NN46, September 2011
Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark
Training For Work in the Informal Sector?
By Fred Fluitman, formerly ILO, now consultant, Turin
Email: fred.fluitman@gmail.com
Keywords: Informal sector; training for work; no silver bullet
Summary: Making an all-out effort at boosting skills for people at work in the informal economy of developing countries is not like flogging a dead horse. It may be complicated but it should definitely be worth trying.
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Some 30 years ago there was considerable focus and debate on science and technology as necessary ingredients for the rapid development of developing countries. A major global conference of the sort that would in later years cover various other key issues was devoted to the subject in 1979, in Vienna. Related international institutions, since disbanded, were set up in its wake. While in particular ‘big science’ and ‘high tech’ were called upon to play their part, the ‘small is beautiful’ and ‘appropriate technology’ advocates could also count on a hearing. Indeed, various questions were raised about the technological capabilities of the ‘working poor’, including those in what had come to be designated as the informal sector of developing countries. Initial calls for stepping up conventional vocational training programmes were heeded by a range of donor countries but largely muted both by the relative inefficacy of the interventions and by donors moving on to new areas of interest, such as education for all. The lack of relevance and impact of conventional training programmes gradually led to calls for radically new approaches so as also to bring skills and improved productivity to large numbers of people at work or bound to end up in the myriad of micro enterprises of developing countries.
The idea of training for work in the informal sector has meanwhile become a well-established item on various development agendas. It has been researched, documented in detail, and discussed in prominent circles. Plans, programmes and projects have been developed, funded and implemented in countries around the world. Depending on the place, the idea that ‘the other half’ might also benefit from a well-targeted skills boost has been embraced as a new panacea, or ridiculed, experimented with, ‘mainstreamed’ as part of national education efforts, put into practice with relative success, or mistreated and abandoned where it turned out to be too hard to handle.
While there are undoubtedly cases to show that efforts at skills development for the informal economy made all the difference to certain cohorts of young people, the record is on the whole disappointing. The fact that interventions have often failed to meet expectations does not mean, however, that they were based on wrong premises. Results surely depended on how realistic the expectations were, how appropriate the interventions, and how capable the implementers. In many instances training people for work fared no better than adult literacy campaigns or massive efforts at bringing education to all.
The important thing is, of course, to accept and effectively pursue the principle or the conviction that in order to make a decent living people should in one way or another be gainfully employed and adequately equipped for the purpose. And to insist that this principle also applies, perhaps particularly so, to people at work at low levels of productivity and income, many unseen, ignored or inadequately aggregated in statistics as ‘others’, i.e. those who missed the boat to the formal, organised, structured or whatever-you-call-it economy.
By the same token, asking for evidence of skills development contributing to poverty reduction in informal sectors may imply that without legal proof thereof, one had better forget about investing in such skills. Who in their right mind, may I ask, would close down primary schools for disappointing rates of return, if in fact such rates are measured anywhere and taken seriously? Widespread poverty cannot ever be resolved without large-scale skills development. The question is therefore not whether or not, but how it should be done effectively. And the answer, as so often, depends on more things than most people care to imagine. Silver bullets do not apply!
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Cite article as: Fluitman, F., (2011) ‘Training For Work in the Informal Sector?’, in NORRAG NEWS, Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark, No.46, September 2011, pp. 70-71, available: http://www.norrag.org
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