Report of activities Cinterfor/ILO 2001-2002

REPORT OF ACTIVITIES CINTERFOR/ILO
2001-2002

III. ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT AND RESULTS OBTAINED
IN THE 2001-2002 PERIOD

The first part of this Report includes information on activities implemented and results obtained by the Inter-American Research and Documentation Centre on Vocational Training –Cinterfor/ILO– in the 2001-2002 biennium and up to June 2003.

It follows the Centre’s lines of action for strengthening the institutionality of training; social dialogue and training; national vocational training frameworks and systems; focalised vocational training activities; activities implemented in Uruguay, host country of the Centre; the ILO and vocational training; dissemination of applied training information and knowledge, and administration and finance.

1. BOLSTERING THE INSTITUTIONALITY OF TRAINING

Vocational training institutions (VTIs) have shown in recent years an increasingly developed capacity of adaptation. In the ‘nineties’ after a period characterised by economic transformations in most countries of the region, VTIs had to face a number of challenges and even the questioning of their possibilities of response, their flexibility and resilience.

During the last biennium there have been several successful examples of institutional adaptation and modernisation of training. Cinterfor/ILO has gone along with such initiatives for strengthening institutionality by means of support activities, consulting services and the dissemination of information in areas like management, financing, quality management and the incorporation of new information and communication technologies, among other things.

Management of Vocational Training Institutions

In the course of the 2001-2002 biennium, Cinterfor/ILO provided informative and technical support to decision makers and policy formulators of VTIs for planning, organisation, direction, implementation and control purposes. To that end, information was expanded on the Centre’s web site, that has continued to offer technical documentation on aspects of improved management, such as the analysis of training and certification models, design and implementation of policies for enhancing employability and gender equity, calculation of training costs and dissemination of good training practices.

Different institutional training models were analysed in connection with a related topic, i.e. certification. The Centre published several documents about organisational and structural systems in countries of Europe, North America and the Latin American and Caribbean region. In that respect the Cinterfor Bulletin 152 referred to the subject in articles like Certficación y legibilidad de las competencias (Certification and legibility of competencies). In the series Trazos de la Formación 2002 (Training Features 2002) another article was included on Tendencias en el reconocimiento de habilidades y la certificación. Los marcos de formación basados en competencias desde la perspectiva del Caribe inglés. (Trends in the recognition of skills and certification. Training based on competencies in the perspective of the English-speaking Caribbean).

An exhaustive analysis of the institutional evolution of training in recent times has been prepared by the Centre and published under the title Cambios en la organización y gestión de la formación professional en América Latina y el Caribe (Changes in the organisation and management of vocational training in Latin America and the Caribbean). This document was submitted to the Tripartite Inter-American Seminar on Training, Productivity and Decent Work held at Rio de Janeiro. In view of the interest it awakened, it has been translated into English for dissemination in the countries of the English-speaking Caribbean and other parts of the world.

Publishing effort in support of Management

One of the collections published by Cinterfor/ILO is entitled “Herramientas para la transformación” (Tools for transformation) and includes publications by Rolf Arnold “Formación profesional: nuevas tendencias perspectivas” (Vocational training: new tendencies and prospects), 2002; and the ones coordinated by Anne Caroline Posthuma “Diálogo social, formación e institutcionalidad” (Social dialogue, training and institutionality), 2002; and by María de Ibarrola, “Desarollo social y formación” (Social development and training), 2002.

At the request of various VTIs, Cinterfor/ILO has organised specific activities, like an International Training Course for Employees of the National Institute for Educational Co-operation (Spanish acronym INCE) of Venezuela (October 2002). In co-operation with the Organisation of Iberian American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI) and the German Technical Co-operation Agency (GTZ) it organised and took part in a meeting of Latin American Training Organisations and Institutions held at Santiago, Chile (October 2002). With the ILO International Training Centre of Turin it implemented other activities on similar topics, like labour market information systems and training management. This was done through several courses on such subjects in June 2001 and April 2003.

Activities under the programmes FORMUJER and PROIMUJER were aimed at strengthening institutional capabilities to enhance the quality and relevance of the training offer and systematically incorporate a gender perspective into it, as illustrated in the section on training with a gender approach.

Special attention was paid to certain needs of VTIs, like for instance the calculation of training costs. This refers to the identification of prices for subcontracting programmes between institutions and collaborating bodies that deliver the training. For some VTIs it is also an instrument for internal analysis. Two courses on costs analysis in training were offered via the Internet; some 50 officials from over ten VTIs of the region took part. This experience has been indicative of the importance and interest in e-learning and its dissemination in the region.

Financing of vocational training

The development of vocational training in the region strongly depends on means of financing. It is quite obvious that apart from the basic approach of levies on payrolls, other financial sources have been developed for training. VTIs are constantly making efforts to add to the weight of incomes other than those of workers’ and employers’ contributions. In many cases they have schemes for costs’ retrieval through the sale of products like technological services and specialised training services. In other cases they have fine-tuned management instruments for a more effective use of funds in operational programmes. Costs are scrutinised, administrative components are reviewed and structures reorganised to make the best possible use of revenues.

