Skills Campus, an integrated intervention to entrepreneurial skills and innovation among Albanian yo
With the initiative of the National Agency for Employment and Skills (NAES), the Skills Campus aims to be the first environment, not only in Albania, but also in the WB6, dedicated entirely to training. The Campus aims to maximize, in the long term, the potential of skills and innovation as drivers of employability, economic growth, education and vocational training and is foreseen to primarily provide young people with the right skills they need to succeed in the labor market.
National
Albania
Albania in general, Tirana in particular
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): National Agency for Employment and Skills Albania Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Klevis Last name of representative: Hysa Gender: Male Nationality: Albania If relevant, please select your other nationality: Albania Function: General Director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Bajram Curri Boulevard Town: Tirana Postal code: 1001 Country: Albania Direct Tel:+355 69 999 9750 E-mail:Klevis.Hysa@akpa.gov.al Website:https://akpa.gov.al/
With the initiative of the NAES, the Skills Campus aims to be a multifunctional environment located in Tirana region, but will serve, at a national level, entirely to training, upskilling, reskilling, innovation and entrepreneurship. In the context of the rapid changes happening in the labour market, particularly referring to digitalization, continuing vocational education and training (CVET) has recently emerged as promising tool to meet these challenges. Skill Center is foreseen to act as motor of the future skills and current most in demand skills in the entire region, which are in accordance to the strategic investments planned to be accommodated there.
The Skills Campus is planned to be a three-floor building, which will accommodate laboratories, work cabinets, workshop classes, auditoriums, terrace for the development of urban agriculture, "brainstorming" and innovation room, one-stop-shop that will ensure provision of services such as: career counseling, employment and mediation, self-service corners, education and professional training opportunities, etc. The Campus aims to foster a collaborative learning environment where students and participants can be trained in an effective way and foster the development of networks, especially between public institutions and businesses while jointly directing the supply and demand of the Labour Market, particularly in new and important economic sectors.
Furthermore, the Campus will be designed to put to good use its facilities and to have a broader impact, including here gravitation of various activities in the field, organized by educational institutions, socials partners, NGOs and donors while using the campus’ classes, auditoriums and open spaces. By attracting other initiatives, the visibility of the Campus will increase, and subsequently to the VET offer provided by NAES, as well as employment programs.
SKILLS
TECHNOLOGY
INCLUSIVENESS
INNOVATION
EMPLOYMENT
NAES is the public body responsible for the implementation of Active and Pasive Labour Market Programs and VET offer (through Vocational Training Centers and VET Schools) in Albania. Considerable progress has been achieved to bring under one roof the supply and demand of the labour market, with a view to meeting the needs and avoid the imbalances. Key objectives of the Skill Campus are:
a)Modern facility to ensure upskilling, reskilling and innovation
The campus will be a modern facility, which will combine spaces for theoretical and practical training for all and robust community about skills development and talent pipeline. The center will be an integrated environment that will gravitate trainings needed for all, with a special focus on youth, whom skills will create the future of the country.
b)Creating synergies for inclusion and strengthening partnerships
The Campus will also welcome learners from diverse backgrounds, including school age youngsters, university/vocational students and members of the community interested in developing their understanding of the latest skills and future works. Acting as an open door, the Campus will embrace the trust of the community towards the need to continuous training, and will have an impact in mitigating the skills mismatch in the LM.
c)Building a skilled and resilient workforce
Skills Campus aims the preparation of skilled professionals, by providing tailored training programs according to the needs of Labour Market, as well as jobs emerged by the globalization, such as digitalization, green transition, etc. The main target group of this initiative is the Albanian youth, considering the eventualities caused by migration, especially to the “brain drain”, but leaving no one behind by ensuring the training programs for adults in terms of lifelong learning and reskilling. The Campus aims into an integrated training center for business, social partners and donors needs while implementing capacity development activities.
