Brussels, 17/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Union has just set up a new initiative to tackle youth unemployment. This will involve a “European Pact for Youth”, whose aim is to provide 100,000 new contracts for apprenticeships, placements or first quality jobs.
The initiative was launched on Tuesday 17 November during the “Enterprise 2020” Summit. It builds on the European Alliance for Apprenticeships (in which businesses made a commitment to providing 140,000 apprenticeship and training contracts). The new European Pact for Youth, also builds on the initiative of the European Business Network for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR Europe) and seeks to create a partnership culture between business and education and improve opportunities for young people to find a job.
This initiative focuses on training, apprenticeships, placements and jobs. These kinds of partnerships will seek to improve the quality of training and skills young people can acquire (transversal skills, digital, entrepreneurial, ecological, personal and relationship-based, etc.). For example, through initiatives promoting non-formal and informal training, projects will seek to strengthen apprenticeships or make scientific and technological subjects more attractive. These kinds of projects will also contribute to supporting the work of European teachers and provide young teachers with the necessary skills to become a driving force in the classroom.
Marianne Thyssen, the commissioner for employment, social affairs, skills and workers' mobility, said: “I welcome these business-education partnerships leading to 100,000 new youth opportunities. .. The Commission, together with business, is moving now towards one quarter of a million new opportunities for young people across Europe… I look forward to many more businesses and associations joining this Pact to boost opportunities for young people in Europe”.
The European Commission will provide the pact with technical assistance and present a balance sheet of its progress during the first summit between the business and education communities in December 2017. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)
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