Along this line of work, the Centre studies different financing schemes, supplies information on the various existing approaches and the way in which they evolve. The most important recent landmark in the field has been the Tripartite Inter-American Seminar on Vocational Training, Productivity and Decent Work. One of the main topics discussed at this meeting, that was attended by representatives of training institutes from practically all the Latin American and Caribbean area, was an analysis of the financing methods applied in the region.

Two documents constituted the basis for this analysis. The first one was entitled The financing of vocational training in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the second one, prepared by the In Focus Programme on Skills, Knowledge and Employability (IFP/SKILLS) of the ILO at Geneva, Investments in Vocational Training. They were both submitted as working papers at the aforementioned seminar held in Rio de Janeiro.

Within the framework of ILO world wide activities through its IFP/SKILLS programme, the Centre has also embarked upon an ambitious study of the Financing of Vocational Training in the case of Latin America and the Caribbean and intends to conduct four country studies in the course of 2003.

Quality of Vocational Training

The enhancement of quality has been a constant goal in the history of VTIs. In the decade of the nineteen eighties a concept centring on internal factors was very much in vogue; curricular design procedures were reviewed, as well as those of teachers’ training, the teaching-learning process and educational management. Nowadays concepts have evolved and lean rather towards current administrative concerns with management and quality.

Our globalised world of the 21st century is increasingly given to a philosophy of standards as its “common currency”. Already in the nineteen eighties trade exchanges had imposed the need for having a generally accepted reference as a pattern for transactions. Buyers first, customers later have increasingly adopted the concept of “certified quality”, and the users of training services in countries of the region have been no exception to the rule. They constantly require greater efficiency and effectiveness, so that many VTIs have made valuable progress in developing quality management and relied on the principle of “doing things correctly from the beginning”.

In the two-year period under review Cinterfor/ILO has given definite support to the efforts and achievements of various training bodies that adopted quality management practices and embarked upon the learning process involved in certification by the ISO 9000 Standard.

The Centre’s web site has a sub-site on the subject, where training institutions can find over 248 files with technical and conceptual documentation. It has recorded more than seventy thousand visits over the two-year period.

Quality management on the basis of ISO Standards was initially applied in the region by the National Training Institute (INA) of Costa Rica. That institution’s pursuit of quality led it to the award of ISO 9002 in 1998 for its service of accreditation of training programmes. The promotion of quality management was further reinforced by the National Industrial Training Service (SENAI) of Brazil, through the development of internal indicators and a national quality award. At present, some 184 SENAI centres have obtained ISO quality certificates.

Mention must be made in this connection of the help offered by pioneering VTIs to others that have just started in the process. In this way the horizontal co-operation objectives that Cinterfor/ILO has always fostered have materialised. The achievements should also be noted of institutions like the Technical Institute for Training and Productivity Institute (INTECAP) of Guatemala, that in 2002 qualified for the ISO 9001 Standard, and the National Service of Occupational Training in Industry (SENATI) of Peru, that having initially qualified for ISO 9000 Standard (1994 version), last year qualified for the ISO 9001 Standard (latest version). Furthermore, SENATI has established a landmark in its pursuit of quality by obtaining overall Quality and Environmental ISO 9001 : 2000 and ISO 14001 : 1996 Standards.

More recently, the SENA of Colombia has been awarded the ISO 9001 Standard for three training centres of its Antioquia Regional Department (National Wood Centre, National Footwear & Leather Centre and National Construction Centre). SENA intends to obtain that Standard for all its training centres before 2006.

Through their support services to enterprises, the above and other VTIs are endeavouring to promote quality management. They train selected employees who in turn start developing a quality strategy within their respective companies.

Another aspect worth noting is the co-operation SENATI and SENAI have given to other training institutes to embark upon this road of certified quality. This has shown how collaboration schemes in the community of VTIs make it possible for accumulated knowledge and experiences to circulate in the network of institutions gathered together round Cinterfor/ILO.

In view of this tendency, Cinterfor/ILO has suggested that the topic Quality Management in Training be analysed in depth at this present Technical Committee Meeting, and has for that purpose drafted a detailed working paper on state-of-the art in that connection, entitled Quality management in vocational training. Use and different applications of standards.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) in vocational training

Since the initial concept of distance training was recognised, VTIs have always been concerned with favouring access of larger numbers of participants to their courses. Barriers used to be of geographical nature but present-day labour circumstances also involve time limitations and the flexibility of contents.

Resources such as television, computerised media and the Internet are being increasingly utilised by VTIs to transmit training contents. Cinterfor/ILO has decided to go along with this component to promote dissemination.

The Centre’s experience in the development, design and implementation of two virtual courses on Costs Analysis in Vocational Training has been the initial step in a task of cumulative knowledge that will be made available to member VTIs.

Cinterfor/ILO has also implemented two virtual seminars in the area of youth and vocational training. Hundreds of actors interested in the subject took part in them, from practically all countries of the region and also from Europe and the United States. The Centre also collaborated with the DELTA Programme of the ILO Turin Centre, supplying contents for its Trainers’ Training Course on the Internet. Video conferencing was also used extensively during this period; Cinterfor/ILO utilised it to provide material for officials at the Turin Centre or in other countries like Peru and Brazil, for training or updating purposes.