Report of activities Cinterfor/ILO 2001-2002

6. THE ILO AND VOCATIONAL TRAINING

An auspicious fact in recent times has been the greater involvement of the ILO in the field of vocational training in the region. Both the ILO services at Geneva Headquarters and in the region itself through the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, are increasingly relying on the Centre as supplier of specialised technical co-operation. In consequence, Cinterfor/ILO has been contributing to the work of the ILO in the region and in the world at large; whenever vocational training issues need to be dealt with in official documents of different kinds, the Organisation’s technical services request the Centre’s collaboration. Cinterfor/ILO has been providing substantial inputs to the InFocus Programme on Skills, Knowledge and Employability (IFP/SKILLS) since its inception, through studies, analyses, meetings, support to tasks in connection with Recommendation 150 and the development of training as an instrument to promote employment, improve productivity, decent work and equity. Decisive importance have also had the Centre’s two-way arrangements with various offices in the region and Spain whereby, on the one hand it supplies services whenever they require them, and inversely it can perform its tasks with technical and financial resources provided by those offices, especially at country or sub-regional level.

Interaction and coordination of Cinterfor/ILO with Headquarters has been critical for the Centre’s work: it has helped it in accomplishing its specific mission and has enabled it to broaden its theme and geographical scope, paying better attention to its member organisations and obtaining more effective and lasting results.

The support of the ILO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean and IFP/SKILLS has enabled the Centre to contemplate a more ambitious and geographically more extended action programme in the period under review. Their main joint activities were implemented in areas such as Training based on competencies, Quality of training, Productivity, Decent work, Young people, Gender, new information technologies, E-learning, and others. In the framework of this co-operation, the Centre was called upon to provide technical assistance in the planning, and basic and logistic organisation of events, as well as to coordinate their implementation and follow-up. It has also been required to carry out research and studies and prepare technical documents that in most cases were used for analysis and reflection at those events.

One of the main activities implemented in the framework of this co-operation was the Inter-American Tripartite Seminar on Vocational Training, Productivity and Decent Work. That event generated updated documentation on the state of the art in those subject areas, that was made available to governments, employers and workers on the Cinterfor/ILO website. The outputs of this tripartite event were recorded in several publications, among them the Cinterfor Bulletin 153 on Vocational Training, Productivity and Decent Work; a book in English on Training, Productivity and Decent Work, co-published with IFP/SKILLS in the Cinterfor/ILO Series Trazos de la Formación (Training Features). This book includes articles and papers on training, decent work and other related topics.

Qualitative impact on the achievement of ILO strategic objectives

1. Widespread dissemination to all training actors of the ILO strategic objective of making up for the shortfall of decent work and providing equal access to it for men and women. Through the co-financing of regional activities and the support of the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean and IFP/SKILLS the Centre has contributed to disseminate the concept of decent work and, more than that, it has forged a link between Vocational Training and Decent Work. The training institutions of several countries have started to propagate the notion internally through their training programmes. Such has been the case of participation in the training of VTI officials in Venezuela (INCE), Colombia (SENA), Honduras (INFOP), etc.

2. Adoption of measures to promote a gender perspective in aspects such as greater and more favourable access of women to employment and training opportunities, and attending to the specific needs of women affected by poverty. Many institutions have received information on policy formulation in this respect.

3. The development and strengthening of Cinterfor’s website has allowed a greater number of users and institutions to access the publications and training materials on vocational training of the Centre, satisfying the growing importance granted to improved access to training, witnessed by the number of training bodies concerned with the recognition of competencies, improvement of certification procedures, incorporation of social dialogue, etc.

4. Permanently increasing interest in the application of information and telecommunication technologies to training, that is reflected in new training offers via the Internet and a growing demand for information and technical co-operation in the subject.

