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

Training and lifelong education

Training is, in the final instance, an eminently educational activity, and both its history and its present status in the Latin American and Caribbean region confirm it. In initial periods, almost all the vocational training institutions of the region made significant efforts to assign priority, on the one hand, to young people not incorporated in the regular educational system, by providing them with training. Moreover, the first institutions which arose in the region had as their main and explicit purpose to structure and manage the training which had so far been a casuistic endeavour, barely regulated, of some expanding industrial sectors. Training was clearly conceived for young people of between 14 and 18 years of age who finished primary education and had no possibility or aspirations to continue in the formal educational system. It was therefore an alternative option to mid-level education, and was initially conceived for the childern of workers who aspired to follow in the steps of their parents.

Originally, the training thus offered was neither recognised in any way nor did it have equivalencies in formal education levels. It was conceived as a completely independent system of training for employment, with no pretensions to a parallel level in the regular system. However, the development of the situation and coverage of the regular education system did have important effects on vocational training. During its initial years, almost all the vocational training institutions were compelled to provide introductory courses for "prior levelling" to provide elementary knowledge of reading, writing, and mathematics which would give the participants the rudiments needed to take advantage of the training offered. Moreover, in many cases vocational training institutions spent their time implementing literacy and adult education programmes, either of their own or through efforts undertaken by the Ministries of Education. In other words, the experience accumulated by the attention paid to disadvantaged sectors, plus the mandate received from the highest spheres of government, made it possible for the vocational training institutions to become among the first sectoral public agencies to be called to promote social policies formulated to achieve equity and overcome poverty, through educational endeavour.

As the result of a substantial improvement of the levels of schooling of the population in general, the vocational training institutions gradually reduced their efforts to implement programmes of prior levelling and adult education, devoting their time to aspects more related to their specific and original mission: training for productive employment. In this sense, the expansion of the coverage of the regular educational systems at the primary and secondary levels allowed these institutions to gradually change the schooling requirements of their candidates for their programmes, particularly the more formally schooled ones, and move their training levels upward.

Nevertheless, in many of the training programmes of the institutions of the region curricula related to mathematics and language still prevail, and on occasion they are the same as should be provided by the regular educational programmes required as a minimum to access vocational training. Indeed, the problems of approach, poor quality or insufficiency in the formal educational area are reflected when vocational training is applied in practice.

The educational nature of training was not exhausted, however, in the mere circumstance of its relationship to the regular educational system. The training provided by the institutions was never restricted to a mere training for a certain job. On the contrary, it always tended towards an understanding of the meaning of work and the environment in which it is carried out, contributing, as well, to an awareness and appreciation of productive labour, through the development of a taste for the occupation learnt, as well as a sense of dignity and professional pride.

Today, both the regular educational system and the various training systems are faced with a new context which poses challenges of great significance. Among them, probably the greatest is the adaptation and updating of curricular content and the certifications offered for the new occupational profiles arisen as a consequence of the transformations occurring in the productive world and the new employment reality.

No doubt this is a situation which has a greater effect on the regular educational systems than on training, which historically has greater linkages to the productive and labour world. That is one of the causes of the progressive closing of the gap between the two systems, as well as of the rise of some of the most innovative initiatives occurring in the region which tend to standardise the supply of training and education on the basis of present occupational competitency profiles.

In any case, there is today a consensus, both at the political level and at that of society, that it is necessary to restructure the supply of education and training in sufficiently flexible terms to provide an answer to the diversity and mutability of the demands for qualification. No one can expect today that the initial knowledge stored in the minds of young people will last them their whole life, since the rapid development of the world requires a permanent updating of knowledge, at a time when basic education of youth tends to prolong itself. Education and training are, indeed, mutating; in all areas a multiplication of training possibilities offered by society is to be observed outside the school, and the notion of specialisation in the traditional sense is being replaced in many modern sectors of activity by that of evolving competency and adaptability.

This is a basically qualitative change. If before it sufficed to transmit certain technical knowledge and certain manual abilities for the individuals involved to be given a job that was waiting for them, now it is necessary to deliver a whole range of competencies which were previously insufficiently stressed: initiative, creativity, enterprise, relationship patterns and co-operation. These have to be accompanied, moreover, by the new technical competencies required, which are relatively less specific than in the past: languages, data processing, logical reasoning, capacity for analysis and interpretation of different codes, etc.

It is thus a priority to provide the means for people to be able to manage their own processes of occupational and vocational development: to find a first job, seek a new one, initiate an enterprising venture, re-train themselves through courses, and train themselves permanently, whether employed or unemployed, in the home or at the workplace. In what seems to be a play on words, at the same time as the concept of "life-long employment" is disappearing, the concept of "life-long training" is emerging. This change in the conception and practice of training involves a series of consequences which it is necessary to highlight:

• In the first place, unlike some decades ago when the dominant trend was towards specialisation, today it seems to be increasingly necessary to be able to count on a series of basic and general competencies, which serve both to perform in working environments with a lesser degree of control and more unforeseen situations which must be resolved on the spot, and to "surf" in a difficult and competitive labour market. The specific training which continues to be necessary is acquired, increasingly, on the job itself, and firms prefer to be in charge of it. The training bodies, and many programmes, begin to approach, both in terms of content and institutionally, the sphere of general or regular education. As the latter is also in the process of being revised, it benefits from this approach to the extent that vocational training provides it with experience regarding its relationship with the productive sector. Said differently, there is a synergy beneficial to both traditions and institutionalities.

• Secondly, responsibility for training is beginning to be shared and it necessarily becomes an area of arrangement and co-operation. If the people no longer train exclusively in the learning centres, but rather do so also in their homes and workplaces, the responsibility for training is shared among training bodies, employers, governments and the individuals themselves (and the organisations in which they take part and that represent them). Thus tripartite management is revitalised and the rise of new forms of training management also benefits. They do not acknowledge unique models: we may be talking of social or political agreements that allow, for example, the development of alternating methods or dual training, as we can also speak of production training centres congested by chambers of employers or unions. There are foundations managed by unions which are financed by employers, as well as national systems with tripartite management. But whatever may be the form adopted, the truth is that the cases increase in which there is an establishment of alliances which make it possible to take advantage of the resources that societies possess through their diverse players, in order to use them more efficiently and at the service of the ongoing and integral training of its citizens.

• In third place, because of its very nature, for life-long training to be possible there must be an extremely flexible and dynamic supply. The progressive blurring of boundaries between branches of production at the level of basic competencies makes for infinite possibilities in terms of the itineraries covered by individuals to reach the same type of employment. It is difficult to standardise the possible demands of these people and the supply of training, to be at the level of these requirements, must be a kind of "self-service menu" where everyone may fulfill their needs for qualification in the most diverse circumstances and periods, as well as with diverse degrees of depth and different content. Moreover, the demands for training have extended and diversified due to factors such as the greater relative importance of the knowledge factor within production; the entry of great hordes to active life (particularly in the less industrialised countries); the reduction of public employment; the workers displaced from firms that are reconverting or have disappeared; or the emergence of new forms of employment and self-employment. To cater to the entire active population, employed and unemployed, of the modern sector and the more backward sectors, formal and informal, youth and adults, is not a task than can be performed efficiently by a single player, even when it has great financial resources (a situation which is moreover infrequent). There is no other alternative, even here, than to seek the dovetailing of efforts through concerted action among diverse players that, from the standpoint of their own specificity and with their own resources, may contribute to structuring a training system which is sufficiently broad, flexible and diverse so as to cater to an increasingly heterogeneous demand for continuous training.

The Inter-American Centre for Knowledge Development in Vocational Training (ILO/Cinterfor)
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