Promoting Skills Development for Youth in Zambia: A Review of the Landscape of TEVET and Skills Development

This report provides an overview of Zambia’s labor market, highlights key potential sectors for future economic development and employment growth, and analyses the challenges faced by the technical education, vocational, and entrepreneurship training (TEVET) system as it seeks to respond to these developments. A key finding of the report is that Zambia’s demographic transition is at a critical juncture, but the country is not reaping the benefits of its potential demographic opportunities due to high levels of youth disengagement and insufficient jobs growth. Youth constitute more than half of the labor force but have low skill levels and are in low-paying jobs. Skills development, and TEVET in particular, is one of the possible policy levers for economic development and is a strategic focus and priority for the government. The skills development ecosystem in Zambia, and in particular the TEVET system, faces capacity constraints regarding the provision of quality and relevant skills for the labor market. The government policy and programmatic environment is highly fragmented, with concerns over the possible duplication of policies and programming, particularly in relation to out-of-school youth, and technical and vocational skills.