The Centre was also able to meet the requirements of vocational training institutions in connection with occupational competencies in various countries of the region, with the added advantage of pioneering in the incorporation of a gender slant to them. Such contributions were made along the lines of some of the strategic objectives of IFP/SKILLS to broaden access opportunities to training, give greater effectiveness to training investments and modernise education and human development systems in the region. By way of example, we can mention technical assistance offered to Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Honduras, Paraguay and Venezuela and participation by the Centre (through presentations or educators) in a diversity of activities organised by national institutes and the Turin Centre, and conceptual and implementation contributions to an occupational project for the improvement of competencies for employability within the FORMUJER Programme.

Main regional and sub-regional events held in co-operation
with the ILO

- Technical Meeting: Employers and Vocational Training in Latin America and the Caribbean, Santa Cruz, Bolivia, April 2001. With the support of the ILO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean. Cinterfor convened employers’ organisations to record and analyse their experiences in training management and administration.

- Sub-regional Seminar on the role of Trade Unions in the Promotion of Youth Employment in the MERCOSUR, Montevideo, March 2001. Cinterfor prepared a Guide-Manual to be analysed during the event.

- Training Seminar on International Labour Standards, for Magistrates, Jurists and Law Professors, Montevideo, May 2001. The Centre was in charge of material and logistic organisation of the event, and supervised its development.

- Sub-regional Tripartite Meeting on Employment, Training and Occupational Competencies, Cancún, October 2001. Cinterfor provided technical and financial assistance.

- Workshop on Competence-based Curricula Development, Barbados, November 2001. A Cinterfor consultant addressed two subjects: 1. Experiences in training and certification by occupational competencies in Latin America, and 2. Basic concepts of evaluation based on competencies. Cinterfor provided financial support.

- Course on International Labour Standards, for Magistrates, Jurists and Law Professors, Santiago, Chile, April 2002. A Cinterfor specialist participated as speaker.

- Inter-American Tripartite Seminar on Vocational Training, Productivity and Decent Work, Rio de Janeiro, May 2002. Cinterfor provided support in the planning, organisation and coordination of the event. It prepared three documents for analysis and discussion.

- Course on International Labour Standards, for Magistrates, Jurists and Law Professors, Santo Domingo, July 2002. A Cinterfor specialist took part as speaker.

- Strengthening National Vocational Training Policy in the Caribbean. St. Lucia, September 2002. Cinterfor/ILO submitted selected documents in English on Training, Productivity and Decent Work and a Cinterfor consultant gave a presentation on national qualification frameworks and institutional training models in Latin America (Policy frameworks. The Latin American Experience).

- Regional technical seminar of the Project “Incorporating a Gender Dimension into Policies for the Eradication of Poverty and Employment Generation in Latin America”. March 2003. Cinterfor prepared and delivered a module on vocational training.

- Workshop on Community Based Training. Kingston, May 2003. Cinterfor offered financial support and a speaker for the session: Selected Latin American Success Stories in CBT: Lessons learned.

With the support of IFP/SKILLS, Cinterfor/ILO began research on the application of information and communication technologies to the learning process, and implemented its initial experiences of training via the Internet. In 2002, it held four virtual events on its website on vocational training costs, youth, training and employability. It has devised a project document aimed at equipping the Centre with capabilities to generate and disseminate e-learning programmes among actors interested in the subject, and to improve the access of young and adult men and women workers in situations of economic and social vulnerability to skills development programmes.

