On February 19, 2021, Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations of the Republic of Uzbekistan held an event of launching a special programme for training and increasing the potential of the WorldSkills Expert Community in Uzbekistan, which trained more than 110 experts from 6 regions across the country.

Nowadays, Uzbekistan carries out large-scaled reforms that are aimed at the full development of human capital, improving the quality of higher and vocational education, training large amount population to the demanded professions, taking into account the development trends of the labour market, as well as introducing a new high quality system for training qualified personnel. To implement these reforms, on February 19, 2021, Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations of the Republic of Uzbekistan held a ceremony of launching a special programme for training and increasing the potential of the WorldSkills Expert Community in Uzbekistan.

The ceremony was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, the Association of development and popularization of working professions (WorldSkills Uzbekistan), the Agency for the Development of Professional Skills (WorldSkills Russia), the Embassy of the Russian Federation, the UN Development Program, as well as branch ministries and departments of Uzbekistan.

The above initiative provides creation of a WorldSkills Uzbekistan expert community, which will directly participate in the creation of an innovative system of professional training and independent assessment of applicants' skills according to WorldSkills standards in our country, with subsequent issuance of Skills Passports. The importance of this training was highlighted by the General Director of the Agency for the Development of Professional Skills (WorldSkills Russia) R.Urazov: “Modern technologies besides creating workplaces, unfortunately are reducing them, more qualified workers with more complex skills are required”.

As First Deputy Minister E.Mukhitdinov remarked in his speech: “The past trainings are the first step towards the creation of an expert community, which provides development and actualization of professional training programmes, as well as institutionalization of  independent skills assessment through creation of Skills Evaluation Center (SEC) and the Vocational Training Center (VTC) on the basis of the “Ishga Markhamat” according to WorldSkills standards”.

As part of the trainings, participants were trained for 14 skills, such as:

• hotel reception;
• pâtisserie and confectionery;
• mobile robotics;
• hairdressing;
• cooking;
• restaurant service;
• plumbing аnd heating;
• welding;
• plastering and drywall systems;
• fashion technology;
• electrical installations;
• painting and decorating;
• IT software solutions for business;
• beauty therapy

At the end of the event, the most successful participants were awarded with the certificates of assignment of a WorldSkills Uzbekistan expert status.

This initiative was implemented within the framework of the joint project "Promotion of youth employment in Uzbekistan", implemented by UNDP in cooperation with the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations and funded by the Government of the Russian Federation.