Skills Development in Afghanistan

After three decades of conflict, Afghanistan needs a well-trained and flexible workforce to help rebuild the country. The conflict has decimated Afghanistan's training infrastructure, torn the fabric of human society, and relegated the country...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: World Bank
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
en_US
Published: Washington, DC 2014
Subjects:
GER
NER
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2008/10/10158916/skills-development-afghanistan
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17939
Description
Summary:After three decades of conflict, Afghanistan needs a well-trained and flexible workforce to help rebuild the country. The conflict has decimated Afghanistan's training infrastructure, torn the fabric of human society, and relegated the country to the status of one of the least developed in the world. The country's efforts to emerge from near-total collapse is hampered by a number of factors, one of which is absence of a well-educated and -trained labor force able to acquire the skills and trades the country needs as it grows. A well-trained labor force will yield higher levels of productivity and be able to accommodate the changing needs of a post conflict economy while ensuring higher earnings and greater mobility for workers. Though most of the Afghan labor force is in the informal sector, skills acquisition judiciously combined with literacy and numeric programs should produce a workforce able to adapt modern production technologies and take advantage of opportunities through self-employment and small-enterprise development. The report is organized into four sections. Section one provides an introduction to Afghanistan. Section two focuses on recent economic trends and labor market demands. Section three is an overview of the country's education and training sector, while examining the main providers, recent changes in institutional framework, and key issues in the vocational education and training (VET) sector. Finally, section four reviews possible reforms the country will need in order to improve the delivery of VET services.