Poverty. Growth and Training Development
in Latin America and Caribbean Countries

The Labour Ministries, that have managed to become central players of many national training and employment systems are, undoubtedly, the most visible institutional manifestation of the new logic to deal with the subject of vocational training social policies.

The programmes managed by the labour authorities are, in good measure, responsible for the dynamism acquired by the private and non-governmental supply of training. As projects such as "Chile Joven" for training and employment of young people, or the "Cinco" programme for technical assistance and training for micro- and small enterprises in Uruguay - to name only two - begin to be implemented, a clear stimulus arises for private institutes and academies or non-governmental organisations to start developing a specific supply for these sectors with the purpose, even though an initial one, of taking part successfully in public bidding processes.

This multiplication and diversification of the training supply constitutes, without a doubt, a new potential in society to deal with the challenge to provide coverage to a demand that is also greater and more heterogeneous. As this supply is organised and acts within the framework of policies guided by the Labour Ministries, a gradual approach to national training systems would be expected. For the time being, however, only systemic features exist in some countries, provided by organisation around financing schemes and a certain homogeneity of the processes which serve to develop training actions.

One of the factors that have been undermining the consolidation of training systems under the guidance of the Labour Ministries lies in their relatively weak institutionality. On the one hand, the executing function, exerted by private and non-governmental supply, has taken a long time to strengthen and act efficiently within the framework of the new public policies. Even in countries with greater experience with this kind of policy it has been necessary to traverse a long period in which actions both as a stimulus to their emergence and a later trimming of the agencies supplying training have been needed. It is the same road being travelled or beginning to be travelled by other countries where it is not possible to really speak of a private training "market," which raises questions regarding the features that the policies will assume during the transition periods.

Box: Retraining programmes in Latin America: some evidences*

On the other hand, the governing function of the Labour Ministries has never been free from questioning and, above all, has been too linked to the political changes and those of approach presupposed by the various changes in the national administration. Thus, on some occasions, there has been an attempt to link the orientation of the incipient systems more to the strategies designed by the economic authorities or, on the contrary, they have been considered a special function of the education systems.

To summarise, although the action of the Labour Ministries has done much to link training to active employment policies, to stimulate the diversification of the supply and the growth and qualifications of training demand, as well as to promote the emergence of new arenas of dialogue and management with the participation of the labour players, it is still a case of weak institutionality that is not yet acquainted with the stability levels which formerly characterised the VTI's. This makes the future of this emerging institutionality somewhat uncertain, and hampers further development allowing other kinds of requirements to be addressed: the establishment of training itineraries, the adequate use and advantage taken of existing resources and knowledge in other institutional areas (VTI's, technical schools, etc.), investment in innovation and transfer of technology, among other relevant aspects.

The VTI's are, in turn, the player that has remained located in the centre of the discussion and, as well, has been most affected by the changes undergone. The questions that have been posed regarding them, often taken out of historic context, have ended up hiding a dynamism and a will to transform that could well be considered a part of its most praiseworthy tradition. It is, moreover, a particularly complex task: the VTI's have not only had to continue attending simultaneously to the economic and social imperatives: they have also had to adapt their strategies of action in such a way that efficiency might be increased to obtain an active complementation with other players.

The present situations in the region in this respect are diverse. There is a first group of countries in which the VTI's, with all their limitations, are the only system to attend to groups in a poverty situation with an important capacity for action. In these countries, the most similar thing to a private training supply is in reality a fragmentary and dispersed universe of agents, without adequate quality controls regarding training actions and without guiding criteria to develop a medium and long-term strategy. To set aside the only social capital, consolidated with much effort and time, in the field of vocational training can only augur, in these cases, an irreparable loss.

A second group of countries has a private and non-governmental supply that is important in numbers, at least sufficient to allow a certain trimming or weeding of this type of supply until acceptable quality levels are reached. When there is also a VTI with long experience, capable of acting at the national and investment level in strategic aspects such as curriculum development, training of trainers, innovation and transfer of technology, the panorama is particularly promising. Several VTI's have been developing new institutional arrangements which allow them to increase their capacity of execution and improve their coverage, by means of shared management schemes and co-operation centres located, precisely, in the private sphere. This allows appraisal of the development of veritable training "systems," through the concurrence of public and private players, with immediate answers to urgent problems, although also with a capacity to think and act strategically in the long run.

There is, in the third place, a third kind of situation: that of the countries where the VTI has disappeared or, rather, has been privatised, resolving, among other dilemmas, that of simultaneous attention to economic or productive objectives, jointly with those of social integration. The fact that there is a finished transition of models does not imply, however, that the discussion around the very institutionality of vocational training is over. How to achieve the use of the tax franchise mechanism by micro-entrepreneurs of the formal or informal sector, how to achieve an effective impact on the most difficult poverty communities by youth training and employment programmes, or how to manage to continue, through training itineraries, the basic training provided by those programmes, become crucial matters and the object of corrections and reforms.

