Ethiopia’s Green Jobs Push Starts With the Teachers Preparing Tomorrow’s Workforce

In Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, the International Labour Organization (ILO) brought together Technical and Vocational Training (TVT) instructors, labour and skills experts, and other stakeholders for four days of practical learning, group discussions and action planning.

Preparing people for a greener economy starts with giving their teachers the knowledge and practical tools to bring sustainability into everyday training. In Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, the International Labour Organization (ILO) brought together Technical and Vocational Training (TVT) instructors, labour and skills experts, and other stakeholders for four days of practical learning, group discussions and action planning. The training, delivered through the ILO's Global Skills Programme with funding from Norway, focused on helping institutions prepare trainees for emerging green jobs and changes to existing occupations. Participants wanted the learning to reach beyond the training room, shaping lessons, workshops and the way their colleges operate.

Bringing green skills into everyday teaching

For Seblewengel Welelaw, Department Head at Bahir Dar Polytechnic College, preparing students for work means helping them understand how environmental responsibility connects to their chosen professions. Climate change and the green transition require technical professionals to use resources efficiently, adopt environmentally friendly practices and work with sustainable technologies. She plans to introduce green competencies into lesson plans, organise learning sessions for colleagues and assess opportunities to make her institution's training workshops more environmentally friendly and energy efficient. Her priorities include ensuring that women and marginalised groups have equal access to the opportunities emerging from the green transition, making inclusion part of how training is designed and delivered.

Colleges can reinforce those lessons through their own daily practices, giving trainees opportunities to see resource efficiency and waste reduction in action. Belete Demel, College Dean at Durbete Polytechnic College, called for updated curricula and continuous training in green technologies so instructors and learners can develop the practical abilities needed for emerging careers. He identified better waste management, more efficient resource use and reduced pollution as changes institutions can make themselves. Connecting teaching with workshop practices would help learners understand sustainability through the equipment, materials and working methods they encounter during training.

Preparing learners for jobs that are changing

The shift towards a more sustainable economy creates employment opportunities and changes the tasks people perform in existing occupations, placing new demands on workers and training institutions. Participants examined how reskilling and upskilling can help people respond to those changes, and how colleges can anticipate employers' evolving requirements.

Abebaw Tarekegn, an instructor at Bahir Dar Polytechnic College, described the purpose as preparing graduates to adapt to labour market demand, establish green businesses, secure decent employment and contribute to a fair, inclusive green economy. Practical capabilities in resource efficiency, waste reduction and sustainable working practices were identified as important foundations for those pathways.

The programme combined presentations with group work and discussions involving the full gathering, allowing participants to connect environmental issues with decisions they make in their own institutions. They explored how curricula should respond to emerging occupations, what colleges can do to protect workers and the environment, and how green skills can become part of everyday teaching. Discussions linked sustainability and green jobs with social dialogue, worker protection and lifelong learning, including the changes needed in competency standards, training materials and curricula to keep graduates' skills relevant.

Turning four days of learning into lasting practice

Participants left with action plans for embedding green approaches in curricula and training materials, supported by practical steps they could take within their institutions. These included revising lesson plans, sharing new approaches with colleagues, improving resource use in workshops and increasing learners' exposure to green technologies.

The initiative's wider value will depend on how those plans become part of regular teaching and institutional practice, allowing successive groups of trainees to benefit from the knowledge gained in Bahir Dar. Stronger training can give young people and workers more ways to navigate changing occupations, pursue emerging opportunities and contribute to a just transition.