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Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.
Title
Please provide a name for your action learning plan.
Skills foresight study
Challenge statement
Challenge type: If you are working on multiple challenges, please indicate if this is your "big bet" or "exploratory" challenge.
Please note: we ask you to only submit a maximum of 3 challenges - 1x Big Bet, 2x Exploratory. Each challenge must be submitted individually.
EXPLORATORY
Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)
Our challenge is that there has been persistent mismatches between skills and jobs in the country. This means that education and training are not providing the skills demanded in the labour market, and the economy does not create the jobs that correspond to the existing skills of the youths. Will carrying out a periodic skills antiticapatory study help in reducing these gaps? Will such a study lead to bringing about transformative changes in the skilling and education programs?
Background: What is the history of your challenge? What is causing or driving it? Who is involved? How does the current situation look like? What undesired effects does it produce?
Megatrends like climate mitigation, technological breakthroughs and digital transformation, demographic shifts such as ageing society, global economic integration, rapid urbanization including the COVID-19 crisis amongst others will have considerable influence over the jobs and skill needs of the future. This rapidly evolving skills need raises challenges for education and labour policies and are contributing to skills mismatch and shortages. While in the short run, some level of misalignment between the supply and demand for skills is inevitable, the costs of persistent mismatch and shortages reduce labour productivity. It also brings about higher risk of unemployment, lower wages, lower job satisfaction and poorer career prospects. Bhutan is not immune from these challenges, youth unemployment increased to 23% in 2020 with the rate staggering at 37%3 in the capital where majority of the youths are clustered. Despite the high unemployment rate, many employers commonly indicate the inability to find employees with the right skills. Another major challenge is the reluctance of the youths to take up the kind of jobs that are made available to them. At the same time, we are offered a window of opportunity during the period of demographic dividend6 to maximize labour productivity. The exploration of training and skilling programmes, which are the main policy tools to respond to skill needs and emerging skill gaps, can take some time, particularly for programs at higher levels and of longer duration. To inform the education and training system far enough ahead, the systematic anticipation of skills needs is essential to enable strategic responses and prevent skill mismatch. Hence, it is critical to anticipate skills needed for preparing individuals, enterprises, governments, and training providers with relevant competences for the future. Ministry of Labour and Human Resources will be leading the trial study.
Quantitative evidence: What (official) data sources do you have on this challenge that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge? You can add text, a link, or a picture.
The proposed study is part of the recommendation stemming from the Digital Jobs report produced by the erstwhile TVET Reform Office in partnership with Ministry of Labour and Human Resources (MoLHR) in 2021. https://www.undp.org/content/dam/bhutan/Comms%202021/Digital%20jobs%20in%20Bhutan%20report_Final.pdf?logActivity=true https://www.bt.undp.org/content/bhutan/en/home/library/intelligenc-report-systems-approach-to-youth-unemployment-in-bhutan.html
Qualitative evidence: What weak signals have you recently spotted that characterizes its urgency? Please provide qualitative information that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge. You can add text, a link, or a picture.
Intelligence report: Systems Approach on Youth unemployment https://www.bt.undp.org/content/bhutan/en/home/library/intelligenc-report-systems-approach-to-youth-unemployment-in-bhutan.html
Value proposition: What added value or unique value proposition is your Accelerator Lab bringing to solving this challenge? Why is it your Lab that needs to work on this challenge and not other actors within UNDP, other stakeholders in the country respectively? Why is it worth investing resources to this challenge?
Accelerator Lab is trying to initiate a trial skills foresight intervention on a specific sector to adopt a learning by doing modality to built capacities of government counterparts in relevant agencies to carry out skills foresight study. In CO, this skills foresight study is being jointly lead with the governance unit. The systems approach work on youth unemployment landscape led to the development of a portfolio of solutions. One of the barriers in unemployment is the skills mismatch that seems to be aggravating over the decades. Hence, it is vital to carry out a foresight study to help deal with uncertainty and provide insights for identifying future changes and in needs and in particular to meet skill requirements in the economy and society.
Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?
Initiating a small scale sector specific foresight study to build a shared vision and examine the future knowledge and skills and competencies.
Partners
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
Ministry of Labour and Human Resources
What sector does our partner belong to?
Government (&related)
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
MoLHR is will take the lead in this study
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
Yes
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
Gross National Happiness Commission
What sector does our partner belong to?
Government (&related)
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
The commission is the planning commission of the country and will provide support for the study
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
No
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
Should the skills foresight be carried on a selected sector? Which sector in the economy has the potential for growth and expansion for job opportunities?
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Sense
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
A quick time bound horizon scanning exercise will help provide insights on the existing signals, trends and drivers on employment and skills landscape and direct us to a potential sector for the study. A collective intelligence workshop will ensure collective sensing and participatory decision making on the selection of a sector.
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
Conventionally, data from only formal established sources are referred by decision makers during the development of employment policies and strategies. To be agile and adaptive to the emerging signals and the frequently changing skills needs of the market, it is vital that information are sought from informal sources including those from social media and informal conversations.
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
What are the emerging skills needs in the sector? Is the current education and skilling programs fulfilling these needs? What needs to be done to reduce these gaps?
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Explore
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
Foresights tools and approaches will be administered to understand the skills needs in the future and to develop strategies to reduce skills gaps
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
In addition to the formal sources, these informal sources might provide the emerging weak signals of change in skills and employment arena. Tracking these signals and its potential to become trends in future will provide insights to the foresight study.
Closing
Early leads to grow: Think about the possible grow phase for this challenge - who might benefit from your work on this challenge or who might be the champions in your country that you should inform or collaborate with early on to help you grow this challenge?
Since skills foresight study is a participatory collaborative approach to develop a shared vision for reducing the skills mismatch and gaps, it essential for us to involve the employers and the education system right from the start.
The exploratory study has benefited the Royal Institute of Management for introducing Anticipatory governance and foresight course for civil service new recruits.
https://www.undp.org/bhutan/publications/bhutan-workforce-futures-stepping-stones-industrial-strategic-propositions-agriculture-creative-and-digital-sectors
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4Quality education
8Decent work and economic growth
9Industry, innovation and infrastructure
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