Journal Article

Imagining the future through skills : TVET, gender and transitions towards decent employability for young women in Cameroon and Sierra Leone

Abstract

This article presents findings from the Upskilling for Future Generations Project (Gen-Up), a participatory, collaborative project designed with and for young women in Cameroon and Sierra Leone to understand the links between technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and sustainable employment. The aim of the project is to provide a model of gender mentoring that can help communities to challenge gender stereotypes and to empower young women to build careers in male-dominated labour sectors. The article calls for a deeper, gender-just understanding of ‘skills’ necessary to fulfil the United Nations’ ‘decent work’ goals in the context of deepening urban inequality and gender discrimination. The article situates gender at the centre of future TVET policy, arguing that without a gender-just and gender-sensitive approach, skills programming will continue to have limited success in rebalancing patriarchal and discriminatory labour markets.

Attached files

Authors

Wignall, Ross
Piquard, Brigitte
Joel, Emily
Mengue, Marie-Thérèse
Ibrahim, Yusuf
Sam-Kpakra, Robert
Obah, Ivan Hyannick
Ngono Ayissi, Ernestine
Negou, Nadine

Oxford Brookes departments

School of Law and Social Sciences
School of Architecture

Dates

Year of publication: 2023
Date of RADAR deposit: 2024-07-26

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

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