In this edition of the APYouthNet Talk Show, Lyn Kok, President & CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Thailand discusses the role and prospects of corporate banking in the field of microfinance, and its impact on youth employment.

Under the framework of the ILO-SMEPS/KAB project in Yemen, the KAB NKF certification process was initiated by the Enterprise Development Specialist on January 12th 2013 in Yemen as part of the nationalization phase of the programme.

Five potential KAB NKFs delivered two KAB TOFs simultaneously  at the Bustan Hotel from 12-24 January 2013 for their certification under the technical monitoring of the Enterprise Development Specialist and 2 KAB Regional Key Facilitators. A total of 48 teachers and one official from SMEPS took part in the two KAB TOF workshops.

The nationalization of the programme requires training an additional 100 teachers to be able to cover the remaining vocational centres and complete the commitment made by SMEPS to the MTEVT. The certification of the five NKFs would lead to the institutionalization of the KAB programme in Yemen and will ensure its sustainability at the end of the current ILO project.

The preparations of both workshops were very well done and it is noteworthy to mention that the 4 trainers (in addition to Ms. Khlood Shaker who is very competent but works at SMEPS as the KAB Coordinator) worked extensively ahead of the training and until late hours at night. They were all present at 7:30am to prepare and adjust the training rooms and stayed until 20:00 for their individual coaching sessions taking comments and observations very positively and showing their readiness and willingness to improve.

After evaulating the performance assessments, 4 KAB facilitators were certified as KAB National Key Facilitators and can all proceed with the delivery of up-coming KAB TOFs in Yemen.

ILO and SMEPS are very pleased with this outcome and proud of the project's achievements so far that are leading to the sustainability of the KAB programme in Yemen.

Under the framework of the ILO/UNESCO project entitled “Expansion of the KAB programme in Kurdistan targeting students enrolled in vocational education institutions and unemployed youth graduates of TVET”, a second KAB follow-up workshop was held in Erbil from 1-4 February 2013.    

The workshop was implemented in two parts. The first part started on Friday February 1, 2013 in the afternoon in the presence of 9 KAB facilitators previously trained under an ILO project in 2008-2011. Over two sessions, the ILO facilitators presented and discussed with the participants the changes and additions made on the KAB programme in its new 2013 version, namely the concepts of green enterprises.

The second part of the workshop started on Saturday February 2, 2013 with 22 participants divided as follows:

• 10 “new” KAB facilitators and 2 KAB supervisors trained under the current ILO/UNESCO project (5 from MoHE and Scientific Research and 7 from the MoE).
• 10 “old” KAB facilitators trained under a previous ILO project during the period from 2008 to 2011 (5 from MoHE and Scientific Research and 5 from the MoE)

The opening session was attended by the ILO Enterprise Development Specialist, Mr. Ryo Justin Ragland, the Programme Coordinator at UNESCO/Amman and Mr. Khalid Khoshnaw, UNESCO National Programme Officer in Erbil. TheEnterprise DevelopmentSpecialist seized the opportunity to distribute the long due KAB ‘National Facilitator’ certificates to the “old” KAB teachers who completed the certification requirements as National Facilitators under a previous ILO project but were never provided with certificates.

The main activities of the workshop included the following:

• KAB teachers and supervisors presented their KAB teaching experiences. They highlighted successes, difficulties, challenges faced and how they dealt with them. A discussion was initiated after each presentation to exchange lessons learned and good practices. The presentations served as a good platform for KAB experience sharing and knowledge dissemination among the participants.
• Participants selected a number of KAB topics to be explained/reviewed in the refresher namely:
  • Decent work
  • Balance sheet
  • Cash flow plan
  • Business Game/Module 1

All above mentioned topics, including the Business Game, were presented by the participants on a voluntary basis with additions made by the KAB facilitators whenever needed.

The last session of the workshop was dedicated to collecting participants’ ideas and suggestions about the integration of the KAB programme in their teaching curricula based on its pilot implementation. Participants were divided in 2 groups one from the MoE and one from the MoHE and Scientific Research. Some of the recommendations made include:

• Developing a KAB nationalization strategy/work plan based on the chosen alternative which will include training of the required number of new KAB teachers and training/certification of a number of national key facilitators (NKFs) to ensure the sustainability of the programme in Kurdistan.
• Training an additional 30 KAB teachers (10 teachers for Erbil, 10 teachers for Dohuk and 10 teachers for Sulaymaniya) to ensure a good teaching capacity in Kurdistan.
• Liaising with the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MoLSA) to facilitate the financing of business plans developed by students of the MoE and MoEHE who successfully complete the KAB programme.

