At the request of the Development and Employment Fund in Jordan, a KAB Awareness Workshop was held on Monday 24 October at the DEF offices. The workshop was jointly facilitated by Mr. Samih Jaber, KAB Regional Key Facilitator, Ms. Rania Bikhazi and Ms. Alexandra Irani. The workshop was attended by all department directors to ensure their exposure and understanding of the KAB Programme prior to its implementation. Special interest was depicted from the directors and managers of the loan disbursement and training departments.

A side meeting was held with the Director of DEF, Mr. Omar Omari, to finalize the proposed KAB project document for implementation during 2012-2013. DEF is expected to sign an MOU with the ILO early 2012 to initiate the project.

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

 

4-5 September 2012: Amman, Jordan

Under the framework of the ILO/KAB project in Yemen and the decision of the MTEVT to nationalize the KAB programme in Yemen, a 2 day adaptation workshop was facilitated by the ILO-RO SME Specialist and an ILO KAB Regional Key Facilitator in the presence of a Yemeni delegation/programme review committee which included:

• Mr. Abdelqader Al Olabi, Deputy Minister for Curricula & Continuous Education
• Mr. Ali Hamoud Taher, Director of Curricula & Continuous Education
• Mr. Abdelhakim Hashem Ahmad, Supervisor
• Mr. Ayman Ghanem, KAB national facilitator
• Mr. Sami Othman Salam, KAB national facilitator

The objective of the workshop was to customize the generic Arabic KAB version to the socio-economic and cultural context of Yemen based on the comments of the committee. Additions of new topics related to Decent Work, Social Security and Green Enterprises were also made.

The 2 days adaptation workshop was successful, most of the changes requested by the Yemeni review committee were approved by the ILO and it was agreed to introduce the new added topics to the trainers in the up-coming National Key Facilitator workshop (NKF) scheduled to be held sometime in November in Sana’a. As a result of the NKF workshop, a number of potential Yemeni NKFs will be selected to conduct 4 TOFs under the ILO/SMEPS project before the end of the year. This comes as a result of the MTEVT request that needs an additional 100 KAB teachers to complete the nationalization process of the programme.

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.

 

This young man from Kyrgyzstan grew up in a small village outside Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. He took the KAB course in his studies and now owns his own car audio sales shop. Read his story, attached.

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.