VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL TRAINING

UNRWA's vocational and technical education programme offers practical training to Palestine refugee youths to equip them with skills and expertise relevant to Middle East labour markets. The Agency runs eight vocational and technical training centres - Jordan (2), Lebanon (1), Syrian Arab Republic (1), West Bank (3), and the Gaza Strip (1) - with a capacity for 4,884 trainees. Two types of courses are offered:

• Trade courses prepare trainees for jobs in fields such as auto mechanics, electrical installations, carpentry, welding, TV and radio repair, electronics, metal fabrication and machining, and hairdressing. These courses are open to young people who have completed junior secondary school (i.e. 9 to 10 years of schooling);

• Technical/semi-professional courses prepare trainees for such jobs as assistant architect, land surveyor, laboratory technician, assistant pharmacist, pre-school teacher, computer information systems operator, industrial electrician, and interior decorator. Technical/semi-professional courses are open to males and females who have completed secondary school (12 years of schooling).

UNRWA also offers short-term training courses of 8-40 weeks to upgrade the technical expertise of refugees who already possess skills in a particular specialization, or to provide a basic level of technical knowledge to persons without training. The courses are organized in cooperation with NGOs on an ad hoc basis in response to local needs.

All UNRWA training centres are now open to women, and female participation in the vocational and technical training programme is generally on the rise, now almost 30 per cent Agency-wide.

Placement and Career Guidance
Surveys of trainees routinely show high success rates in finding jobs. Placement and career guidance services offered by the Agency assist graduates and other Palestine refugees in securing jobs locally or in other Arab countries. Graduates of UNRWA training institutions also tend to achieve very high pass rates in state certifying examinations.

Since 1954, nearly 60,000 Palestine refugee men and women have graduated from UNRWA vocational and technical training centres. The active involvement of these graduates in the economic life of the Middle East has contributed to social stability and has partially offset the high unemployment rates affecting many refugee communities. Many graduates have gone on to make substantial contributions to the economic and social development of Arab countries.