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Chile Joven Programme - Chile
Source: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
Chile Joven vocational training programme was launched in 1990.
The "Chile Joven" programme includes various complementary, flexible subprogrammes that expand the options available to young people: an on-the-job training and work experience subprogramme, a two-track learning subprogramme and a self-employed workers’ subprogramme.
On-the-job Training and Work Experience Subprogramme
The first of these subprogrammes includes
a technical training phase that partially qualifies participants for an occupation (200 hours) and
a job training phase that develops social skills to facilitate young people’s job placement (50 hours).
The beneficiaries then take part in a three-month work experience performing the job learned in a firm, either as interns or with job contracts. The executing agencies include private training firms and corporations, which offer nearly 2,000 courses that benefit some 35,000 young people.
Two-track Learning Subprogramme
The two-track learning subprogramme has a pre-training component that provides remedial instruction in basic subjects (60-120 hours), a training component to complement on-the-job training and develop an understanding of the technology used in the occupation (180-300 hours) and an on-the-job training component in a firm with a teacher-mentor, in parallel with the training component in the technical agency. In this case the beneficiary is a regular worker in the firm and the State provides the firm with a subsidy equivalent to 40% of the minimum wage for the duration of the course. Some 140 such courses are being given, for the benefit of about 3,000 participants.
A Self-employed Workers’ Subprogramme
Lastly, the subprogramme for self-employed workers includes occupational training (80 hours) and management training (at least 100 hours); upon completion of the second component, the student must prepare a project to be financed by the programme’s credit assistance network. The network, in turn, makes two assessments: one prior to the provision of financing, which includes a pre-feasibility study of the project and formalizes the support to be provided with a letter of commitment; and another, once the course has begun, that evaluates the feasibility of the student’s project. At least 50 hours of technical assistance are provided for the projects, and the beneficiaries receive a monthly subsidy of US$ 54 for the duration of the technical assistance phase, up to a maximum of three months.
The programme’s implementation involves numerous actors, both public and private, ranging from the Ministry of Labour to entrepreneurs with a commitment to the training and employability of young people. The applicable rules of the game are competitive, so that even applying to the programme requires young people to exert their own efforts and initiative from the outset. The programme targets young people with medium and low levels of education, and assessments are made of the subsequent labour market participation of the beneficiaries.
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