The actual training center located in Tirana refers to an out fashioned and not efficient facility, and relatively amortized in terms of the facade and interior spaces. The Skills Campus will use the existing facility, which we intend to restructure to achieve high and contemporary standards of learning and networking, as well as build new premises which will enable maximum synergy of the activities that are planned in and around the building, as well as with the surrounding environment. For this reason, the project envisages:
a) Innovative learning experience in Albania and WB region
The Skills Campus will be an integrated part of the VET in Albania, located in Tirana with an ambition to be a skill driver for the region. The building will be organized as a big flexible learning factory of approx. 2200 square meters with dedicated spaces for lecturing, workshops, meetings, labs, auditoriums, innovation rooms, service provision, etc. The reconceptualization of the building into an inspiring and dynamic innovative campus that will excite young people, will increase the visibility that will not only serve to aesthetic purposes but also provide stimulus cues that will trigger and influence social behavior by being inviting and trustful. The revitalization of the center will facilitate and accommodate the needs for skills development and talent acquisition.
b) Skills Center- a social activator
The core element of the Campus will be common spaces envisaged in the project, which will act as social connector between the different classrooms. Furthermore, the one-stop-shop “Find Yourself” foresees to involve the participants into a self-discovery, as well as networking chain, navigating from self-assessment of career paths to actual offers in the employment and VET field. The focal point of the Campus is innovation, therefore all internal spaces be conceptualized to ensure a learning and inspiring environment, inclusiveness, proactivity and foster training provision.
The Skills Campus, in a holistic approach, aims to promote inclusivity by:
- Ensuring accessibility for person with disabilities and/ or special needs. The campus is projected to be equipped with ramp in the external of the facility, as well as elevators in the inside.
- Providing inclusiveness, while providing the training programs for all, from youngsters who are not clear about their career path- to adults whose skills are not relevant to the Labour Market demand or keen to change their profession. In this regard, the Campus will not only welcome the students and professionals, but also partners who operate in the field and have crosscutting activities that can secure comprehensive interventions in skills development.
- Being open and affordable for all target groups. As far, Public VET providers managed by the National Agency for Employment and Skills are free of charge in most cases, especially when referring to unemployed and vulnerable groups. The Skill Campus will replicate the same philosophy and offer training programs under the same criteria as VTCs do, supporting as many people possible to upgrade, reorient and develop their skills.
- Fostering cooperative trainings, as a work-integrated learning experience, involving cooperation between the Skills Campus and partnering social partners.
- Sheltering various innovative activities implemented by national and international donors that imply capacity development, innovation, entrepreneurship, career orientation, as well as sustainable employment.
- Providing, besides training, counselling and employment services to all in order to implement a comprehensive approach for the mitigation of the skills mismatch.
Services offered through the vocational training centers are one of the most important active labour market and VET policies leading to a positive impact and direct benefit toward the larger community and subsequently to the economy of the country.
The way how the Skills Campus involves the citizens benefiting from or affected by its services, is through:
• Mitigation of Skills mismatch, through innovative and tailored training programmes,
• Continuing education and vocational training as a multidimensional, multi-stakeholder and multilevel interface between learning and the labour market;
• Supporting innovation and entrepreneurship among youth;
• Addressing the skills toward global trends, such as ICT, Artificial Intelligence, Green Transition, etc.
• Encouraging the employment of young people and marginalized groups of the unemployed;
• Creating a skilled workforce;
• Encouraging trust towards NAES and increasing the standards as well as the quality of service provision.
• Bridging public and private sector in skills development and sustainable employment.
The Campus will ensure massive participation of young people and other interested parties equipping them with the necessary skills and contemporary knowledge for whom the Labour Market are in great need. In years, the enrollment in public VET providers has increased substantially, and the trend is positive for the years to come, due to the diversification and the quality of the VET offer in Albania.
Moreover, Albania being a fast-growing economy that is showing substantial progress in various sectors and a positive economic environment, human capital development through VET, specifically through our Skills Campus, is an essential component for a well-equipped and skilled workforce contributing to the wellbeing of the larger community in the region.
Inspired by the Skills Agenda and the Year of Skills 2023 introduced by the EU and in the context of the developments for a well-skilled workforce and human capital, the Ministry of Finance and Economy (MoFE) and NAES will attribute a special focus to the creation of a space dedicated to professional training, as well as innovative initiatives for the stimulation of future jobs in the field of technology, artificial intelligence, "Green" economy, entrepreneurship, etc.
• First of all for the design of the initiative, consultation with the VTCs and employers was crucial to gather their inputs based on their daily needs, demands and experience with vocational trainees in order to understand what their need for the sector are, how the curricula might need to be updated and modernized for the new emerging need of the sector.
• At a national level, the main partner in this initiative is the mother institution of the NAES, MoFE, which has foreseen and included in the medium-term budget plan 2023-2025 the budget allocated for the reconstruction of the building and its equipment.
