Latvia should expand work-based vocational training to boost young people’s job prospects | WPN World People News

Latvia should step up its efforts to improve the employment prospects of young people by continuing to reform its vocational education system and pursuing the commitments made as part of the Youth Guarantee to further reduce the share of young people under 30 who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs).

Investing in Youth: Latvia says that Latvia has seen a sharp decline in the NEET rate since the crisis to 16.5%, but that there are still too few employment opportunities for young people. The youth unemployment rate of 16.4% remains nearly twice as high as in 2007.

A major challenge is that nearly one in three NEETs are unemployed but not registered with the public employment service or not looking for work without good reason. Over 70% of NEETs remain out of work or education for more than six months. Young women, the low-educated and youth with poor health tend to remain out of work or education the longest.

Recent comprehensive reforms implemented by the Latvian government are an important step towards a modern and more attractive vocational education system, says the OECD. The VET system however remains nearly entirely school-based, and the relationships between schools and employers are often weak.

The Youth Guarantee introduced in 2014 represents a strong opportunity for bringing NEETs back into education or work. While it is too early to assess its impact, participation rates among NEETs in training programmes have strongly increased, and the provision of career guidance has been expanded.

To help more young people into work, the OECD recommends that Latvia:

● Improve the sharing of information on school attendance between schools, municipalities and the national authorities to further reduce early school-leaving and programme non-completion, ensure that drop-outs receive the support they need, and facilitate the evaluation of general and vocational education programmes;

● Continue its reforms of the vocational education system strengthening the role of work-based training, ideally through development of a quality apprenticeship system in which students are matched to single employers. This could involve a system of financial incentives to encourage employers to provide high-quality training;

● Improve and reinforce career counselling in schools to guide students at risk of dropping out and motivate them to enrol into vocational education programmes;

● Strengthen the co-operation between the public employment service and municipal welfare services to ensure comprehensive support for at-risk youth, and further reduce caseloads per counsellor especially for the most disadvantaged youth;

● Tighten the links between income support receipt and active job search or programme participation for employable NEETs;

● Phase out the public employment programmes for youth introduced during the crisis and consider expanding targeted hiring subsidies for low-skilled youth and those who recently completed an intensive training programme.

Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development