Letter of Recife

Occupational Qualification: between the right to education and the labour market

Document approved in the National Seminar on Public Policies of Labour and Education.
Recife, September 22nd and 23rd, 2003. Municipality of Recife (Brazil),
Secretary of Education and Secretary of Economic Development.

Managers of municipal public policies on local development, on labour and income, on popular economy, on vocational education and training, university researchers as well as representatives of civil society institutions, being aware of the historic importance of the present political moment, organized a seminar with the goal of discussing public policies on education, labour and development.

The reflections on experiences emphasised the issue of integration of municipal policies. This made possible the construction of an assessment of the changes and the obstacles in these first months of the new government.

The human being must be at the centre of the policies on development, and this cannot be expressed in quantitative terms. Social development involves all aspects of life: socio-economic, political and cultural relations, which involve class, gender and ethnic inequalities and age/generation differences, to be apprehended in its local, regional, national and global dimensions.

In this perspective of development, public policies constitute key elements in the process of democratisation of the state and in the socialisation of power, economy and knowledge.

The assessment focuses on the achievements and difficulties emerging from the experiences of the Municipalities.

Achievements

1. The experiences on integration between public policies on labour, education and development have the merit of contributing to the inclusion of the issue of Popular Economy in the municipal agenda.
2. On the other side, they are contributing to the introduction of the perspective of local development and of the issue of decentralisation of public policies in the national public debate.
3. In this way, they help to underline the role of municipalities in the federation pact and in the discussion on national development models.
4. They also contribute to the development of specific and more appropriate methods for vulnerable social groups, making public policies more sensitive to social, economic and cultural differences and extending the coverage for those segments of the population. In some cases and in certain actions, which seek to provide universal access to public policies, such goal has been for all practical purposes achieved.
5. Those experiences have promoted different forms of enlargement of popular participation in public management. Some examples are: the construction of joint ventures between City Halls and civil society organizations, the constitution of multipartite forums with public responsibility in various areas (standing out the state and municipal commissions of employment and income) and the creation of popular participation channels in the context of concrete actions.
6. They are also contributing to: the economic, social and political organization of the involved populations enabling policies to move from an assistential approach to the productive (re) insertion of excluded populations; the accumulation of knowledge and data on excluded segments and the public policies related to them; the diversification of the public intervention modes (Peoples' Banks, Public Centres, Observatories, Laboratories); the improvement of the links between increasing schooling and vocational training; and the optimisation of conceptual, material and professional resources.

Main Difficulties/Limitations/Problems

1. It is possible to observe the persistence of centralised practices in the direction of public policies in these municipalities. Also, there is evidence of the presence among public agents of a bureaucratic culture oriented to the compartmentalisation of state organization.
2. There is also evidence of inadequate and insufficient qualifications of the technical teams involved in the implementation of public policies on labour, education and development, standing out the lack of knowledge related to the potentiality of integration between policies. In general, the vocational training programmes do not attend the new demands of qualification generated by the local development policies and the pedagogical projects of those acting in policies related to education do not consider work as the linking principle.
3. The practices of the previous federal governments did not contribute to the linkage between the referred policies and between these policies and the three governmental areas.
4. Yet, there are other limitations, related to the availability of resources, such as: an always present and generalised lack of financial, material and human resources in the context of the municipalities, a structural deficiency of credit policies for local and sustainable development, difficulties related to the access and the lack of continuity of federal resources for the areas of labour, education and development (FAT; etc), lack of specific budget in the context of municipalities for the policies of generation of work and income and of vocational training and education of the young and adults.
5. Furthermore, there are other limitations that stand out, which are related to political aspects. Among them, and despite the advances, there is little consistency in the mechanisms of popular participation and the direction of public policies by civil society organizations (for example: Municipal Commissions of Employment; and the regulations and mechanisms of public management do not acknowledge the new forms of labour (in terms of wages).

