Tajikistan : Skills and Employability Enhancement Project

Education / Technical and vocational education and training

The program will support ongoing skills sector reforms including approval of the Initial Vocational Training Law and development of new policies and regulations based on the law through the policy-based grant. The policy reforms will include: (i) official endorsement of initial vocational training law; (ii) development of the National Qualification Framework; (iii) development of a strategy for skill training for disadvantaged groups; and (iv) the development and approval of regulations on adult education centers. The program will provide capacity development programs for sector planning, management and administration to MOLME and provincial governments.

The program will develop new, model job centers in western Tajikistan, which exports a high volume of labor migrants. Civil works sites will be determined through a migrant survey during the transaction technical assistance (TRTA); Dushanbe, East Khatlon, and East Karotegin have been identified preliminarily as project regions. The job centers will offer facilities currently unavailable in vocational colleges and schools and provide further support to job seekers. New services and facilities will include accommodation for short-term training participants; workshops where local private firms will demonstrate actual required skills and technologies; transportation that provides access to centers from rural areas, particularly for women; childcare centers; and job counseling rooms. The program will also provide training equipment for the workshops.

The transaction technical assistance will conduct a quick economic study on labor migration in Tajikistan. Based on the survey results, the ensuing program will develop both pre-departure and post-migration services for migrant youth. These programs will offer (i) short-term skills training for industries with large-scale employment, including tourism, ICT, agriculture and energy; (ii) soft skills training; (iii) foreign language training; (iv) guidance in access to social safety nets in Tajikistan; (v) knowledge of labor contracts and labor safety in destination countries; and (vi) support to the families of migrants. The new job centers will provide pilot childcare services. After the pilot testing is appraised, the training program will be scaled up and implemented nationwide. The program will also support developing pilot short-term training for women in rural areas, who have mostly worked for traditional agriculture. The program will further strengthen the labor market information system being developed under the ongoing ADB-financed project, which will help provide more efficient and timely job-search assistant and job matching system.

These outputs will result in the following outcome: skills and employability of youth and women in the key industries improved in selected provinces. The program will be aligned with the following impacts: (i) productive employment expanded (National Development Strategy 2030); and (ii) full and productive employment, and decent work for all promoted (Sustainable Development Goal 8).