• Another crucial partner is Swisscontact, a Swiss organization, which has been supporting the agency on the skills field. Much progress has been achieved in the light of this cooperation and mutual mid-term objectives have been set to further contribute in the field. Swisscontact involvement in the Skill Campus is the designing of the Campus construction and architectural project,
• The local employment offices are of course another important stakeholder and partner involved in the design and implementation of the initiative considering that they know better the range and complexity of one of the target groups, which are unemployed or are jobseekers registered in NAES database.
At the regional level the identification of potential peer collaborators in the field of exchanges of VET practices in Wester Balkan is another layer of stakeholder engagement and partnering.
The Skill Campus is projected to act as a multifunctional center that will bring into one roof diverse and innovative fields in skills development. Therefore, one of the key investments will be in the digitalization, artificial intelligence and innovation. In this context, the campus will pursue main disciplines as follows:
TECHNOLOGY AND AUTOMATION.
Under this pillar, the Campus will develop classes for:
- Information and communications technology;
- Software developing and programming Lab. NAES has just introduced the coding and programming training program and offer reimbursement of 50% (or more for unemployed jobseeker) of the costs of the course;
- Robotics and Automation Lab, and
- Artificial Intelligence Lab which will provide an innovative offer and open a new path in this field in Albania.
INNOVATION AND GREEN TRANSITION:
- Electro-technics and “green” transition Lab, which goes alongside to the "Green" agenda and alternative renewable energy;
- Urban Terrace Farming;
- “Brainstorming” room which will stand as idea generator;
- Startup Hub providing a supportive environment for youth with entrepreneurial ideas;
- Culinary and hospitality cabinets
NETWORKING
- “Find yourself” one-stop-shop within the Skill Campus that will represent an easily identifiable environment, open-spaced, but at the same time to accommodate:
a) Career Counseling Corner,
b) Employment Corner,
c) Corner of Vocational and Training Education.
- Auditorium, workshop classes, conference rooms, self-service corners
NAES, through VET providers already provides the majority of these training programs, but their curricula will be further updated and improved in accordance to the LM needs. As regards to the new disciplines, NAES will cooperate with donors and social partners to develop the training programs with the aim to provide a collaborative and up to date intervention.
When compared to other actions in the field of learning and skills, the innovative character of the Skills Center relies in its multifunctional approach not only in the variety of the services that shall be offered (modern laboratories, work cabinets, workshops classrooms, accommodation facilities, canteen, career counselling office etc.), but also in the different target – groups that will benefit from the training offer (unemployed youngsters, students, adults, unemployed job-seekers, on-the-job trainees, workers etc.). The Skills Center integrates different beneficiaries under the same “roof” with the aim of offering targeted and tailored service to better meet the needs of each party. It is this multidisciplinary approach that highlights the centers’ vision and relevance for the field of VET and employment as a derivate, and consequently the impact it aims to achieve amongst youngsters and the larger community.
At the same time, the innovative character is unfolded through the installment of hub center focused in future regional collaborations in the field of hotel and tourism. Investing in creating adequate premises for collaboration in the region is probably the most innovative aspect of the Skills Center making it an important drive-force for exchanging of experiences among alike partners of the regions for a well-trained workforce and skilled human capital leading to a social and economic well-being.
Another innovative character of the initiative is the development of a coherent labour market information center in order for the Skills Center to be aligned with the job market needs contributing in minimizing the skills mismatch where the employers’ needs are met.
Skills Campus project aims to ensure sustainability, continuation and further development of the initiative. Objectives of transfer of the Campus might be:
- Facility/ Structures. The Skills Campus will ensure the reconstruction and rehabilitation of one of the VTCs in the capital. The transformation of the building will create a modern and inspiring facility that will impact and act as a skill-driver in the longer term, towards employability, economic growth, education and vocational training with the right skills they need to succeed in the labor market.
- Individual skills and expertise. To successfully implement the initiative, it will be necessary the capacity building of the teaching staff, who will offer the training programs. Human development will be an asset of the Skills Campus and ensure knowledge transfer within the facility.
- Improved and new curricula. VET providers already provides the majority of these training programs, but their curricula will be further updated and improved in accordance to the Labour Market needs. As regards to the new disciplines, NAES will develop new training programs with the aim to provide a collaborative and up to date intervention, in cooperation with social partners and responsible agency in curricula development.
