Vocational Education and Training for women and youth in Palestine: Poverty reduction and gender equality under occupation

This article explores the possibilities and limitations of attempts to improve economic and human development of marginalised groups Women and Youth, within the overall political and economic context of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (oPt). This is carried through the particular cases of two successful models of Vocational Education and Training (VET) provided by Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO), both of which come from explicitly Christian traditions of thinking about social justice and the role of a holistic approach to VET placing human well-being at its heart. The article draws on human development approaches, from a rights based approach and a capability approach. This article draws attention to the challenges related to the overall economic and political context, and its limitations at overcoming marginalisation, reducing poverty and enhancing wellbeing. It illustrates the effect of the human development approach on expanding the effects of VET within such context, increasing labour force participation rates, employment and income generation of youth and women. It highlights the programmes’ efforts to enable marginalised youth to develop their capabilities in order to achieve their choices, illustrating that VET and the efforts of NGOs provide an important mechanism to respond to the overall challenge. Finally, the article draws attention to gender-related challenges and suggests employment-enabling policies.

► NGO provision of VET can play an important role in providing access to skills for employment for marginalised youth coming from large families and low income backgrounds.
► In the highly constrained environment of oPt, such VET was not a second choice, but the only choice to enable them to gain skills for employment.
► These programmes have played an apparently crucial role in magnifying the opportunities for the marginalised youth and for women to access the labour market and to participate in the workforce.
► Participation in these VET programmes helped build their expectations of a better life, and largely met these expectations, which included a clear sense of social responsibility as well as personal wellbeing.
► Nonetheless, it is clear that such empowerment was highly uneven in gender terms as a result of social and labour market constraints.