Ramallah – On Thursday, December 19, MIFTAH held a hearing session on the government plan to develop vocational and technical training, its role in empowering women and youth and in increasing job and employment opportunities. The session was attended by representatives from youth and civil society institutions and a number of ministers, aimed at developing public policies to improve the response of the vocational and technical training sector to the needs of youth and women. The hearing is a continuation of the lobbying and advocacy efforts to guarantee social justice and equality in developing policies responsive to the components of Palestinian society.

A factsheet was presented during the session on the situation of vocational and technical training in Palestine, which was prepared in coordination with UNFPA as part of the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment project.

The paper was based on figures and data from official parties, highlighting the most significant gaps in this sector. These include the shortage of vocational and technical institutions in most districts and the absence of legislation for advancing vocational and technical training in Palestine. This is compounded by the absence of fiscal policies for the allocation of specific government budgets, whereby part of each ministry’s general budget is earmarked for this sector instead.

The factsheet also highlighted the gender gap, showing that the number of male and female graduates for 2018/2019 was 1,610; 83.7% of these graduates were male while female graduates did not exceed 16.3%. This points to how wide this gap is and the extent to which it is associated with the culture, where males lean more towards vocational and technical training than females.

During the hearing session, representatives of the Education, Social Development and Labor Ministries each gave presentations on the policies of their respective ministries towards this educational sector, in addition to the challenges the ministries face, which hinder their efforts in making the vocational and technical training sector more dynamic and responsive to the needs of youth. They also presented on the opportunities available to the government sector, such as documenting cooperation between the various official, civil society and private sectors. In this regard, they said the government had an earnest political will to make 2020 the year for implementing real programs for youth.

The hearing session is part of MIFTAH’s Youth Empowerment Program, which it implements in cooperation with the Arab-Palestinian Investment Company (APIC) and is within MIFTAH’s endeavours to promote gender equality in public policies and the involvement of women and girls in the various, available disciples of vocational and technical training.

MIFTAH project coordinator, Hassan Mahareeq said this effort is aimed at providing the government sector with the research results as a guide for developing responsive policies, especially in creating job opportunities for women and youth in the short term, through investing in this sector.