World Youth Skills Day 2025: World Youth Skills Day is observed on July 15 every year to celebrate the importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship. It was in 2014, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) declared July 15 as World Youth Skills Day.
The theme for World Youth Skills Day this year is ‘Youth Empowerment Through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digital Skills’. According to a statement on un.org, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is reshaping economies with AI, calling for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) systems to evolve accordingly to prepare youth with future-ready skills. While AI is transforming how we live, learn, and work, the statement also warns of serious risks if its implementation is not equitable.
World Youth Skills Day 2025: Key facts
– Around 450 million young people, or 7 out of 10, remain economically disengaged due to a lack of sufficient skills needed to thrive in the labour market.
– 86 per cent of students feel unprepared for a workplace shaped by Artificial Intelligence.
– In 2022, more than 40 per cent of youth were not engaged in employment, education, or training.
– Employment projections showed that while 40.3 per cent of young men were employed, only 27.4 per cent of young women had access to employment opportunities.
– In low-income countries, 90 per cent of adolescent girls and young women remain offline.
– Even in the wealthiest nations, just 1 in 10 fifteen-year-olds spend more than an hour a week using digital devices for learning.
– Globally, only 16 per cent of countries have implemented laws to address cyberbullying in education, with 38 per cent of these laws introduced after the Covid pandemic.
World Youth Skills Day 2025: Why is it celebrated?
World Youth Skills Day is observed to promote dialogue among young people, TVET institutions, businesses, employers’ and workers’ organisations, policymakers, and development partners. Since its inception in 2014, the day has served as a platform to emphasise the importance of skills development, especially as the world shifts towards a more sustainable model of development.
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