NEET Group Integration

Start: 01-08-2018 - End: 31-12-2018

Project Reference: 2018-1-MK01-KA347-047054

EU Grant: 6040 EUR

Young people in NEETs are young people who are “Neither in Employment nor in Education or Training”. Unlike for unemployment or employment, there is no international standard for the definition of NEETs. Eurostat, the ILO and certain other organizations have adopted the following definition of the NEET rate: the percentage of the population of a given age group and sex who is not employed and not involved in further education or training. Most of the time NEET youth are marginalized and due to continuous rejections from different engagement opportunities are most of the time lacking the self-confidence and awareness to pursue their goals in life. According to the latest Eurostat figures, in December 2016, 4.219 million young persons (under 25) were unemployed in the EU-28, of whom 2.957 million were in the euro area. 

The NEET rate in Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is around two times higher than the EU average and actually is the highest among the countries measured by Eurostat, for the 15-24 age group it is 24,3% (2016) and for the 15-29 age group it is 31,3% (2016). 

The Government of R.Macedonia is aware of the urgency and treats youth employment and education as a crosscutting theme in the policy-making process. This has increasingly required coordination across a wide spectrum of national institutions and agencies and coherence in shaping economic and social policies that address youth position in the society. Nevertheless, the measures resulting in significant decrease of the unemployment of the entire population do not influence in the same measure the NEET, whose participation remains still very high. Therefore, better targeted measures are required in order to cope with the serious problem of NEET in Republic of Macedonia. 

The main aim of this project is: 

Improved integration of NEET group of young people through larger cooperation with different institutions and organizations at national and local level (educational, national, youth sector and labor market). 

The specific aim of the project are: 

1. To explore effective measures and interventions for better integration of NEET 
2. To gain together, the institutions, youth sector and labor market, better understanding of the NEET issue at local and national level 
3. The projects will implement 3 activities: 

At the very beginning SEGA will organize national 2-day workshop with decision makers, in total 20 participants will attend on this event therefore representatives from the Agency of Youth and Sport, the General Secretary of the Government of R.M, the Ministry for labor and Social affairs, Ministry of education and science, the National Labor Inspectorate, the Agency of employment, ILO, National Institution for Social Work, few representatives directors from secondary schools in R.M, one facilitator and representatives from SEGA. This workshop will identify the position of the governmental officials related with the young people who are not in education, employment and training and will provide basis for collecting opinions and suggesting suitable measures for integration of this kind of group of young people. 

After this event SEGA will prepare a desk research for suitable measures and tools for preventing young people becoming NEET. SEGA will engage one researcher for this desk research. 

The main event will be a 3 day National workshop that will be held in the period of November 2018 in Struga, the subject of this event will be discussion about three subjects Education, Training and Employment of NEET. Opinions will be collected in a form of recommendations from the participants on the event and one document Policy Paper for NEET Integration in Education, Employment and Training will be created.