Data and analysis of the employment prospects of youth in Jordan suggest that education and training, in particular VET, hold the promise of a quicker transition to employment, a lower likelihood of becoming unemployed or inactive, a higher return on education investment, and better employment conditions in the case of employment in the private sector (OECD, 2018).

At the same time, the potential of VET to deliver on this positive outlook for graduates is contingent on additional factors, some of which seem to pose a long-standing challenge for Jordanian practitioners and policy-makers alike: the extent to which students are provided with practical experience during their VET studies, the proper and regular involvement of employers, the attraction of a more diverse selection of students in terms of socio-economic background and aptitude, etc. These challenges are aspects of the same underlying problem with which Jordan (and other countries for that matter) have struggled for some years now: most graduates in Jordan leave education and training without having acquired skills that are in demand in the labour market. This in turn harms their prospects for social and economic participation, limits the growth potential of the Jordanian economy, and hampers the development of the private sector and its capacity to create jobs.

The authorities in Jordan are well aware of the challenges and have designed several sets of measures to address them: boosting the availability of evidence on labour market needs for the purpose of VET planning and programme updates; introducing an education sector-wide framework of qualifications; promoting partnerships with the private sector; and undertaking efforts to introduce entrepreneurial learning in TVET to improve its labour market relevance.

The development of education and training databases and labour market information systems (LMISs) is among the most prominent policy responses to the challenge posed by the limited labour market relevance of VET in the country. However, the results of evidence collection efforts have not yet proven particularly effective in informing any improvement in VET policy and programme content, because the mechanisms for identifying and anticipating labour market needs are still largely disconnected from the education and training sector and there are no clear procedures or mechanisms to initiate change on the basis of such labour market insights. Labour market evidence has also proven of limited use in raising the relevance of VET, because the process of updating VET training programmes and making their provision more flexible appears to be slow, loosely coordinated (see Section 3), and too burdensome to allow for a quick enough response to external demand.

As for the National Qualifications Framework, the fragmentation of governance remains a major challenge. Jordan still struggles to make the transition to a sector-wide quality assurance and accreditation system that will replace the current three subsystems[2] See https://www.etf.europa.eu/en/publications-and-resources/publications/torino-process-2014-jordan
and ensure the flexibility and adequate responsiveness of education and training to external demand.

A third group of policy responses to boost the relevance of TVET and adjust the content of its programmes is the promotion of partnerships with the private sector. Although employers are represented on the boards of directors and governing councils, they are still far behind in playing the leadership role that the various strategies aspire for them to take in VET governance, policy-setting and programme planning[3] NRF B.2.II
. For one reason, there is a degree of reluctance on the part of authorities to properly involve employers. Also, the bodies representing the private sector do not necessarily capture the full range of employer needs. This is because they are mostly geared towards the needs of larger enterprises, whereas Jordan's economy is dominated by small and micro-enterprises of less than 20 employees.

Finally, Jordan is mobilising entrepreneurial learning (EL) to improve the labour market relevance of its education and training system. By identifying EL as a policy response to the limited relevance of education and training, Jordan is following a major international trend. However, there are also risk factors that may impede the effectiveness of these and other EL-related policies. The risks include structural problems such as red tape and fiscal and investment instability (World Bank, 2020), but also a persistently weak entrepreneurial culture among young people in Jordan, which is partly due to the absence of any focus on EL in most TVET and higher education programmes.

Equitable access to education, training and employment opportunities is a strategic priority in all policy plans for human capital development in Jordan. Despite this long-term commitment, however, certain groups of Jordanian citizens continue to be disadvantaged in terms of access to education and employment. This in turn prevents them from contributing to the social and economic development of the country and hampers their prospects for individual prosperity and well-being. The two most affected groups in this respect are women and youth of secondary-school age. The rate of female participation in employment is persistently low (the lowest of any ETF partner country), while the propensity of youth to avoid technical and vocational education as a choice of study hampers the effectiveness of policies to promote human capital development through TVET. The latter also limits the employment prospects of young people, especially young women.

The Jordanian authorities have introduced measures to address a variety of challenges concerning education, training, and labour market participation, and some of them target the difficulties of youth and women to enter the labour market.

A number of these measures address the challenge of low participation in human capital development opportunities through VET, but their success remains limited. Female enrolment rates in VET remain persistently low and fluctuate from year to year, sometimes by as much as 12% from one year to the next. Jordan also has a high rate of early leavers, which is considerably higher than in EU countries, and its rate of participation in VET is persistently low in international comparison (11.5% in 2018), especially for young women (8.6% in the same year).

Such data suggest that the intended effect of the policy measures may be susceptible to the adverse influence of factors that have not yet been fully taken into consideration. One of these factors is the lack of proper support for students, particularly female students, during training. Another factor is fragmentation in the implementation of strategic priorities across the various bodies in charge of VET in Jordan. In the past and more recently, efforts have been put into creating umbrella institutions (initially an ETVET secretariat and later, in 2019, the Technical and Vocational Skills Development Commission, or TVSD Commission). However, there is little evidence of coordination or integration in the implementation of these and other priorities among the various TVET systems. Other reasons may be the relative marginalisation of VET in comparison with other segments of the education and training system, and the lack of flexibility in VET provision to accommodate the different learning needs and circumstances of at-risk learners.

Another set of measures targets low youth and female participation in the labour market. Some of the actions rely on the participation of women and youth in formal education and training, while others involve training provided in the form of active labour market policy (ALMP) measures. Finally, a third set of actions is organised and implemented in the context of projects supported by bilateral donors.

While these actions are rich in detail and ambition, there is also scope for improvement to increase their effectiveness and impact. A shared weakness of the current solutions in the domain of formal education and training is that they fail to reach some of their target populations, notably women who are inactive or in search of employment. According to the Torino Process national report, the rate of enrolment in apprenticeships and other forms of work-based learning (WBL) remains unsatisfactory, mostly because of cultural limitations and the failure of providers and partner enterprises to provide appropriate working conditions for women.

The ALMP-related measures also leave some scope for improvement. Their focus is narrow and aimed only at the economically active population. None of the actions addresses economic inactivity, especially among women of working age, which is a far more widespread challenge than unemployment. According to data from the Department of Statistics, the share of women of working age who may potentially be left out because they are inactive was over 96% in 2019.

Finally, this assessment concludes that overall the policy responses to the challenge of low youth and female participation do not pay sufficient attention to the diversity of their intended beneficiaries. The needs of young female graduates looking for first-time employment are likely to be different from those of women who are forced to leave their jobs and become inactive, while the needs of both groups also differ from the needs and possibilities of women who have been economically inactive for a prolonged period of time. At the time of this assessment, there was no evidence that such a differentiation by target group had gained any traction in policy planning and implementation in the area.