On November 29th, 2012, the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Education

Rights and Transformation’ (CERT) hosted a workshop on ‘Employment,

Education, Skills and Training’, with a specific focus on young people. The workshop was attended by almost 100 community activists, organic intellectuals, academic researchers, adult educators, union representatives and others, bringing together seasoned activists and young people. It was made possible thanks to funding from Norwegian People’s Aid. The workshop programme is summarised at the back of this booklet. Contributions to the workshop challenged many of the prevailing assumptions and contested some of the facts and statistics invoked in support of certain proposed solutions. Most importantly, the workshop raised some of the many alternative responses to the challenges of education, skills and livelihoods that are already being pursued in various local contexts.

This booklet attempts to summarise key points raised during the course of the day, with the aim of making them available to the widest possible audience, and promoting greater involvement by poor and working people and their allies in shaping these critically important debates. The authors together with other participants are also involved in the Education Policy Consortium’s ‘Post-Schooling Project’.