Matching Skills to Jobs (MSJ)

Matching Skills to Jobs is a project of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), implemented by Swisscontact. The project is part of the Swiss Portfolio Outcome 2 of the Swiss Cooperation Programme 2022-2025, which is aligned with the SDC's strategic orientation in the field of education, in particular improving governance, quality and relevance.The MSJ project aims to bring about significant progress in the vocational education and training (VET) system in Kosovo by establishing a governance structure that is not only adaptable, but also promotes effective cooperation between private and public stakeholders.
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Pristina
42.6629138
21.1655028
Project duration
2024 - 2029
Financed by
  • Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC

The labour market in Kosovo is characterised by contradictory realities. On the one hand, there is a high unemployment rate, indicating an oversupply of labour market entrants and job seekers. On the other hand, employers are unable to recruit staff with the required skills and expertise.

These two contradictory labour market realities highlight the lack of an adequate, coherent and labour market responsive VET system. There is a widespread skills mismatch or lack of relevant skills at the level of school leavers, VET graduates, university graduates and other new entrants to the labour market. This is largely a direct consequence of the failure of the (public) VET system, including non-academic higher education. In the short term, employers usually need quick solutions, they need the skilled workers now and cannot wait for national systems to develop and deliver the required profiles, sometimes in the future. This forces private companies and employers into ad hoc solutions, whether through lengthy induction programmes, in-company training, project- and/or NGO-sponsored approaches, or private and fee-paying courses. 

The Project

The current VET system in Kosovo is not able to respond effectively to the mismatch between the oversupply of labour market entrants and the inability of employers to recruit staff with the required skills and expertise.

The MSJ project aims to contribute to a more market responsive VET system by

  1. supporting the Government of Kosovo in implementing the planned VET reform by strengthening the capacity of its key VET institutions, which will directly contribute to the long-term improvement of the VET system's delivery in line with labour market needs,
  2. supporting industry to develop a comprehensive vision of the skills required at different levels and to implement selected vocational training programmes in cooperation with different providers.
     

Project Goals

  • Fill the significant skills gaps by improving institutionalised cooperation between the private sector and VET providers.
  • VET agencies will have strong leadership and capacity to play their role as a critical building block of an effective and responsive VET system.