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Supporting rural youth to acquire green skills and realise their ideas

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08-11 November, 2016

Benjamín Aceval, Paraguay

Access to education and training that allows rural youth to have decent work opportunities is still limited in Paraguay. The Fundacion Paraguaya, a UNEVOC Centre since 2013, uses unique and innovative approaches to meet learning needs of rural youth. UNEVOC Centres from Latin America met on the San Francisco campus of the Fundación Paraguaya to discuss the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in the provision of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in rural contexts.

‘We not only teach our students how to produce green products, but also how to market and sell them’ said Luis Cateura, General Manager of the Fundación Paraguaya’s self-sustainable schools. The Fundación Paraguaya implements, in collaboration with regional, national and international partners, a number of projects targeted at addressing the skill needs of youth who predominantly come from rural or disadvantaged backgrounds. While rural youth participation in the labour market in Latin America are slightly higher than in urban areas, close to 25% of rural youth are still neither in employment nor engaged in education nor training (OECD, 2016). The San Francisco campus, one of the self-sustainable vocational schools run by the Fundación Paraguaya, is one of many initiatives of the non-profit organization which aims to provide secondary students with agricultural and entrepreneurial skills that allow them to proceed to tertiary education, setup their own businesses or become employed. The San Francisco campus also includes a hotel geared towards eco-tourism which also provides on the job training. The projects in turn have a considerable impact on the local communities.

Fundación Paraguaya values the greening of agricultural practices

Strengthening rural education through videos

A two-day workshop organized by the Fundación Paraguaya, supported by the Ministry of Education of Paraguay, the TVET Academy, an NGO based in France, and UNESCO-UNEVOC, aimed to inform, share experiences and build the capacity of participants from six other Latin American countries on the use of videos on green agricultural skills as part of vocational education curriculum. The workshop successfully showed how the videos and curriculum were made and uploaded on the online platform, and similar approaches could be used in other countries in Latin America.

The use of videos impacts schools located in rural and disadvantaged areas the most. A fieldtrip to the Dr Carlos Pastore School gave participants the opportunity to see the impact of the videos produced by the Fundacion Paraguaya with support from the TVET Academy and UNESCO-UNEVOC. Sitting face-to-face with a group of students and teachers from the school, participants were able to ask questions and learn first-hand how the use of the interactive platform where the videos are made accessible has changed their education. Teachers commented that the videos had made it easier to teach students who normally wouldn’t have had access to either the facilities or the curriculum material. Students likewise were enthusiastic about the project; a loud “yes” rang out in the classroom as one participant asked students whether they found the videos useful.

Please visit the TVET Academy’s website to learn more about this innovative project.

Moving to action

A UNEVOC Network cluster meeting organized from 10 to 11 November informed UNEVOC Centres about global TVET developments, including the impact of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on TVET and the work of the UNEVOC Network in the region. The two-day meeting also facilitated discussions regarding the roles and responsibilities in the UNEVOC Network, as well as the different modalities and ideas for collaboration including the online services, knowledge and capacity development; most important of all, the meeting succeeded in gaining a momentum for further collaborative action.

The following UNEVOC Centres attended the regional workshop and cluster meeting:

Participants at the regional workshop



page date 2016-11-28

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