Skills development - a shared responsibility of government and companies

Skills development - a shared responsibility of government and companies

Jos van Erp Deputy Director View profile

Quality education, and in particular vocational education and training (VET), is an important precondition for economic growth. This certainly applies to developing countries, where good education and access to it cannot be taken for granted. Employers are often hindered by a 'skills gap'; employees are not or are insufficiently equipped for the work that they will do. One of DECP's areas of expertise is skills development. An exploration of its (22) partner countries shows that private companies themselves can do a lot to close the skills gap – a lot, but not everything.

DECP wrote an article on this topic together with an expert on skills development of NIR (Sweden) and a French master student who dived into this issue in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Skills development. A shared responsability