No group demands our urgent attention right now more than youth. Covid-19 threatens their future and their ambitions, yet perversely often demands their presence on the front line in the difficult and sometimes dangerous battle against the pandemic.
At WorldSkills, we hear their stories; selfless, unbroken and, many times, courageous. Barthélémy Deutsch is a young man trained in the hospitality industry whose job vanished almost overnight.
When the pandemic hit and the Paris hotel he worked at closed, Barthélémy began volunteering in a Belgium hospital, masked and gowned, holding a phone or tablet close to a seriously ill patient so that they could speak to a loved one otherwise denied contact by this terrible disease.
It seems a far cry from the 2013 WorldSkills competition in Leipzig, Germany, when Barthélémy competed for Belgium in the restaurant service contest, but it is a change this young man has embraced with skill and imagination.
Then there is Shae White from Barbados, who had just started her first job as a chef in a hotel. The hotel and college she attended have closed and to make matters worse, Shae is asthmatic and must shelter at home.
The experience might crush some of us. What is Shae’s response? To work even harder to succeed in the career she has chosen and loved since she was a little girl. Or as she puts it: “Just getting back into the groove.”
Amelia Addis lives in New Zealand. She competed in Floristry in WorldSkills Saō Paolo 2015 and had a stake in two businesses, including the garage she runs with her partner, when lockdown came.
Both businesses might have been lost, but hearing Amelia’s story, you realise she never saw this as an option. She looks now with confidence to the future. “I think people in skills want to solve problems whatever that is and so I think that kind of inquisitive nature is a good beginning for setting you up for business,” she says.
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It turns out these stories are not unusual. Across our membership, which encompasses 84 countries and regions, and 80 per cent of the world’s population, the skills community has answered the call to action.
Colleges from Asia to North America have reimagined 3D printers to make protective masks, or repurposed training workshops to repair ventilators. Agricultural colleges in Central America have donated their crops to those who might otherwise go hungry, while in China young volunteers give their skills to build temporary hospitals in a matter of days.
Electricians, drivers, plumbers, carpenters, and of course, health workers, all have answered the call. Their efforts are inspirational and at WorldSkills we have celebrated them in a campaign whose title makes the point: “While the world pauses…thank you for keeping it moving.”
Alone though, that would be an inadequate response. The global skills community has turned its full attention to highlighting the importance and significance of skills to companies, communities and countries. And now more than ever, highlighting and promoting how a strong skills base is critical to the economic recovery from the pandemic. Among other activities, WorldSkills has facilitated a series of online forums.
One immediate challenge is rescuing the education of those still training and continuing with the national and international competitions which measure their achievements.
Beyond that there is the question of how young people cannot just survive but thrive. Some industries will revive, new ones will be born, but others, sadly, will wither and die, perhaps prematurely because of Covid-19.
The evidence shows that our members are embracing this challenge. New ideas and innovations such as virtual simulations and augmented reality are just two of the tools being developed for digital training and assessment when classrooms are out of bounds.
Social media has become a vital tool to engage and connect with young students. In India and Russia, countries so large they are effectively continents, they have used their digital platforms to reach out far more widely than they might previously have done, even drawing in competitors and experts from other nations.
It points to a future where digital tools will allow skills organisations to expand their reach in ways they might never have imagined pre-coronavirus.
That is the upside. But there is a downside. Many developing countries risk slipping even farther behind, widening the gap between rich and poor. What is the use of digital training when you have no internet connection, let alone a viable device to work on, or even an electric light to study by?
Championing a skills-led recovery
Even before Covid-19, WorldSkills had made this a priority with Vision 2025, which focuses strategic aspects of our work on Africa and the developing world, with new skills competitions like WorldSkills Africa, and training centres to share the skills of wealthier countries with those less fortunate.
To do this, though, the vocational skills movement also needs support. With economies in free fall worldwide, there will be great pressure on governments to spend less, to redefine priorities, and it is on our members that this blow may fall.
That is why this World Youth Skills Day, we are promoting and celebrating the importance of equipping young people with high quality employability skills that will provide them with a rewarding future.
For nearly 70 years our organization has promoted the message of vocational skills. Working with WorldSkills Members and our partners in industry, education and governments across the world, we will continue to champion a skills-led recovery.
David Hoey is chief executive of WorldSkills International
