 I'm Alison Mead Richardson, the Education Specialist for Technical and Vocational Skills Development, or TVSD, which is one of the eight initiatives in the COLE programme. It's concerned with increasing access to good quality, formal and non-formal technical and vocational skills training. Youth unemployment is a deepening global challenge in both developed and developing countries. The ILO reports that globally nearly 75 million young people between the ages of 16 and 25 are without work, and in developing countries youth are disproportionately represented amongst the working poor. So what is the challenge we're facing? Due to global successes with the Millennium Development and Education for All Goals to establish universal primary education, developing countries are now facing a secondary surge, greatly increased numbers of young people who've completed secondary education but then have nowhere to go. All these young people need skills training for livelihoods, and the destination for many of them will be the formal TVET system. Most developing countries cannot expand their TVET systems to provide for the increasing numbers. Indeed at COLE we believe that bricks and mortar approaches will never meet this growing demand and a paradigm shift is needed. At the turn of the 21st century a new term was coined in the UK which unfortunately is now common in development parlance. We're seeing a rise in the number of needs, people who are not in employment, education or training. In South Africa for example there are nearly 3 million needs and this increases the potential for social problems and may even lead to social unrest as we've seen in the North African Arab countries. The COLE TVSD initiative works in all four commonwealth regions, the Pacific, the Caribbean, South East Asia and Africa. We help institutions and organisations to develop their own model of skills training delivery using appropriate technologies which helps them to meet the needs of their local community. We focus on the use of educational media and technology in flexible and blended approaches which enable more people to access quality skills training. In most Pacific Island countries the informal sector is the dominant segment of the labour market and is where most school leavers will have to find work. Training for the informal sector has to become the top priority. According to the Asian Development Bank there are few opportunities for young people and adults to acquire skills through formal and non-formal programmes but because of the importance of those skills for employment, self-employment and income generation a key objective for TVET systems in the region is to broaden coverage and expand. In the Pacific where low levels of literacy and numeracy prevent young people from accessing TVET COLE worked with six countries to develop a literacy course for basic trades. This has been piloted in five countries with 15 institutions participating. More than 600 learners have gained basic trades training. Substantive use of these materials is expected in four countries in both formal and non-formal settings. COLE is supporting the Community Education and Training Centre to expand access to their residential programme for female community development workers through multi-country distance delivery. We continue to work with PATVET, the Pacific Association for Technical and Vocational Education and Training to expand the use of educational media and technology to increase access to skills training. In the Caribbean region the majority of countries have faced a high demographic growth combined with economies that cannot ensure employment for the growing population. The employment situation has been especially challenging for young people where unemployment is two or three times higher than in the rest of the economically active population. Chronic unemployment leads to a loss of identity and to eventual exclusion. It also creates economic instability and cyclical forms of poverty. The groups most severely affected by this situation are Indigenous populations, women, youth and rural populations. Seven out of ten jobs in urban areas are in the informal sector. In the Caribbean COLE focuses on TVET teacher training for new blended online programmes in four more TVET institutions in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Marginalised youth are of particular concern in urban Jamaica and COLE is working with government and NGO stakeholders to create new literacy and skills training opportunities for young people in three marginalised communities in Kingston. Youth unemployment rates are lower in Southeast Asia than in other regions but this region is characterised by large gender gaps in youth labour force participation. Low levels of female participation cause equity concerns and lost potential for economic development. The ILO reports youth rates in vulnerable employment and working poverty are very high. Many poor workers are trapped in a cycle of low levels of education and low productivity employment. COLE is working with Dakar-Asania mission in Bangladesh to develop skills training courses in print and video format to be delivered by 200 NGOs and the national broadcaster. We're supporting the development of a distance programme to train 3,000 community development workers in Kerala, India. But the main focus for TVSD is currently in Africa where we feel the need is greatest. ILO research reports that 60% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa is under 25 years and 75% of work is in the informal economy. This means that the vast majority of young people will never be employed. In most African countries the formal TVSD system has been losing its identity due to low budget provision, inadequate infrastructure, outdated materials and pedagogy. The formal TVSD system tends to focus on fixed, face-to-face programmes over long periods for small cohorts of school leavers with higher basic education qualifications. According to ADEA, the Association for the Development of Education in Africa, formal government TVSD systems in African countries are characterised by expanding informal sector and shrinking wage employment opportunities. Huge numbers of poorly educated, frustrated and unemployed youth who are locked out of the formal skills training system. Unequal training opportunities fostered by inequities based on geographical location, gender and socio-economic factors. In partnership with the Commonwealth Association of Polytechnics in Africa, COLE has identified 11 key institutions in six African countries that have higher levels of readiness for flexible and blended approaches. We call it Invest Africa, Innovation in Vocational Education and Skills Training. An integrated strategy driven by the institutional head plus the creation of champion teams has been identified as a key success factor. Institutional and individual capacities being built through a variety of methods which include workshops, online courses, informal learning through an online community of practice, institutional site visits by the COLE expert team, regular monitoring and evaluation and partners meetings for review and planning. Over the past two years, 3,750 extra places on TVEC courses have been made available. That's a brief rundown of the COLE TVSD initiative. More details of our work can be found on our website at www.col.org. slash skills development.