Skills Development: Vocational Education
in the Islamic Countries
107
Unemployment: There are very few job opportunities in Gaza Strip. Therefore,
unemployment rate in Gaza strip is very high. Skilled workers even in many cases are not
getting jobs due to war, siege, and political instability.
The above challenges are supported by the following interview data:
“Because of the siege and closure, there are many equipment that the vocational training
institutions cannot provide, … therefore students are deprived from having skills training”.
(P4)
“The war negatively affects our students and their financial ability to enrol in college [TVET],
this is the main obstacle that we are facing now. And the second one is, the war also affects
the income and the stability of the Palestinian families by affecting their family members’
income and even thinking what will happen about their future”. (P5)
“Any course that is related to chemicals are also banned [in Gaza], so in this case we have a
lack of this material and [thereby] preventing to open [introduce] such course”. (P4)
“The unemployment rate is very high in the college and in the society, as a whole in Gaza
because of the war and the division between the political parties. So many students who
graduated in previous years do not have any opportunity of finding jobs. … The
unemployment rateas you know has raised [to] more than 60 percent according to the United
Nations statistics in 2017”. (P6)
“Parents need to be aware and the society's perception should be changed. All of them
[parents] are pushing their children to go to academic education and leaving TVET behind,
not [without] knowing the importance of this sector. So I think that this is the biggest
problem”. (P6)
“The lack of orientation and guidance program to poor, and the number of centres is not
qualified [insufficient] to accommodate or absorb this large number of poor people. (P1)
There is no enough fund for TVET that offers the training [in Gaza ]”. (P1)
Figure 4.11 Challenges towards improving TVET sectors
War & Siege Social Value
Lack of Fund Unemployment