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WorldSkills Africa capacity building programme 2025

March to September 2025

Purpose

WorldSkills Africa (WSAfrica) was officially launched at the African Union’s Heads of State Summit in February 2024. As the regional platform to harness the power of skills for Africa’s development, capacity building of trainers, teachers, and instructors from Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is one of the crucial elements for WSAfrica to enable stronger alignment between TVET and industry demands.

While skills competitions are effective tools for benchmarking, showcasing, and inspiring young people, educators, the private sector, and policy makers to improve the standards and attractiveness of skills, WSAfrica has prioritized capacity building for trainers, teachers, and instructors as a critical pathway for sustainable development of the TVET system.

Programme at a glance

When it launched in February 2024, WorldSkills Africa placed capacity building for trainers, teachers, and instructors at the centre of its vision for sustainable TVET systems. In 2025, the WorldSkills Africa Capacity Building Programme has advanced this goal by strengthening the skills and confidence of 13 TVET trainers and introducing an adaptable Assessment Framework to further build trainer capacity and connect skills development and assessment to real-world needs.

Funded by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), the programme brought together seven WorldSkills Africa Member countries. The goal? To co-design and test a new competition-based training model that can be tailored for a country’s skills needs.

Running from March to September 2025, the programme focused on two skills, Hairdressing and Plumbing, and moved through three phases: framework design, online and in-person training, and a final showcase in Lusaka, Zambia. The programme will now become a replicable blueprint that can be scaled across more skills and countries, elevating the quality of TVET at a national, regional, and global level.

Participating Member Countries

  • WorldSkills Ethiopia
  • WorldSkills Malawi
  • WorldSkills Namibia
  • WorldSkills Rwanda
  • WorldSkills Zambia
  • WorldSkills Zimbabwe
  • WorldSkills South Africa

Outcomes and Benefits

Throughout the WorldSkills Africa Capacity Building Programme, Experts completed evaluation surveys to measure their levels of skills and confidence at the start of the programme, midway, and when the programme was complete. The feedback revealed significant benefits and outcomes.

The participants had clear goals for the programme. All of them wanted to improve or learn new technical skills. Most said they wanted to improve the way they assess and teach, as well as gain a deeper understanding of the WorldSkills Occupational Standards.

By the end, every Expert said their understanding of the purpose of the Assessment Framework had significantly improved through the programme. But the experience was not only informative, it was transformative. Almost all participants reported greatly improved technical skills, with many saying the programme gave them new insights, tools, and confidence to improve the way they work with their students and use assessment standards in their training.

They also found the course format to be effective. All the Experts valued the peer learning as useful or very useful and said the online training met their expectations. Almost all participants rated the guidance as very clear. Importantly, 100% would positively recommend the programme to others.

WorldSkills Zambia was the host of the in-person workshops, which also allowed the Official and Technical Delegates of the Members to receive training on WorldSkills methodologies and brainstorm ways to turn the learning into actions in their countries.

To read more about the impact of the programme, please download the impact report. (PDF, 7.8MB)