“What we want is that all young people, who have talent, are at the age of being able to access vocational training, can have access, but with quality. So that they can enter the job market in the country or on a global scale,” said Olavo Correia, who is also minister of finance and business development, during the presentation in Praia of the vocational training funding programme.
This is an instrument created to ensure that young people have access to professional training and integration into the job market via the Fund for Promotion of Employment and Training (FPEF), and Correia noted that between 2020 and 2022, Cabo Verde had applied over 600 million escudos (€5.4 million) to this type of training.
As well as this, a further 265 million escudos (€2.4 million) is planned for professional training this year, for 3,500 young people, in various sectors, also via the FPEF, which is supported by Luxembourg’s cooperation.
According to the leader, vocational training in Cabo Verde has “quality” and is certified, and the country has the conditions to become a “hub” in this area.
The Portuguese government announced last October its intention to set up a vocational training centre in Cabo Verde to serve the needs of qualified workers from the archipelago, neighbouring countries and Portuguese companies.
“Our total commitment, from Portugal, to launch a strategic investment here, also affirming Cabo Verde as a hub for training, precisely as a privileged space also here in this articulation with Cabo Verde,” Portugal’s minister of labour, solidarity and social security, Ana Mendes Godinho, announced in Praia on 21 October.
The two governments signed on the same day a memorandum of understanding on Labour Mobility when there was a multiplication of recruitment actions by Portuguese companies in the archipelago, in areas such as hotels, restaurants or drivers, with thousands of Cabo Verdean candidates attending interviews for a few dozen vacancies, following the change in ratification of the mobility agreement of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) and the change in the visa law in Portugal.
“With this great concern, which is endorsed in the agreement, to also assume here the strategic investment of Portugal in Cape Verde in the area of training, to also ensure that we are truly in terms of cooperation aligned in what is the investment that brings returns in the future, which is an investment in people’s qualifications and training,” added the Portuguese official.
“We all need, increasingly, to ensure that we value the role of workers in our societies. This has been a permanent theme in our speeches. And today, with the agreement signed here, what we are doing is to guarantee, on the one hand, that there is the capacity for total articulation so that the movements of migration and mobility are carried out while respecting all the rights of the people and guaranteeing the real integration of people wherever they may be”, she added.
The governments of the two countries will also sign in October an addendum to the Partners Agreement for the period 2018-2021 to implement the Integrated Employment and Professional Training Project of Cape Verde (PIEFP-CV), giving continuity to Portugal’s technical and financial support to the Institute of Employment and Professional Training (IEFP) of Cape Verde.