September 2022 marked the formal closure for GISR Institution for Survey Research cooperation with the University Career Development Centers (UCCD) project** at the International Labour Organization (ILO).
Between 2019 – 2022, GISR – under the technical supervision of the UCCD project at the ILO – was responsible for the capacity building of the staff of 18 career development centers in 11 Egyptian universities (about 75 managers and employees and over 200 volunteers) to be able to conduct employers’ skills surveys (ESS) and round-table discussions in order to yield information about labour market trends, perceived skills mismatch between university education and labour market requirements, workforce skill needs and barriers for fresh graduates to access the labour market. The assignment’s deliverables that GISR participated in included:
−Supervising 41 Enterprise Qualitative Skills Survey in 11 universities to understand the current and forthcoming recruitment needs and competency requirements and to identify opportunities for internships or traineeships developed, and 47 Enterprise roundtables in 9 universities to strengthen partnerships and obtain additional relevant information on local labour markets,
−Capacity building activities for almost 75 staff members in those UCCDs with regard to sampling design, data collection and surveys administration, and more that 200 volunteering students trained on phone calls surveying interviews and participated in the data collection process.
−Technical supervision for the development of a survey management system (SMS) to automate and facilitate the survey creation and results gathering processes, and build informative reports based on collected data that will serve as basis for informative decision making developed.
−Developing an Enterprises Skills Survey Manual, and enterprise roundtable discussion manual.
** During the years 2018-2022, The UCCD project at the ILO was implemented in partnership with the American University in Cairo (AUC), which runs the project in cooperation with the Unites States Agency for International Development (USAID). As a partner in this project, the international Labour Organization (ILO) aimed at: 1- Building the capacity of the already running UCCDs’ staff on the collection, analysis, and dissemination of quantitative and qualitative labour market information relevant for career guidance and counseling, 2- Supporting the regular conduct of university-level tracer studies, enterprise skills surveys and round-tables with employers to obtain quantitative and qualitative information about labour market insertion of graduates, satisfaction with graduates’ skills, workforce skill needs and recruitment needs, and 3- Increase the inclusiveness of UCCD services for students with disabilities.
