Basic concepts

The Latin America and the Caribbean scenario has been thoroughly modified during the last few years. Beyond the economic, political and social reforms carried out already, the growing exposure of national economies to international competition has led to greater demands for those who design and those who execute vocational training policies.

The features of economic activities and new social needs have placed training in a central position as regards its abilities to act as an inclusion force, knowledge disseminator, generator of better employment conditions and facilitator of social dialogue options.

In addition, the increasing complexity of nowadays circumstances has also required further efforts from training institutions to be updated and to offer services that are according to demands. The last years of the millennium have also witnessed the frequent modernisation flows carried out by, and demanded from, training institutions.

The progressive introduction of new agents in the training offer, the availability of a mixture of financial sources and the necessary demands of relevance from training programmes are all factors which have played a part in the generation of modernisation processes and institutional transformation.

On the other hand, training users need to know their best offers, those which assure them the highest degree of efficiency. Both businessmen and workers seek efficiency signs. Financial support providers are also interested in the best use of the funds invested in training. Quality-managed institutions are seen as a social guaranty for the efficiency of public expenditure in training. The same logic may be applied to funds coming from the private sector, which should be deposited in organisations that account for relevant and efficient training processes.

Therefore, vocational training institutions are strongly interested in improving the efficiency and relevance of their activities, which has been recently reflected in the adoption of management mechanisms to assure quality.

This trend has been materialised in direction and participation actions which take hold of tools and implement institutional actions aimed at the development of a quality culture. Such actions, usually immersed in a constant improvement’s philosophy or in institutional modernisation processes, imply activities of officials’ training, search for critical factors, clarification of the mission and objectives which lead, on their own, to qualitative institutional improvements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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