The project of the Skills Campus was initiated based on various approaches:
- For the designing of the initiative, it was based on the methodology of tracing used in a form of survey toward the VET graduates and certified and also to the employers/businesses involved as partners in the training system. Based on the findings of the tracing process, the concept idea for the Skills Campus was designed in order for it to be relevant and responsive to the Albanian context. They represent one of the sources for assessment and support in improving the quality and compatibility of VET with the labour market.
- Youth Guarantee Scheme that is envisaged to be piloted within 2023 in Albania that will be led by the National Agency for Employment and Skills. The YG offers are: education, training, apprenticeship and training. Besides general education, all other offers include capacity building of youngsters entering in the scheme. Therefore, Skills Campus will pave a new path in skills development and entrepreneurship for youth in Albania. Its concept is based on up-to-date disciplines, upon which youth is interested to invest on.
- As for the employers’ side, “Inadequate qualification of the labour force" seems to be one of the main problems for most businesses, especially when referring to those operating in ICT, Innovation, hospitality and tourism sector, agriculture, etc.
- Moreover, the argumentation of the initiative is based also on the urgent need to create a multidimensional and innovative environment which will ensure an integrated and proactive approach of training. The Skills Campus is projected to provide skills, encourage innovation through networking.
The role of the Skills Center relies in addressing global challenges first and foremost related with the field of skills and employment, specifically:
- Skills Mismatches leading to an imbalance between the demand for skills and the supply of skills and which can take many forms, such as vertical mismatch (over-qualification or under-qualification); a horizontal mismatch (a mismatch by field of study or work). Very high mismatch relates first of all to young people, but not only. There is a problem on the labor market in the school-to-work transition, which seems to be triggered by the difference between skills taught and skills expected in the workplace. Insufficient practical training of graduates is one of the most frequent reasons quoted by employers for difficult recruitment and job retention of young people. High skills mismatch also relates to adult workers, especially given the fast changing working environments and the tasks needed to perform different jobs.
- Other challenge addressed locally by our Skills Center is the identification of skills trend related to new technologies, digitalization and greening of economies, firstly with the focus on the H-T sector but not only, in order to produce skills identification/anticipation mechanism to respond to an increased automation and digitization that will as consequence require vertical profiles for sub-sectors that are expanding or expected to do so, but also profiles with competences related to different energy related technologies. They will be critical for supporting the energy transition. In this light, the Skills Center will serve as a focal point for local solutions based on the local context.
- Referring to the demographic challenges that is impacting also Albania, the Skills Campus will help to address the needs for upskilling and reskilling, by developing flexible training programmes for unemployed adults, jobseekers who want to change career, or whose jobs might be subject to job destruction.
Skills Campus initiative is in its initial development phase. Based on the argumentation of the intervention on 2022, NAES has drafted a development plan that spreads from 2023 up to 2025. The approval of the project from the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the dedicated budget has been integrated in the Mid-term Budgetary Plan of the Agency.
In this light, NAES has already informed social partners and donors on the initiative, on which Swisscontact is engaged in the developing on the architectural and construction project. This process is ongoing and both parties are working closely to ensure that Skills Campus project is feasible and in accordance to the above-mention concept.
As referring the development plan, the latest has been designed in accordance to the MTBFs, as follows:
- Architectural project design,
- Initiation of Building rehabilitation and transformation,
- Adaptation of the surroundings,
- Equipment of the classes and other campus’ facilities,
- Training Programs designed, improved and updated,
- Capacity building of the teaching and administrative staff,
- Establishment of partnerships and collaborations,
- Awareness campaign on the upcoming initiative,
- Inauguration of the Skills Campus
Skills Campus main focus is skills development and competencies relevant for the labour market. In the context of the European Competence Framework on sustainability, Skills Campus, through the envisaged intervention, not only in the infrastructure, but also in curricula will ensure the development of values of:
- Sustainability by ensuring that the initiative will serve to a longer term goal,
- Critical thinking and idea generator by creating dedicated spaces for innovation, brainstorming and networking,
- Policy approach by guaranteeing that the intervention affects, firstly, the system operating in the skills and employment field and needed adjustment of the instruments on this regard,
- Synergy and collaboration between different stakeholders operating in the field, focusing in strengthening partnership among public and private sector.
- Proactivity by being open and inviting towards all target groups and partners to generate and propose new ideas and activities that will help the Campus reach its aim.
