Skills for Jobs Project, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Market stall owner: Mersiha Alijagic (SDC)
This market stall is based on the experience of the Skills for Jobs (SfJ) Project in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in working with the private sector in vocational skills development. The Skills for Jobs project is one of three E+I programmes in BiH, one focusing on job creation, one focusing on matchmaking and this particular one on employability.
In the BiH context (60% unemployment rate among youth, weak VET school system, bad reputation of VET, significant number of employers who are not able to find adequate labor force/with some specific skills) SDC started its engagement in the VET sector by initially supporting the non-formal training system. They worked with companies which already did in-house training or considered building their own training centers. After the first phase, the project decided to enter formal VET education to scale their first achievements and to link training providers and companies with the existing VET schools.
At the market stall the five pillars of the essential Skills for Jobs Skills model are presented, i.e. Training need analysis, job profile development, curricula and test item development, training delivery, assessment and certification. It shows that proper data for training need analysis is of utmost importance. Chambers of commerce have become important partners for testing and certification. Finally it’s important to have committed companies and to get business leaders on board!
