Mexico: Key socioeconomic indicators

Consejo de Normalización y Certificación de
Competencia Laboral
(Council for Standardization and Certification of
Labour Competence)
www.conocer.org.mx

The Occupational Competency Standardisation and Certification Council (CONOCER) is an organization integrated by workers, entrepreneurs, instructors and the federal government that impulses labour competence since August 1995.

CONOCER is co executor of the Modernization project of the technical education and training (PMETYC). This project was implemented in 1994 in coordination with the Secretary of Public Education and the Secretary of Labour and Social Security. These secretaries with the support and participation of the entrepreneur, labour and educational sectors intend to transform the processes of training in the country, encouraging a new relation between enterprise, worker and school.

The mission of CONOCER is to encourage the continuous development of workers through evaluation and certification of knowledge and skills based on quality standards that must cover their performance.

Another important task of CONOCER is to orient education and training towards the needs of the productive sector and labour market.

Its goals are:

• To plan, organize and coordinate the standardization and certification of labour competence system ensuring the quality, transparency and equity of the systems.

• To promote and support technically and financially the constitution and functioning of standardization committees per level of economic activity or competency area in order to encourage the definition of technical standards of labour competence (NTCL) of national character.

• To promote and support technically and methodologically the creation and operation of certification agencies and evaluation centres.

Its functions in the PMETYC are to regulate and operate the Standardization and Certification Systems of Labour Competence.

The Standardization System of Labour Competence has the main objective to promote the creation of technical standards of labour competence, which set up the criteria of a given productive activity. Committees of Standardization define these standards.

The System of Certification of Labour Competence is integrated by the certifying agencies that give the certification of labour competence to students, workers and unemployed and by the evaluation and centres and independent evaluators that verify that candidates are competent.

CONOCER offers, among others, the following services and goals:

1. To offer technical and methodological support to the agencies interested in being part of the network of promoters of labour competence.

2. To promote the creation of Standardization Committees and support its functioning.

3. To endorse the certification agencies that, at the same time, accredit evaluation centres and independent evaluators.

4. To watch over the standardization and certification processes in order to ensure quality and transparency.

5. To guarantee and consolidate the procedures for evaluation and certification.

6. To impulse labour competence in the country.

The Occupational Competency Standardisation and Certification Council (CONOCER) p. 44

in

Cinterfor/ILO: Modernization in Vocational Education and Training in the Latin American and the Caribbean Region Montevideo, 2001.