NN38, February 2007
Technical and Vocational Skills Development
EDITORIAL
By Kenneth King, University of Hong Kong
VET, TVET & SKILLS DEVELOPMENT AND NORRAG HISTORYIt is just over ten years (December 1996) since we dedicated a whole issue of NORRAG NEWS to Skills Development. Readers of this present issue of NORRAG NEWS (NN 38) may like to look back to the Special Issue of 1996 (NN20).
It was on TVET & Skills Development. Apart from the Editor and Simon McGrath, there is no repetition of the contributors between those in 1996 and the 37 contributors in the present special issue!
NN20 reported on what was happening in skills development within agencies such as ODA (now DFID), Danida, Sida, GTZ, and SDC as well as in French Cooperation. Lots of things were changing at that time, for instance the shift from the project to the sector approach. But it is an indication of the way agency policies have changed that it was possible to say, for example, that ?Sida and ODA continue to have important portfolios of vocational education and training?.
Interestingly, NN20 reported on the formation earlier in 1996 of a new donor network called the Working Group for International Cooperation in Vocational and Technical Skills Development, supported by Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), and with its secretariat provided by ILO, NORRAG and SDC. At that early stage in the development of the Network, it still called itself ?Vocational and Technical Skills Development? thus combining the older terminology of TVET and the newer term, Skills Development. This still seems to be a useful composite term, and it is used as such in the first article in this issue of NN38.
Also, intriguing in 1996 was that the report of the Working Group meeting suggested that ?It was recognised that to get genuinely international coverage, it would be important to have a further meeting in East Asia which might allow the participation of other agencies in East and South East Asia and Australasia, as well as to continue with a further meeting in Europe.? Well, that is happening in Hong Kong in February 2007, just over ten years later!
It is perhaps a pity that the agencies did not come to East and South East Asia in the 1990s. Skills development has played such a key role in the growth of their economies over the past 20 years and more, that it would have been important for agencies to have appreciated that.
The present issue of NORRAG NEWS covers a very wide range of different contexts in which VET and Skills Development are being analysed. It goes from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to Mexico, from China (and Hong Kong) to Nigeria, and from Vietnam to Chile. From South Africa to Latin America, and from Ghana to India. Equally, it includes a very good range of bilateral and multi-lateral agencies. Those reporting here are the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and JICA on the one hand; GTZ, DFID, and SDC, on the other; then, again, the IIEP, ILO and the European Training Foundation.
VET is on the Move
The themes of NN38 are many and varied. But, overall, there is a sense that VET and Skills Development are on the move once more. They have always been perceived by politicians to be areas where investment to counter rising unemployment is a high priority; and that is no different today. But they are also seen to be human development and investment sectors that are crucially connected to economic growth. Does this mean that, for example, technical and vocational education pays off in facilitating the transition to work? This issue of NN38 argues that the answer from rigorous evaluations is that it can under the right conditions.
VET and the Right Conditions
What are these ?right conditions?? The state needs to have a vision of its own technological, agricultural and industrial development, and of how the education and training system relates to this vision. But 2020 visions on their own are insufficient. Visions need substantial financial support to be implemented. The private sector needs to be engaged with such forward planning, and employers need to be convinced that the utilisation of trained and skilled young people is actually a better investment than relying on time-honoured systems of taking on unskilled, casual labour.
For a virtuous circle to exist amongst the forward planning by government, the confidence of employers, and the responsiveness of VET systems, there cannot be a ?business as usual? approach by VET institutions. They cannot expect unchanged curricular options to appeal if there is a rapidly changing employment, industrial or service structure. But if curricula are to change and keep up to date, there needs to be substantial investment in vocational institutions. China?s experience of highlighting ?key? vocational schools and making them centres of excellence has proved attractive to employers. By contrast, if employers know that the national vocational training centre in a particular country has no computers, and that the equipment dates from the early 1960s, they cannot be blamed for preferring their own systems of enterprise-based training.
New VET Frameworks and the Challenge of Policy Learning
NORRAG NEWS is particularly concerned with the role of donors (or with the role of the more politically correct term, development partners) in these processes. There is in NN38 a whole series of articles that document the changes in agency thinking about VET and skills development. Very often, donors are in the position of doing the crucial analytical work that seems poised to impact on policy. Readers will recall the stir that was caused when the World Bank published its Vocational and Technical Education and Training policy paper of 1991. Equally, the Bank?s Skills Development in Sub-Saharan Africa (2004) confirmed the framework for thinking about VET systems that had been publicised in 1991. This comprehensive vision of VET covered school-based education systems, institution-based training systems linked to labour ministries, private training systems (both for profit and non-profit), and then also training in enterprises, both formal and informal.
This framework may be analytically persuasive, but it needs to be recognised that such a comprehensive vision of VET is a long way away from the day-to-day structures that comprise and govern vocational education and training in country contexts. If there is to be policy learning from such donor insights, then, arguably, the ?donors? need to become ?recipients?. In other words, they need to understand much better the cultures and contexts of the local systems where they are expecting to have an innovative impact. Too often, donor-led development or reform can be characterised as processes of social engineering that it is assumed will be successful if properly managed technically and with the right implementation capacities. In reality, as we know, most reform projects are short-lived because they do not fit into the local context and there is no local ownership.
The Priority of Critical, Analytical Work on VET at the International Level
Nevertheless, and with this above caveat, the role of critical, analytical work at the international level continues to be important and potentially influential. This can be seen with the World Development Report of 2007 on Youth, and it can be seen in the reach and influence of the EFA Global Monitoring Reports (GMRs), associated with the promotion of the Six Dakar World Forum Goals on Education for All (EFA). Vocational Education and Training badly need the international publicity and solid analytical work associated with these GMRs. This is why we argue in NN38 that the VET constituency world-wide should ensure that skills development is given its rightful place in this influential series of GMR Reports. It looks like the Working Group (mentioned above) and NORRAG can play a role in facilitating this.
Rethinking and Rebuilding the Cadre
If this is to happen, there need to be staff in development agencies who understand frameworks for skills development. The World Bank, ODA (now DFID), Sida and several other agencies may no longer recruit people called ?vocational educators? as was the case once; but their current and future staff will be the more effective if they have a secure understanding of the challenges raised by so many of the articles in NN38: for example, Training for the Informal Sector; Skills Development for Poverty Reduction; VET for Sustainable Economic Development; VET for Youth Development; and VET for Labour Migration.
Changes in access to NORRAG NEWS
From February 2007, it should be possible for all readers to get access to all the issues of NORRAG NEWS without using their password. However if you want to get access to the most recent issue (e.g. NN38) you will still need to remember your password! By the way, just recently the 1000th person registered to get access to NORRAG NEWS. Readers should know that Robert Palmer has played a key role in this process.
Summaries and Keywords
This time, when we send you out an email alert to say that NN38 is on the website, the email will actually contain the short 1-2 sentence summaries, as well as the keywords for the article. This will give you a better sense of what is in the articles.
Kenneth King
The University of Hong Kong
February 2007
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