Proposals for a better integration between public policies on labour, education and development

From the identification of the achievements and difficulties identified in the integration efforts between public policies on labour, education and development, suggestions and proposals were formulated in order to move forward in the integration process:

The proposals were organized in four levels:

a. Field actions of responsibility of Municipalities
b. Those directed to inter municipality relations.
c. The proposals at the federal level
d. Those that fit in all levels.

a. Proposed actions for the municipalities

1. To promote the creation of working groups between secretaries in municipalities, with deliberation power and systematic meetings with the objective of discussing the interfaces of the public policies.
2. To foresee the strategic planning as an indispensable instrument of structuring of municipal actions, including the location of resources in inter secretaries actions.
3. To seek to integrate scattered actions between public and private organisms, which have the same objective, to counter the loss of efficacy that such scattered actions implied. At the same time, to promote integrated actions.
4. To implement a process of decentralisation of decisions, through the strengthening and the creation of councils and commissions to function as civil society participation channels.
5. To seek to include the conceptual dimension of work in the pedagogical project of the municipal systems of education.
6. To invest in research for the elaboration of adequate methodologies for local and sustainable development.
7. To formulate and implement an effective budget policy for the municipalities that allows, through convenes and resources, an approach of local and sustainable development.

b. Proposed actions inter municipalities

1. To invest in the creation of regional councils of socio economic development, integrating states, municipalities and civil society organizations in order to promote exchange and formulation of integrated public policies. Also, to seek to create regional metropolitan commissions of employment.
2. To create management mechanisms and joint actions inter municipalities based on common problems and potentialities.
3. To create a solidarity network in the public system of employment, among several municipalities, with complementary actions.
4. To seek to create permanent spaces of discussions and formulation of common policies between municipalities and ministries.

c. Proposed actions at the federal level

1. To create from different sources a common public fund for the Ministries of Labour and Employment and Education (FUNDEP - a fund for the development of vocational education), for the financing of vocational education, with shared management (tripartite/multipartite)
2. To create a national forum with representatives of the municipalities, states, and federal levels to formulate, implement and accompany integrated policies, involving several ministries.
3. To formulate and implement a policy of economic and social development for the country guided by the change of the economic model in terms of local development.
4. To discuss system S, specifically paying attention to its management, proposing a structural change in terms of organization, conception and pedagogical orientation.
5. To suggest to the Ministries of Education and Labour and Employment to work on the basis of local assessment with municipalities.

d. Proposed actions for all levels

1. To decisively engage in the development of programmes of qualification of the technical teams involved in the implementation of public policies on education, labour and development.
2. To invest in the democratisation of public policies through joint management, breaking in this way the bureaucratic and compartimental culture of the state machinery and centralised practices.
3. To create specific budgets for the education of young and adults. Investment in schooling is an indispensable condition for the construction of citizenship.
4. To promote the creation of observatories on the situation of labour at the local, regional and national level, together with research and assessment of the socio-economic reality of each region, in order to lay the foundations for the planning/monitoring of public policies of labour, education and development (emphasising and linking their local, regional and national dimensions).
5. To invest in the creation of mechanisms of support to small production, on the perspective of productive chains, solidarity economies and local and sustainable development.
6. To promote (through organisational and technological financing and support) and regulate, in all spheres, the new forms of work (specifically those related to solidarity economy).
7. To invest in the horizontal links between the different levels of government.
8. To create the indicators of impact in order to turn more effective the evaluations of public policies related to labour, education and development taking as fundamental criterion social inclusion.
9. To promote the systematisation, analysis and socialisation of experiences of interaction between public policies on labour, education and development.
10. To promote, as a role for Universities, the production of knowledge and technology and the training of professionals to perform in the public policies on labour, education and development.

Final undertakings

The organization of a commission, which involves the municipalities of Recife, Belem, Sao Paulo, Goiana and Caxias do Sul (a representation of each region of the country) to give continuity to the reflections and networks that began in the Seminar of Santo André (Vocational Qualification as Public Policy ) and were carried on in the Seminar of Recife.

The Meeting was promoted by the Prefeitura do Recife, through the Secretary of Education - SE - and Secretary of Economic Development - SDE.

Organization: IIEP - Intercambio, Informacoes, Estudos e Pesquisas -

More information can be obtained at:

http://www.recife.pe.gov.br/pr/sececonomico/

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