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1. Greening Skills and National Qualifications Frameworks

Green skills – an important area of debate and policy action and which has become a priority in research (quantitative and qualitative) and social communication. Several international organisations are working on the analysis and taxonomies related to green competences.

Green skills are the "the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes needed to live, work and act in economies and societies that seek to reduce the impact of human activity on the environment".

Skills for the green economy consist of:

• transversal skills, linked to sustainable thinking and acting, relevant to all economic sectors and professions;
• specific skills needed to adapt or implement standards, processes and services to protect ecosystems and biodiversity and reduce energy, materials and water consumption;
• highly specialised skills needed to develop and implement green technologies such as renewable energy, wastewater treatment or recycling;

Skills for the green economy are also referred to as skills for green jobs, skills for the green transition or green skills.

2. ACQF Forum in Kinshasa (DR Congo) discussed Green Skills and the role of NQFs - Panel debate

On 18-20/June 2024 the ACQF stakeholders gathered at the 1st ACQF Forum of NQF Institutions debated the importance of greening skills, curriculum, qualifications and qualifications frameworks.

Theme 8: Green and digital skills and the role of the NQF

Green with a touch of brown is the colour of recovery. Greening of the economy and society – at heart of post-Covid19 recovery strategies and growth in many countries. Green growth opportunities abound across massive sectors such as energy, mobility, and agriculture. Just as digital-economy companies have powered stock-market returns in the past couple of decades, so green-technology companies could play that role in the coming decades. EU, US, China, Japan, South Korea’s Green New Deal, Canada, Africa – green stimulus packages

To compensate for expected job losses, global efforts to decarbonize in response to the climate crisis are giving rise to a wealth of green jobs across sectors and industries. A green-recovery scenario could generate around 3.5% of additional global GDP growth and a net employment gain of 9 million new jobs each year, according to International Energy Agency data. The green transition could create 30 million jobs globally in clean energy, efficiency and low-emissions technologies by 2030. But while there has been continued growth in green jobs for the past four years, reskilling and upskilling towards green skills is not keeping pace.

The 1^st ACQF Forum of National Qualifications institutions addressed the theme on green and digital skills and leveraged it as a panel of 4 countries (Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, and Senegal) and a continental organisation (All Africa Students' Union).

• The background presentation on green and digital skills is available on the Forum website.
• Zimbabwe’s PPT “Skills for the Green Economy – TVET” can be viewed and downloaded.

Panel Questions

• What is the importance of green skills (or skills for the green economy) and digital skills in your country's education and qualifications system? Can you share information on key policy initiatives and plans? And some cases of good practice among education and training providers?
• What data and information do you use on the demand for and needs for green skills in different professions and economic sectors in your country?
• What should be the role and contributions of NQFs towards a systemic expansion of green qualifications and skills in national qualifications?
• How can ACQF support the greening of NQFs and the place of digital skills in qualifications? Could you share your ideas and recommendations on the common principles of "green NQFs" in Africa?

Definition of green and digital skills

Green skills: defined in section 1. above

• Skills for the green economy are also referred to as skills for green jobs, skills for the green transition, or green skills.

Digital skills

• Ability to use digital technologies confidently, critically and responsibly and engage with them for learning, at work and for participation in society.
• Digital skills include information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, media literacy, digital content creation (including coding), security (including digital wellbeing and cybersecurity-related skills), intellectual property issues, problem-solving and critical thinking.

Panel debate - summary

Aggregate data indicate that job growth in green and greening occupations far outpaces job growth in non-green occupations. However, companies are faced with a significant lack of skills that allow workers and employees to adapt to the greening of the company and its services and products. According to LinkedIn data, the majority of workers admit that they do not have transversal, specific and highly specialized skills for green and greening jobs.

All the countries on the panel indicated that these themes are part of policies and practices related to education and training systems and some have started processes of reform and revision of curricula and training programs from the lower levels of the NQF, to ensure that young people are aware and prepared for the challenges and requirements of greening and digitization of jobs, of society and lifelong learning pathways and modalities.

The 4 countries were unanimous on the need to coordinate a) policies and concept papers that concern green and digital skills, with b) implementation texts and tools, facilitating the dissemination to all stakeholders at the national, provincial and institutional levels, businesses and trade unions; and ensuring the training and awareness of the various actors of the education and training system, in particular trainers and teachers.

Digital skills are very diverse and rapidly changing, in line with the accelerated development of technologies, applications and instruments for managing, analyzing, and interoperating all processes in the datified society in which we live. In this context, in addition to basic and transversal digital skills, which are essential to the lives of the entire population, it is essential to pay renewed attention to the digital skills essential to the deployment of the benefits of data science, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI. A real "AI literacy" movement should be discussed and supported by the education-training systems, the NQFs and ACQF.

NQFs are important for establishing clear pathways for vertical progression and horizontal comparability of new education and training qualifications in new fields. They also strengthen the coherence between educational production in green skills areas and the needs of the labour market.

NQFs are essential to ensure that learning outcomes are set at the right level of qualification, educational institutions and industry develop qualification standards based on clear level descriptors that allow for the articulation and portability of qualifications in new priority areas.

The 'greening' of National Qualifications Frameworks (NQFs) in Member States is a complex and multidimensional process that involves the integration of sustainability principles and practices into the design, delivery and evaluation of qualifications, with the ultimate aim of equipping learners with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to contribute to a sustainable future. This may involve adding new qualifications, revising existing qualifications, or developing new learning paths.

• This may involve technical support on how to add new qualifications, revise existing qualifications, or develop new learning pathways.
• The ACQF should provide technical support on the development of national strategies and practices to green the NQFs
• Once the NQFs have been greened, the capacity development of leaders and stakeholders of the NQFs will be essential.

Key highlights from the specific submission from Zimbabwe: Imperative Government Policies informing Green Skills Development through Heritage Based CBET Curriculum.

Through the project “Green Enterprize” the country put into practice concepts and objectives related to green economic development aligned with the National Development Strategy (2021-2025).

In 2019 Zimbabwe prioritised the development of Green Skills and partnered with ILO and UNESCO to develop Guidelines for Green Skills Development guided by the Zimbabwe National Qualifications Framework (ZNQF) to develop and meet Zimbabwe’s Human Skills Capabilities for the attainment of Vision 2030 anchored on innovation principles.