The corporate organisations and the trade unions are, as has already been mentioned, players that, based on transformations undergone in the economic and social context, the labour markets and the approaches applied to the organisation and management of production and labour, have increased their participation in the field of vocational training. It can be said that the labour relations systems have incorporated training as one of their central subjects for negotiation. However, the discussion taking place in this framework does not take into account, at least directly, the role of vocational training in the strategies of the struggle against poverty. This is to do with the characteristics of these players and the transformation processes themselves that they are undergoing.

The entrepreneurial player tends naturally to focus its attention on the contributions vocational training may make to objectives such as quality and productivity. Discussion regarding the social responsibility of firms, although existent, is still incipient in the region. The union player appears, on its part, tied frequently to its historical features as organisations that represent workers active in the formal sector, still having a strong industrial identity and being mainly male. The growth of the informal sector, the magnitude reached by unemployment and, within the latter, by long term unemployment, the increase in women in the labour force and the loss of the relative importance of the industrial sector, makes it necessary for the union player to face major challenges if it wishes to maintain its effectiveness.

Thus the intervention of these players in training actions, the priority objective of which is to attend to groups in a poverty situation, is still limited. Withal it is necessary to point out that there are some innovative experiences that seek to encompass within their field of action sectors marked by certain types of exclusion.

To act among unemployed workers or those of the informal sector is, probably, a crucial issue for unions. However, it never ceases to be a complex task full of pressures for the organisation and its leaders. In this complexity, vocational training appears to be a key that several unions show an inclination to use increasingly. This occurs, almost always, within the framework of public programmes. Some unions have embarked on innovative experiences, financed with public funds, that address the re-qualification of unemployed workers, as well as young people and women.

The firms participate mainly through the expedient of offering job internships to young people, although it is also possible to find examples of educational, technical and vocational training centres managed by boards addressing young people from poverty sectors.

Box: Chile: corporate management in rural training

An analysis of what has occurred with the private and non-governmental supply of training and skills development reveals a series of disfunctionalities that, in arrangements in which the execution of the quasi-totality of the training actions are basically entrusted to it, has made necessary the introduction of a series of corrective measures. One of these disfunctionalities lies in the tendency of this type of supply to address almost exclusively the trade and services sector. Although this sector grows sustainedly in all the economies, this bias would be due more to a problem of the costs and investments necessary to implement courses, notoriously lower in the majority of courses for the tertiary sector than for the industrial or agricultural sector.

On the other hand, and as has already been mentioned, it is also a sector that has developed under the protection of certain public policies that subsidised and stimulated the emergence of a private supply: training and development programmes for special populations (young people, women, micro-entrepreneurs, persons demobilised from armed conflicts, etc.); and subsidies for the execution of training actions on the part of firms. It can be said, therefore, that the private training market arises in most cases as a result of a substantial change in the way the State intervenes in the matter: withdrawal of state action on the level of direct execution of training, and stimulus and subsidy of private supply.

To the extent that this change in the role of the State and this delegation of functions does not occur in the context of a pre-existing private supply, but rather that the latter arises precisely from a change in the forms of public intervention, features of weakness have appeared in the market in many cases: low course quality, lack of adaptation to the requirements of firms, instability of supplier firms, etc.

Obviously, this kind of problem must be appraised in the context of a process, by virtue of which, and in the medium term, both a weeding and a consolidation of the private training supply may be apparent. However, there are at least two dimensions that, even on the assumption of this consolidation of the private training supply, tend not to be duly attended to by the latter and require, also, corrective measures.

The first dimension involves the satisfaction of certain requirements the attention of which is not immediately profitable. Typically this refers to the provision of training services to the least favoured and most disadvantaged population groups. Except when - once again - there is a specific line of financing by the State of a supply for these groups, it is difficult to believe that entities that in most cases seek a profit will devote themselves to them.

The second aspect that presents potential problems in a model that is entrusted strictly to the supply of private training, is that the training services, to make sense and be useful, need at present to be supplemented with other activities and services. Only training that is deeply involved in the processes of innovation and transfer of technology, that is understood and developed within the framework of existing labour relations in a society, and that seeks long term training objectives, effectively achieves an optimum of relevance, quality and adequacy regarding productive and social requirements.

Box: Mexico: training for micro, small and medium-size enterprises

Non-governmental organisations, in turn, not guided by profit objectives and addressing in many cases the promotion of social and economic development of certain groups or communities, seek in several experiences precisely to facilitate access to training and skills development. Interesting methodological and conceptual innovations are to be found there which have frequently obtained an answer from other areas. The problem in this case is of a different nature. To the extent that this type of organisation works on the basis of limited financing and in many cases with volunteer human resources, they are submitted also to a certain degree of instability and more than a few experiences culminate successfully during a certain period only to later prove to be unsustainable.

Both types of players - private supply through institutes and academies, and social, community and non-governmental organisations - must therefore be considered as part of the new scenario of training and skills development, although mainly in that which refers to the level of execution of actions.

(Table of contents)   (Foreword)  (Vocational Training: between productive policies And a social policy)  (Changes in socio-economic geography and their equivalent in the institutionality of vocational training)   (Competing paradigms?)  (Implications of Institutional Transformations for the Vocational Training Players)  (Training and poverty: Outstanding features of the most innovative experiences)  (Lessons Learned)

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