Local Government and Vocational Training Programmes

Abstract

Youth unemployment is very problematic and needs interventions from public and private sectors at all levels. The concern in this book is that poverty and unemployment among unskilled youth are urgent problems in the Sub-Saharan Africa and other continents. Unemployment is a waste of scarce human capital, which is harmful to the economy of a given country. To reduce poverty and unemployment, local governments (municipalities) use vocational training programmes for unemployed and disadvantaged youth. This chapter introduces the study by looking at the main challenges in implementing vocational training for unemployed youth, and the problem facing youth in South Africa and other regions of the world. The problem that the author investigates is the missing link between vocational skills training programmes and youth employment outcomes. The chapter discusses the problem and solution from the perspective of human capital and labour market segmentation theories. It also outlines the approach and techniques the researcher used to collect and analyse the data. The chapter comprises seven main sections.