(introduction...)
Changing economic environment
The world is experiencing major changes in patterns of
production and trade as well as dramatic innovations in technologies. Producers
of goods and services are having to operate in a global context where opening
economies to competition is the key to success. This competitive situation is
affecting modes of production. In a more competitive economy, productivity,
quality and flexibility are more important for the success of production systems
than reduced wages. Firms are expected to allocate resources more efficiently to
increase productivity. In order to compete internationally, they have to develop
their technological and managerial systems. And, finally, they are expected to
respond to a competitive environment by producing quality goods and to meet the
demand for new products. These factors demand that labour be highly mobile and
flexible in adopting new skills.
Both developed and developing countries alike are, however,
unlikely to be able to adapt quickly enough to the demands of a more competitive
global economy. This has resulted in the shortage of qualified workers for the
new industries and modes of production as well as in the displacement of labour.
An increasing proportion of the working population of the world is employed in
micro-enterprises of the informal sector. This development is reinforced by a
simultaneous cutback in state responsibility as a consequence of economic reform
policies.
Implications for skill development
Changes in the nature of work, the technologies of production,
and in standards for manufacturing and agriculture have pedagogical and
educational prerequisites. The traditional workplace required teachers to convey
knowledge emphasising factual information. It did not matter that learning was
segmented from the economic and work context. With new and complex inputs to
factor into a production equation, other operations become necessary (complex
literacy skills, writing ability, and basic knowledge of mathematics, science,
chemistry and biology). These so-called ‘hard skills’ are more
important as the workplace seems to be profoundly changing.
Meanwhile mixes of general and technical skills are changing at
all levels as new technologies penetrate not only the urban but also the rural
sectors in the developing countries. There is evidence that many developing
countries are facing the problem of lacking skills that are highly developed
elsewhere. Even at the craft and artisan skill levels, they are lacking cadres
of journeymen equipped to serve as masters to new apprentices.
While general education competencies play a greater part than
ever before in facilitating skill acquisition, in the preparation of students
for further learning over a lifetime, and adjustment to change at all levels in
the economic structure, there needs to be a technical and vocational education
system in place in which schools might provide specialised vocational training
in traditional and newly-emerging skills needed for existing jobs and production
practices, and which encourages self/wage employment and improves its
productivity. With the increasing importance of the informal sector, processes
of training aimed at providing employment deserve more attention. This includes
the question of how technical and vocational training can be designed so as to
be job-specific, vocationally specialised, and directly linked to employment. In
other words: how can education and training contribute to people being better
able to survive in the market and react better to changing market situations?
Shortcomings of technical and vocational education
systems
These changes in skill requirements necessitate that technical
and vocational education systems should ensure an adequate amount and quality of
training. Overall trends, however, point to the fact that public technical and
vocational education institutions often have not had a good record in efficiency
and flexibility and sometimes are far removed from market realities. The
majority of students are pursuing a vocational training that is unlikely to lead
to the full-time wage employment they seek. This is especially the case for
women. There is little or no attempt to cater for the needs of those who wish to
continue living and working in rural areas or those who are compelled to join
the urban informal sector. At the same time, the graduates are out of touch with
the working conditions and technical possibilities in small and
micro-enterprises.
Furthermore, budget allocations to technical and vocational
education have often decreased so dramatically and, in view of the high costs
associated with the latter, the time has come when developed and developing
countries alike have to increasingly consider possibilities of generating
alternative resources for the financing of technical and vocational education
with minimum possible financial support from the government.
The notion of school enterprises
As a result of the above developments, new model schools have
emerged - although entrenched within the conventional formats of institutional
education and training - that are supposed to provide economically useful
qualifications and facilitate their students’ transition into the
employment system in which graduates are able to immediately apply their skills.
The entities established under this perspective include the notion of combining
market production with systematic vocational learning through the concept of
school enterprises. The teaching personnel are compelled to undertake
continuing educational courses to adapt to new market conditions and to
introduce new curricular conceptions adapted to new technological processes. The
introduction of production assumes to bring the school closer to the realities
of life, particularly the world of work, and goes beyond the prevailing thinking
that individual lives are divided into a span of time just to study and another
just to work. It is also justified by the need to find new ways of teaching and
learning so as to increase pupils’ interest and motivation in their
studies. An important aspect of school enterprises is the factor of motivation
for effective learning through combining learning with production, in that the
training underlines the importance of visibility of future returns. Last, but
not least, through the synthesis of education and production, technical and
vocational education institutions are expected to exploit new financing options
for meeting training costs.
