Youth and Policy

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 In News

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When it comes to deciding upon which direction policy should take, young people are too often relegated to the sidelines. Ushered to one side, they are reduced to passive onlookers whose opinions are disregarded. Such disregard is plainly wrong and overlooks the hugely positive contribution that young people can make toward framing policy. As David Burstein, author of Fast Future: How the Millenial Generation Is Shaping Our World, said:

Young people are often the first to see big changes in our world and often the first to figure out how to respond.

How different therefore, would big ticket responses to youth unemployment, such as the EU’s Youth Guarantee Scheme, be if young people were more fully engaged in their design? What do you think?

Perhaps an engaged youth would instead push for a collaborative approach involving both the public and private sectors. Who Knows? In truth, if we persist with a system that reduces youth to bit-part players, we will never know.

Much like the Youth Unemployment crisis itself, this is a terrible waste of potential and one whose consequences will be magnified many times over if left unchallenged. To prevent this, youth need to be meaningfully engaged in the debate on Job Creation. That means answering the difficult questions; Which approach is right? How much will it cost? Has it been a success? What is Success?

Through a series of immersive workshops the International Youth Job Creation Summit the young policy makers of tomorrow will be given the chance to do this today.

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