Job-related Labour Market Education and Training (TAMU)

TAMU started in Dragör, Denmark in 1976. The creator of TAMU and the method used, Consequence Pedagogic, was Mr. Jens Bay, a Danish psychologist. The TAMU system is set up in the framework of the general system, which is labour market training administrated by the Ministry of Employment. The purpose of this job-related training system is to provide participants with skills and social competence which can form the basis for ensuring a job or continuing education in the youth and adult education system.

The target group is young people aged 18-30, who constitute the weakest group in the labour market and the educational system . They do not have any realistic opportunities of obtaining qualifying training under any other legislation because of specific personal and social problems.

The courses are based on practical skills and are carried out on conditions very similar to a real workplace. Technical, vocational and social learning have equal weight during the education. The educational theory applied includes practical work and training in productive work, collaboration with others, discipline concerning attendance, independent work, understanding of quality and social resourcefulness. Courses are organised on the basis of individual needs in the form of targeted action plans formulated by the individual participant and the Centre.

The system is based on modules enabling individual participants to begin and finish training whenever required. The total duration is 30 weeks with an introductory period of 4 weeks, a trial period of 6 weeks in the chosen area and a 20 week period comprising ten modules each lasting 2 weeks. In the case of more than 10 % absence from any module the participant will not qualify and the education programmes will automatically be extended by two weeks. TAMU offers training in the following areas; transport, iron/metal industries, wood-working industries, property maintenance, textile industry, "farming", market-gardening, nature-preservation, catering and cleaning. In addition, general education in areas such as labour market structure, national and global business conditions, the structure of society and existing educational and labour market opportunities are provided. Moreover, competence in basic computer training is given together with courses in first aid and fire fighting techniques.

This method used is the essential ingredient in the TAMU system.. Without this method, TAMU would have been just an ordinary vocational education institution. The Consequence Pedagogic method is a theory about social learning and development. It was mainly based on the philosophy of Existentialism and the thoughts of Jean-Pierre Sartre and Sören Kirkegaard. The method believes in the possibility for each person to make his own choices and to take responsibility for the choice you have made and for the consequences it creates. When this is set into practice it is of extreme importance that the person gets information about the different consequences, of different ways of acting before he makes up his mind of what to do.

After completing the education, participants receives a diploma endorsed by competent trade commission and the Board of Education in line with other qualifying courses offered in the AMU system the official labour market training). Special resources are directed to assist the individual participant in finding a job or continuing further education and training. The basic principle is that everyone who completes TAMU is to have a job. Until a job has been found participants are to take part in activities alternating between practical work programmes and active job applications.

2/3 of the students who have finished TAMU in Denmark during the last 6 years do have work today or are continuing their studies.

EMP/SKILLS - Skills and Employability Department