NN40, May 2008
Education for Sustainable Development? Or The Sustainability of Education Investment? A Special Issue
Gaps for effective skills development in low income developing countries
By Kazuhiro Yoshida, Hiroshima University
Email: yoshidak@hiroshima-u.ac.jpKeywords
Skills development, policy, finance, relevance
Summary
Low-income developing countries face increased demand for strengthening skills development in the wake of sustained economic growth in recent years. This article raises cautions to the countries by saying that lack of clarity and consistency in policy orientation, along with three main gaps in policy, finance and relevance may impede effectiveness of renewed investment in skills development.
Policy Orientation
Human resources development is viewed by policy makers in low-income developing countries as a vital element for achieving development goals. Skills development (SD) is an important aspect of the human resources development and its roles are explained largely by two approaches to respective policy objectives. The first approach is associated with economic growth and enhanced competitiveness of the country trying to respond to changing technologies and industrial needs. Human capital theory backs up this approach. SD that meets this need is expected to continuously upgrade skills of learners. The second approach includes social protection and poverty reduction. The government makes efforts to equip the target population with necessary life skills and basic industrial skills that will enable them to engage in economic activities thereby uplifting their living standards.
It would be misleading, however, to think that the two approaches are distinctly different. If, for instance, under the social protection approach, SD fails to provide opportunities for continued upgrading, acquired skills may only be useful for a limited purpose, and therefore students and trainees will have a limited upward social mobility. SD needs to be understood to include a wider scope that goes beyond equipping learners with specific and static skills but more importantly with continuous, or sustainable, trainability. Ability to apply the acquired skills and to adapt to changes will form a basis for the trainability which in turn requires a solid ground developed by basic education cycle before taking a technical or vocational stream.
For SD to be effective, efforts in supplying a quality labor force must be matched by concerted measures on the demand side. Policy interventions have to stimulate an active labor market and be directed to improve access to credit and new technologies, especially by small-scale industries that often face market failures.
Three Gaps for effective SD
Over the past several years, many developing countries that export natural resources and raw-materials have been enjoying a healthy economic growth. This enhances demand for SD, even if the in-country industrial value-added may not have increased much. But the weak private sector economy cannot provide necessary SD by itself and necessitates increased roles in SD to be played by the public sector. Before embarking on a massive investment in public SD, countries should be reminded of typical gaps that they tend to face - policy, finance and relevance gaps.
Too often, policy makers tend to set a vision that is too ambitious -such as to become a globally competitive middle-income nation by 2020 - when the country's industrial base is still weak and an informal sector dominates economic activities. SD policies tend to be drawn up without a realistic pathway to reach the goal and without close consultation with business community, opening a gap between SD policies and actual needs of the workplace.
The second gap is between policy intents and budget allocation. In most low-income developing countries, technical and vocational education receives a meager portion of the total education sector budget. Both an expansion of primary education and subsequent needs for expanding secondary education, and increasing pressure to strengthen higher education in an effort to be competitive in a globalized economy simply give rise to a harsher competition for intra-sectoral resource allocation. Limited resources available for public provision of SD coupled with weak cooperation with industry leave little scope for modernizing equipment and attracting competent teachers, making a school-based SD a less favored option for students and trainees. This only helps to mount a criticism against public intervention in this area.
Policy goals so detached from the reality, curriculum formulated without listening to voices of the industry, and equipment and methods left un-updated for long all lead to lack of relevance of SD. Furthermore, the aspiration of learners to get a high-income job is often denied by absence of job offering in such a specific desired area. Lack of timely and accurate information on the job market further aggravates the learners' employability - a key indicator of relevance.
Countries that are about to embark on a massive investment in SD are invited to review their policy environment and conduct a realism check to make the best use of limited resources. This might help to ensure that SD (Skills Development) also contributes to SD (Sustainable Development)!!
Reference
Yoshida, K. (2007) " A Revival of International Cooperation for Skills Development - Old Wine in a New Bottle" Journal of International Cooperation in Education vol.10, no.3 pp.73-89. Hiroshima, Japan (article in Japanese)
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