Rapid Assessment of the Office of the Ombudsman’s Vocational Skill Enhancement Project to inform the design of an integrated services model for youth Not in Employment, Education and Training (NEET) in Thailand

Detailed description of project Back

The Skills Enhancement Project is part of the government’s response for supporting life-long-learning and reducing social inequality across the 76 provinces of Thailand. The specific purpose of the project is to provide those who have completed compulsory schooling with the opportunity to access 3 to 6 months of basic skills training. The thinking behind the project is that it would provide young people with the necessary competencies to enter the labour market and to earn a higher wage of between 400 to 450 Baht per day. This would improve the quality of their life, enabling them to support their family.

The Skills Enhancement project is during its early stages and there is a need to reflect on the implementation progress of the past three years. Initial anecdotal evidence shows that some of the youth participating on the project have obtained skills and managed to find employment, but the project is experiencing difficulties attracting young people onto the project and a significant proportion of those who participate drop-out before completing their training.

Therefore, a rapid assessment is required to assess the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability of the project, and to offer lessons and recommendations for moving forward.

Type of services provided

The following methodology is applied:

• Literature review: A brief Literature Review will be conducted to gain a clearer understanding of the context of the Skills Enhancement Project, including the priority opportunities for employment in the different provinces being evaluated, as well as investigating how the external environment affecting the project, especially national level policies and strategies;
• Analysis of secondary quantitative data: further analysis will be undertaken on the data supplied by the Ombudsmen of the Project’s performance by province, particularly in terms of comparing the percentage of eligible students who participated in the project, percentage of students who completed the skills training and the percentage of students who gained jobs;
• Key Informant Interviews: Key informants are people with in-depth knowledge and understanding of projects or activities, In the case of this research, some of the key informants are officials who are actively involved in implementing the project;
• Focus Group Discussion: The objective of FGDs is to gather data on stakeholders’ perceptions regarding the implementation of the different projects/activities.

Main staff provided:

• Team Leader/Labour Expert (42 w/d);
• Survey Expert (48 w/d);
• Research Assistant (22 w/d).