Skills Summary

What is Skills Summary?

Skills Summary was launched in March 2019. It will provide a measurement framework for young people, youth workers and educators in the Republic of Ireland including the member organisations of the National Youth Council of Ireland and a significant number of new youth workers and sites, through the Youth Employability Initiative.

Skills Summary is a partnership project between the National Youth Council of Ireland, SpunOut.ie, and Accenture. It is funded by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and recognised as a measurement tool in the Youth Employability Initiative.

The role of Skills Summary

There is an increasing focus on the need to identify competencies for life that values people’s full range of skills, whether acquired through formal or non-formal learning. Real competencies are understood broadly as encompassing all competencies acquired through formal education, non-formal education and informal learning.

It is critically important that a young person can identify and articulate these skills both for themselves and potential employers so that when moving to a new job or to further learning, learners and workers should see their skills quickly and have them easily recognised.

This is essential to raise skill levels and increase employability.

Skills Summary is both a process and a product. As a process it aims to support young people’s learning, with a particular focus on those who may find traditional academic learning challenging, by helping them to map the learning acquired through their participation in youth work and other non-formal settings to a set of competences. As a product, Skills Summary will support young people to articulate the competencies they have acquired both for themselves and potential employers.

Visit our Skills Summary Resources page for helpful resources and inspiration about how to include Skills Summary in your youth work practice.

Upcoming training & info sessions

On demand training