Modernization in Vocational Education and Training in the Latin American and the Caribbean Region

I. New institutional picture of training in the region

Any attempt to describe the ways in which training is currently being structured and organised in Latin American and the Caribbean is inevitably more difficult and complex than it was in the past. Until at least two decades ago, a typology with only three categories was sufficient to represent, in an approximate manner, what was going on in the field of training in most of the countries. The typology was as follows:

• Countries where training was centrally designed, planned and implemented, by a public body, formally dependent on the Ministry of Labour, with tripartite management, financed by a specific levy on payrolls, of national coverage and with varying degrees of administrative and functional decentralisation. Such were, among others, the cases of Colombia (Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje, SENA); Costa Rica (Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje, INA); Ecuador (Servicio de Capacitación Profesional, SECAP); Guatemala (Instituto Técnico de Capacitación y Productividad, INTECAP); Honduras (Instituto Nacional de Formación Profesional, INFOP); and Nicaragua (Instituto Nacional Tecnológico, INATEC).
• Countries where training was dispensed by one or several entities with the same characteristics of the above, but managed by the main corporate organisations of the country. Such were the cases of Brazil (Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje Comercial, SENAC, e Industrial SENAI); Peru (Servicio Nacional de Adiestramiento de Trabajo Industrial, SENATI); and Mexico (Instituto de Capacitación de la Industria de la Construcción, ICIC), and others.
• Countries where training was included among the structures of regular education, specially secondary technical education, without becoming a mainstream trend. Such were the cases of Argentina (Consejo Nacional de Enseñanza Técnica, CONET) and Uruguay Universidad del Trabajo, UTU).

Although it was not an exhaustive typology covering each and every case, the fact was that whatever was left out could be considered an exception. For example in Venezuela the Instituto de Cooperación Educativa (INCE) was a variant, since it was an autonomous body attached to the Ministry of Education, comprising a number of specialised sectoral institutes also connected to other public and private organisations; or else in Peru (Servicio Nacional de Capacitación para la Industria de la Construcción, SENCICO), attached to the Ministry of Housing. In Cuba, the Centro Nacional de Capacitación y Superación Técnica (CENSUT) is another example of a sectoral body dependent on yet another Ministry: the Ministerio de la Construcción.

Already at that time, however, this orderly and relatively simple institutional picture was beginning to show signs of change in the region. In Chile, although INACAP had seen the light as a public institution, as a result of the promulgation in 1975-76 of the Social Statutes for Enterprises and for Training and Employment, the role of training institutions was modified, and the Institute underwent a process of political, institutional and administrative transformation. It broke away from the State and began to act under similar conditions to those of other technical executing agencies recognised by governmental authorities. Simultaneously, the Servicio Nacional de Empleo (SENCE), started operating in 1976 under the aegis of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, as a regulatory, administrative and financial body of the national training system. This was by itself an anticipation of what would later become a regional phenomenon: the greater participation of Labour Ministries in the field of vocational training.

In a similar manner, the Manpower Secretariat (SMO) was created in Brazil under the Labour Ministry in the sixties. Its continuation is today the Vocational Training and Development Secretariat (SEFOR) that seeks to find a new form of State action, promoting the supply (both public and private) and the demand of training through various programmes. Different units and services quickly emerged within the Ministry to deal specifically with the subject.

Partly as a result of the programmes themselves implemented through Labour Ministries, aimed at promoting training at enterprises or targeting specific population groups, an overwhelming supply of private training started to grow, stimulated by a double incentive: public tenders, and training services that were tax deductible.

After these two new elements came into play, the above typology began to change drastically. Training institutions fulfilled the function of providing national guidance regarding policies for the development of human resources, and were at the same time hegemonic in implementing training actions; this situation began to falter. On the one hand, Labour Ministries took a leading part, sometimes displacing institutions, sometimes co-existing with them, so that their predominance declined. On the other hand, insofar as a private training offer emerged, their hegemonic role was put in question.

Considering just the appearance of Labour Ministries on the training scene as leading players, two further categories have to be added to the former typology:

• That of countries (like Chile) where the national public institution (INACAP) becomes a private body comparable to any other in the market -at least formally- and where the Labour Ministry (LbM), through a specialised service (SENCE) lays down the rules of the game in connection with training supply, offers special programmes for certain population groups and manages a system of tax incentives to encourage training demand.

• That of another group of countries (like Brazil) where also the LbM, through a specific unit (SEFOR), assumes a central role in the setting of guidelines for training and the development of human resources, manages training funds and conducts programmes for different populations, or promotes the implementation of training projects by other agents (like trade unions), along with the activities that the older institutions (SENAI, SENAC, SENAR or SENAT) continue to carry out.

The growing complexity of the regional training scenario does not come to an end here, however. In all countries of the region productive and labour players have shown a renewed interest in the management of funds and resources allocated to training. Many entrepreneurial organisations –as well as trade unions– have at some time or other questioned the way in which national training bodies were being managed. In some cases, criticism has led to processes of deep institutional transformation, it has adapted institutions to new challenges and requirements that had been raised (case of the INA of Costa Rica). In others, the process culminated in a modification of the nature of institutions, which from public and tripartite turned into private and non-profit, managed directly by national or sectoral corporate chambers (case of INFOCAL, Bolivia).

 

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