‘Skills for Jobs’ (S4J) is a project mandated by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and implemented by Swisscontact Albania. It is part of the Economic Development Domain of the Swiss Cooperation Strategy for Albania (2018-2021), with specific focus on promotion of employment opportunities and skills development.
The project is in its second phase, which started in April 2019 and will last until June 2023. During this phase, the project aims at supporting 10 000 students (6 360 more compared to Phase I) and 6 000 trainees (1 500 more compared to Phase I).
‘Skills for Jobs’ (S4J) was designed to address main Vocational Education and Training (VET) challenges, such as: low quality and status, insufficient financing, weak labour market orientation, and poor private sector engagement. The project addresses these challenges by focusing on ensuring systemic change, capacity development and empowerment of key actors. Based on this approach, S4J Phase II supports partner VET providers in Albania in terms of:
Work-based learning, the use of technology in the classroom, blended and individualized learning, making the VET offer relevant for students, trainings on industry standards and the application of a business mindset in in the management of VET institutions are at the core of ‘Skills for Jobs’ (S4J) implementation.
Ten providers in six selected regions benefit from the project:
Two more VET providers will join project during the second phase (in the third year). More public providers will benefit from the initiatives that the project has piloted in partner schools during the first phase.