The ILO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean has also backed the Centre by financing activities in the area of Quality of Training: Strengthening the Training of Workers and Employers, and in the promotion of Social Dialogue. It has likewise used Cinterfor/ILO as a reference regarding Youth matters. Co-operation with the Offices in Buenos Aires and Santiago has considerably facilitated the implementation of ILO activities connected with training in Uruguay and other MERCOSUR countries. Collaboration with the ILO Sub-regional Office for the Andean Countries has materialised through the technical support of Centre experts in matters of social dialogue, collective bargaining, training based on occupational competencies, gender and training in general in those countries. Early in July 2003, another joint effort with the Sub-regional Office for the Andean countries took place in Ecuador, in the area of training policies and the new institutionality of training. A wide variety of joint activities were carried out with the Sub-regional Office for Central America, in coordination with the Vocational Training Expert, and mainly in the areas of training based on occupational competencies, institutional transformation and gender. Joint activities in the same field were implemented with the Mexico Office in countries of its jurisdiction. For example, joint support was offered to courses on standardisation, training and certification of occupational skills with the Turin Centre in Mexico City, Torreón and Saltillo, and others. The Mexico Office is the one with the largest sale of Cinterfor/ILO publications in the region. The Brasilia Office has had Cinterfor/ILO collaboration in the areas of training based on occupational competencies, young people, integration of persons with disabilities, etc. Co-operation with the ILO Sub-regional Office for the Caribbean, at Port-of-Spain, has been particularly fruitful, especially with its HRD and Vocational Training expert. No less than three sub-regional seminars were held jointly with IFP/SKILLS and/or the ILO Sub-regional Office for the Caribbean at Barbados, St. Lucia and Jamaica. The invaluable co-operation of the Madrid Office has channelled co-operation received from Spain through its Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, its National Youth Institute and organisations like FORCEM and Spanish workers’ and employers’ unions. The main activities implemented in this collaboration took place in the areas of young people and social dialogue, workers and employers.

Main events held in co-operation with the Turin Centre

- Evaluation and follow-up seminar of Virtual Course-Workshop: The Cycle of Work and Health. Montevideo, May 2001.

- Tripartite Course on Standardisation, Training and Certification by Competencies. San Salvador, May 2001.

- Training Seminar on Training in International Labour Standards, for Magistrates, Jurists and Law Professors, Montevideo, May 2001.

- Evaluation seminar of the impact of activities carried out by ILO ACTRAV with the PIT-CNT of Uruguay. Montevideo, May 2001.

- Course on Labour Market Information and Management of Education and Vocational Training Systems, June 2001.

- Course on Standardisation and Certification of Competencies, Belo Horizonte, October 2001.

- Workshop on Competence-based curricula development, Barbados, November 2001.

- Course on International Labour Standards, for Magistrates, Jurists and Law Professors, Santiago, Chile. April 2002.

- Sub-regional Course on Standardisation, Training and Certification by Occupational Competencies, Tegucigalpa and Mexico. April 2002.

- Trade-union training in Information Technologies. Turin, April-May 2002.

- Encounter on Competency-based Development of Human Resources. Torreón, Mexico, July 2002.

- Strengthening National Vocational Training Policy in the Caribbean. St. Lucia. September 2002.

- Course on Management of Training and Certification Systems based on Occupational Competencies. Turin, September 2002.

- Course on Management of Vocational Training Systems. Teleconference on occupational competencies. November 2002.

- Course on management of Central American Vocational Training Institutions. Teleconference on labour market information and VT planning. November 2002.

- Closing Seminar of Southern Cone Project : Trade-union freedom in the Ports Sector. Montevideo, December 2002.

- Trainers’ Training Course offered by the DELTA Programme via the Internet.

- Seminar on International Labour Standards in trade-union freedom and collective bargaining and ILO control procedures for air transport sector workers in Southern Cone countries. Montevideo, December 2002.

- Course on Employment and Competencies’ Development. Teleconference on Coordination of labour markets, vocational training and employment services. April 2003.

- Seminar on International Labour Standards, for Magistrates, Jurists and Law Professors. Lima, May 2003.

- Human resources’ management by competencies. Methods and techniques. For managers of SEP institutions. Mexico, May 2003.

- Human resources’ management by competencies. Methods and techniques. For VTI managers, enterprises. May 2003.

The closer ties of Cinterfor/ILO with the International training Centre at Turin are reflected in their increased co-operation, larger number of joint events they have held, courses and workshops at national, sub-regional and regional level, participation of Cinterfor/ILO with instructors in courses offered by the Turin Centre, preparation of materials for a course via the Internet, etc.