KAB Follow-Up Workshop

9-11 December 2012: Erbil-Kurdistan, Iraq

Under the framework of the recently launched ILO/UNESCO project entitled “Expansion of the KAB programme in Kurdistan targeting students enrolled in vocational education institutions and unemployed youth graduates of TVET”, a KAB follow-up workshop was held in Erbil by two KAB Regional Key Facilitators (RKFs).

The workshop was attended by 12 participants (4 teachers and 1 supervisor from the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and 6 teachers and one supervisor form the Ministry of Education). During the workshop, participants shared their KAB teaching experiences and KAB supervisors reported the challenges they faced in implementing class visits outside Erbil due to administrative issues.

Training sessions were delivered by participants covering the new topics added to the KAB package, namely greening enterprises, Decent Work, Gender and people with disabilities. The suggested changes and sequence of topics proposed in the KAB 2013 version, (still in its draft form), were also presented to get the feedback and endorsement of the teachers before proceeding with translation and printing of the Kurdish KAB 2013 version. Finally, it was suggested to invite the old KAB facilitators trained under an earlier ILO project from both Ministries to participate in the second follow- workshop that will be held in February 2013 to increase the pool of teachers and equip the Ministries with a sufficient number of teachers to deliver the programme to the largest number of classes.

A KAB Follow-up Worshop for men was held at the Riyadh College of Telecommunication and Information from 13 to 15 October 2012. The workshop was attended by 20 participants (17 KAB teachers, the KAB National Coordinator from RIYADAH and 2 KAB supervisors).

From the initial 25 teachers trained at the ToF in November 2011, only 9 teachers implemented the entire KAB programme as an elective in the colleges of Abha, Tabuk, Arar, Najran, Al Baha, Medina, Al Majmaa, Jeddah and Taef (on class in each college with the exception of Al Baha where 2 classes were taught). Of the 16 teachers who attended the follow-up workshop only 7 implemented the entire KAB programme.

The main reasons provided for not implementing the programme are mainly related to the difficulty in attracting the required number of students to enroll in the programme and to sustain them until the end of the course.

However, it is important to note that teachers who implemented the programme did so in a very professional and organized manner presenting very detailed and well prepared reports at the refresher workshop. Some teachers taught the course during evening sessions from 19:00 to 23:00 and exerted lots of efforts in the marketing of the course (using sms and holding awareness meetings) and the selection of the students to ensure their commitment and limit the dropout rate.

A total of 220 students were reached, one opened his vegetables shop while some of them went to RIYADAH requesting loans. The five finalists in each class who  successfully completed their business plans were given financial rewards ranging from SR2,000 to SR500.

Under the framework of the ILO-DEF/KAB project in Jordan, a KAB Awareness Workshop was held for the staff of the Development and Employment Fund (DEF) and the Vocational Training Corporation (VTC). The workshop took place on Tuesday 23 October at the Kempinski Hotel in the presence of 55 participants mainly Heads of VTC Directorates, DEF employees, the General Manager of the E-TVET Fund, directors of vocational trainings institutes that have been nominated to participate in the KAB pilot phase, trainers initially nominated by VTC, International Youth Foundation representatives and the media.

The workshop was opened by Mr. Omar Al Omari from DEF and Mr. Hani Khleifat on behalf of the Director General of the VTC, Mr. Majed Al Habashneh. Both opening speeches stressed on the need to promote entrepreneurship education among Jordanian youth, especially those enrolled in vocational institutes, in order to reduce the culture of dependency on public sector employment and contribute to the reduction of unemployment among youth.

Both VTC and DEF expressed their commitment to the project and their readiness to fully engage with the ILO to ensure the success of the KAB pilot phase hoping that the programme could be nationalized at a later stage and taken on board by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education.

A detailed presentation was made by Mr. Samih Jaber, ILO KAB Regional Key Facilitator, on the KAB programme content and implementation modality and experiences/lessons learned from the implementation of the programme in other Arab countries were shared. The afternoon session was dedicated to Q&As and to draw the workplan of the KAB Jordan project.

21 January-2 February 2012: Riyadh – Saudi Arabia

Under the ILO/RIYADAH project on the introduction of entrepreneurship education in vocational training, and after long negotiations with RIYADAH, a KAB Training of Facilitators Workshop for women was conducted by the ILO-RO SME Specialist and a KAB Regional Key Facilitator. The workshop was held from 21 January to 2 February 2012 at the Al-Anoud Novotel in Riyadh and was attended by 21 Saudi women from the TVTC (1 coordinator, 1 assistant coordinator, 4 training supervisors and 15 teachers). Participants, who are all teachers of either Accounting or Business Management under the TVTC, came from 13 regions in the Kingdom namely: Riyadh, Al Ahssa’a, Al Khurj, Najran, Al Jof, Ha’el, Breida, Al Baha, Arar, Jeddah, Al Ta’ef, Khamis Mshet and Tabuk.

