development
• design and implementation of learner-centred and facilitative pedagogical approaches and materials using andragogy
• technical and pedagogical training of trainers and enterprise instructors,
• organisational management and administration, including HR planning
• public-private governance of vocational education and training,
• quality assurance tools and mechanisms.