Education for Employment

Promoters:

Ronald Bruder and Jamie McAuliffe.

Country:

United States

An education-focussed organisation that provides unemployed young people with access to economic opportunities through targeted job training and placements, and employability and entrepreneurship programmes.

What solution does the innovation propose?

Education For Employment (EFE) offers participants the training they need to secure a job and creates ongoing opportunities to develop their professional skills, build social capital and engage in their communities. Through partnerships with the private and the educational sectors, the organisation also seeks to build capacity within institutions to change the attitudes of educators, youth and employers and prepare students for the workforce.

Recognitions

Takreem Laureate for Exceptional Contribution to Arab Society (2013). Jamie McAuliffe became Chairman of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Youth Unemployment (2012) and Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation (2012).

Impact evidence

Outputs

53% of graduates are young women.
The programme has worked with 2,700 private and public sector partners.

Outcomes

Over 40,000 youth trained succeeded in gaining employment.
70% job placement rate among trainees.

Sources

EFE (2014) Annual report.

EFE’s Performance Measurement and Monitoring & Evaluation Systems include a set of tools to collect in-depth information about the intermediate and long-term outcomes of the programmes through a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods.

How does it work?

Together with an affiliated network of locally run NGOs, EFE engages youth, trainers and private sector companies to offer youth employment programmes tailored to the region’s labour market. The organisation provides training opportunities that fill the skills gap faced by employers, and collaborates with them in hiring graduates through joint selection processes.

EFE has developed three main programmes:

‘Job Training and Placement’. The core programme that provides skills training to unemployed youth leading to a full-time job.
‘Pathways’. Shorter-term programme designed to help students find a job by providing them with internship opportunities and employability skills.
‘Entrepreneurship’. Prepares young people for self-employment by imparting the skills needed to start new businesses and by connecting graduates to financing, mentoring and other services.