Rising unemployment is a sign that education and economic development strategies need to be rethought. I was invited to present some ideas at the ProSA Youth Development forum on ways of addressing unemployment through education and employment innovation. The talk covered current problems including:

• A lack of alignment between industry and societal needs and education provision
• The disengagement of businesses and industry from education and training
• Slow growth and high failure rate of small businesses
• Limited access to productive resources and support in using these to create an income

A range of ideas to address this situation was developed and illustrated with examples within the following broad themes:

• More responsive education and training
• Increased access to productive resources
• Local information and collaboration

Presentation slides on the talk will available for a short time here ProSAv1.