Gainful occupation : a criteria for the success of youth skills training programme

This study study undertaken to examine a programme designed to deal with youth unemployment in Zambia, The major concerns mere to investigate the relationship between the learning of trade skills by youths as offered in Youth Skills Training Centres (or projects) and the increase in the opportunities of the trained youth in finding employment or setting up themselves in self-employment; and to analyse the extent to which the training offered in those centres realistically prepared youths for job opportunities in the informal sector.An evaluative research design and the questionnaire method were applied in data collection. The sample consisted of 87 youth trainees from eleven Youth Skills Training Centraa (or projects) located in Lusaka Urban and Rural Districts.The findings of the study have indicated that the training offered was not adequate for self-employment. Furthermore, the trainees are not adequately provided with the requisite resources with which to take up this challenge. A number of organisations that established youth skills training centres have been shown not to have arrangements for assisting and following up the youths they train. It was quite apparent that the primary concern of the organisations was limited to imparting skills to the youths who upon graduation were left on their own to look for employment or set up themselves in self-employment.It is thus being hypothesized that:(i) Non provision of vital assistance (material, supervisory and monetary) to trained you
frustrates the realization of the objectives of the pregramme;
(ii) Non provision of the critical assistance to trained youths contributes to a high proportion of trained youths opting for jobs in the formal sector.