The international discussion on school enterprises
During the 1980s, much attention was given to the combination of
education with production at the level of international co-operation in the
field of education. In November 1981, the 3 8th Session of the
International Conference on Education adopted Recommendation No. 37 on
‘Interaction between Education and Productive Work’. It was
recommended that member states should co-operate at various levels in the
development of programmes and practices through exchange of information and
experience, joint experiments and evaluation.1 In 1984, the Ninth
Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers was partly devoted to discussions
on youth unemployment and in this context it was noted that the “criterion
of production units within schools, and the integration of work experience with
formal education” were among “a number of different ways of relating
schools more closely to the world of work...
1 UNESCO, Paris, International Bureau of
Education (IBE), 1982
UNESCO’s International Symposium on ‘Innovative
Methods in Technical and Vocational Education’ held in 1989 in Hamburg,
underlined further the international interest in production-oriented learning
and teaching.2 One of the major objectives was to define elements of
close co-operation between schools and enterprises both at the level of the
educational system and at the level of the process of vocational learning. In
1990, the ‘Working Group on Production Schools’ organised an expert
meeting with specific focus on the theory and practice of production
schools.3 The aim was to gain information on the feasibility of such
approaches, and to develop models of school enterprises and the specific
conditions of their existence in less industrialised countries. The central
motivation was to analyse reforms in didactic and vocational learning with
special reference to school enterprises in industrialised countries and compare
them with corresponding attempts in less industrialised countries.
2 Report of the UNESCO International
Symposium, 1989
3 Arbeitsgemeinschaft ‘Produktionsschule’
(eds.), 1990
A major emphasis in much of World Bank’s lending for
education has been on vocational education, primarily at secondary level.
Initially these loans were concentrated on technical vocational schools and
coincided with the World Bank’s emphasis generally on physical facilities.
But, in the meantime, several factors such as increasing relevance of school
education were pushing in the direction of pre-vocational training in many or
most of the general secondary schools. Findings with respect to the effects of
pre-vocational versus general programmes on subsequent jobs and incomes of
graduates have shown a failure to provide a reasonable financial social return
on the extra costs of the vocational components in the curricula of at least the
technical bias programmes.4 Similarly, the strategy of combining
general secondary education with production have begun to meet with disapproval
among bilateral donor agencies on grounds of high costs, poor service
infrastructure, and ineffective linkages with the labour market. Despite the
present decrease in international recognition given to the idea of
vocationalisation in the context of general secondary education, the principle
of combining education with production continues to remain an important feature
of education and training systems in less developed countries on account of
several reasons which arise primarily from its potential contribution to the
diversification of finance and relevance of learning for everyday life.
4 See the World Bank sponsored study on
diversified secondary education in Tanzania and Colombia. Third World
governments were strongly advised against the inclusion of vocational skills in
the general education curriculum. Psacharopoulos, G. and Loxley, W.,
1985
The assumption that somehow the pre-vocational programmes in the
secondary schools would resolve the problem of unemployment among the young
school leavers rested on the false assumption that schools could substitute for
training linked directly to employment. Educational planners and administrators
often relied solely on existing public training facilities, especially technical
institutions, polytechnics, non-formal training centres and public secondary
schools, to solve the gaps in formation of human resources for economic
development instead of seeking alternative institutional solutions. Moreover,
there was a failure to distinguish between the vocationally specialised and
generally practical in technical and vocational education.
The main questions that many countries face are when and how to
make the transition from subjects that have broad vocational relevance
(language, mathematics, science and practical skills) to programmes that will
prepare individuals for particular jobs or clusters of jobs. Although general
education, which schools can provide, enhances the individual’s
trainability, job-specific training is very important. International experience
shows that such training is most efficiently provided after initial job
decisions have been made and in institutions under, or strongly influenced, by
the ultimate employer. This does not exclude the inclusion of practical subjects
such as teaching of applied science, biology, chemistry or physics, or subjects
such as electronics, nutrition, fundamental health practices and sanitation at
both basic theoretical and immediate practical levels. General education and
practical education are important foundations for change; but so is job-specific
training. In so far as one enhances and complements the other, this is a real
foundation for change. Practical education does not suffice to make
school-leavers both willing and able to become productively self-employed.
Job-specific training is most important for creating self-employment, especially
in the growing informal sector, as well as to meet the new challenges in the
world of
work.
