Around 40 UNRWA Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) professionals from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from across the region came together in Amman from 13 to 14 December 2022 to share views on strengthening the relevance of the TVET Programme to support the employability of around 8,000 young Palestine refugees annually.

The Agency-wide workshop was funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and facilitated by the Headquarters Education TVET and Youth Division.

Through the workshop, the capacity of TVET staff was successfully built on institutionalizing labour market linkages, strengthening partnerships with local and regional stakeholders, and implementing a competency-based training (CBT) approach.

The workshop provided a key opportunity for the participants from the different UNRWA fields of operation (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza) to share their experiences and present achievements, challenges, and opportunities for improvement. They focused on how the UNRWA TVET programme can help secure better job opportunities for its graduates through improved labour market research and analysis.

In addition, the participants called for enhancing placement and career guidance services, upgrading training equipment, and redesigning more courses and curricula in line with the CBT approach to better meet the volatile demands of the labour market. Further recommendations were made with regard to enhancing the entrepreneurship component and piloting the newly developed Agency-wide TVET Quality Assurance Framework.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Marta Lorenzo, the Acting Director of the UNRWA Education programme, said, “Delivering relevant, inclusive, and responsive TVET programming continues to be a priority for UNRWA. Therefore, the Agency partners with a range of public, non-governmental, intergovernmental, community-based, and private partners in the labour market to ensure that its TVET graduates have the right skills needed to succeed in the workforce of the future”.

The learnings from the workshop will guide UNRWA TVET staff to provide more employment-oriented training and services to Palestine refugee youth.

UNRWA operates some eight technical and vocational training centres across the region for almost 8,000 Palestine refugee youth.