Title: Integration of Digital Skills and Innovation: a path ahead for higher education institutions
SDG 4.4 calls for a significant increase in the share of youth and adults with the skills required for employment, decent jobs, and entrepreneurship. To address concerns about youth unemployment, the government and many other institutions have lately developed digital education and vocational initiatives for youth.
Despite numerous interventions, progress in reducing unemployment remains significant, particularly for young professionals with degrees. Graduates are more likely to be underemployed and underpaid, working part-time or on short contracts in general. Meaningful education is an element of raising young people to have a quality life. However, existing educational systems are failing to meet the learning needs of a large percentage of today's youth. Furthermore, whether there are strong, explicit links between education and the workplace is being debated. Mismatches between student-acquired skills and those in effective demand on the labour market can result from a lack of these links. Hence the purpose of this panel discussion is to generate discussion around the following questions:
- What strategies are effective in increasing young employment through university education?
- What obstacles do universities face in responding fast labor-market innovation?
- What are our short- and long-term strategies for making education innovative and relevant to graduates?