Under the framework of the Entrepreneurial Learning project, 2 KAB Training of Facilitators Workshops were jointly held by the ETF, UNESCO and ILO to train teachers coming from vocational education and general education on the delivery of KAB in classrooms. Both workshops were held at the Padova Hotel in Lebanon and the opening ceremony of both workshops was attended by Mr. Soubhi Abou Chahine, Advisor to the Minister of Education and Higher Education in Lebanon; Ms. Rania Bikhazi, Enterprise Development Specialist, ILO Regional Office for Arab states; Mr. Abdelaziz Jouani, Specialist in Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Skills-Country Manager, ETF; Mr. Oussama Ghneim,CERD,Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Lebanon; and Mr. Sulieman Sulieman, Programme Specialist, Technical and Vocational Education, UNESCO.

The first workshop workshop that targeted general education teachers, was facilitated by Mr. Samih Jaber, KAB Regional Key Facilitator. The workshop was held from August 27 till September 1st, 2012 and was a mixture of the first 4 KAB modules and material from the economics curriculum taught in classes. As it is the first time KAB material is piloted in general education in the Arab region, this experience will be highly informative and beneficial and will be a stepping stone for the integration of KAB in general education. The workshop was attended by 22 teachers (both men and women) and 5 supervisors from the Ministry of Education and Higher Education who will later be monitoring the delivery of KAB in classrooms during the 2012-2013 academic year.

The second workshop that targeted vocational education teachers, was facilitated by Mr. Wael Ghosn and Mr. Ahmed Abdulbary, KAB Regional Key Facilitators from Lebanon and Yemen respectively. The workshop was held from August 27 till September 7, 2012 and was attended by 25 teachers (men and women) and 3 supervisors who will be monitoring the delivery of KAB in classrooms during the 2012-2013 academic year.

During the training workshops teachers were exposed to KAB's participatory teaching techniques and learned to implement them by delivering micro teaching sessions. Teachers also got to play all KAB Games and were handed a KAB Games Guide that  was compiled for the Arab region to ensure game techniques and lessons learned are standardized across the region. Teachers were also given a brief introduction on the decent work and green topics that will be added in the 2013 KAB Arabic package.

After finally having attended a KAB Trainig of Facilitators' Workshop I can say it is an amazing experience which creates a unique KAB Family over a 1-2 week period. KAB Key Facilitators and teachers alike learn from each other and develop their business and training skills in a friendly and fun atmosphere.

Since pictures speak louder than words, you can check out the interactive and fun atmosphere the teachers from Lebanon lived over 1-2 weeks in the attached photos.

ILO and the Welfare Association sign a partnership agreement to promote entrepreneurship education in the oPt.

The Welfare Association (WA) signed, on Thursday July 12^th, a partnership agreement with the International Labour Organization (ILO) in its headquarter in Ramallah, in the aim to support the nationalization  of the ILO entrepreneurship education package ‘’ Know About Business ‘’ in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The agreement was signed by the Director General of WA in Palestine, Dr. Tafida Al Jarbawi, and by the ILO country representative in the occupied Palestinian territory, Mr. Mounir Kleibo. The event was attended by officials from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of Labour.

Dr. Al Jarbawi pointed out the importance of youth employment and youth education both representing priority areas of intervention for the WA. A total of USD 17 million was allocated to implement youth employment projects and to support young entrepreneurs in the establishment of their small businesses and thus create job opportunities. The latter contributed to the creation of hundreds of job opportunities for new graduates coming from vocational training and academic backgrounds; in addition, tens of small enterprises were established and have helped entrepreneurs generate income to support their families in different regions.

Dr. Al Jarbawi confirmed the importance of the ILO  initiative to nationalize the "Know About Business" Programme  in the occupied Palestinian territory and the extent of its contribution to support vocational education, develop the entrepreneurial skills of graduates, and strengthen the link between the education system and the labour market.

Mr. Mounir Kleibo thanked the WA for its financial contribution to the KAB project and reiterated ILO’s strong commitment to promote decent and productive work in Palestine while focusing on women and youth.

A press release by the Al Ayyam newspaper can be accessed on the following link: http://www.al-ayyam.com/article.aspx?did=195334&date