Skills development in Latin America

1. Skills development in Latin America Reflections to be shared Enrique Pieck Research Institute for the Development of Education Iberoamerican University – México

2. Scheme • A brief overview of the development of SD in LA. • Focus on some policies and programmes. • Special focus on vocational secondary education and youth SD programmes.

3. Objectives • Reflect on skills development policies and programmes. • Look at learnings that can be shared Reflect on what do we want from SD policies and programmes: increase productivity, competitiveness, job incorporation versus develop creativity, autonomy, equity, community development, self awareness, self-fulfillment?

4. Not going to focus on statistics, neither description of institutions or structural organization of skills development in LA countries. • Will focus on some key experiences and processes in order to share some learnings. • We have to aware that contexts are different from one country to the other, so some learnings would have to be recontextualized.

5. Latin America • Social exclusion and poverty (50% - 70%) • Informal sector (Brasil 55%, México 40%, India 86% of the work force). • Unemployment and precarious jobs (rotation, labyrinth trajectories). • Labour deregulation • Meaningful percentage of youngsters that do not study or work. • Young people discriminated in the work market. • Higher schooling in the new generations, but work is the main classifier. • 33% of the adult population has not finished basic education in Mexico. • 7 years average schooling level of the workforce in LA. • Unequal income distribution • Low economic growth (2-3% in Mexico). • Workforce characterized by low schooling and poor incomes. In broadtermswhat distingues the development of SD in LA?

6. SD in LA: 60s • SD focused on the content of the occupations. • Isolated from employment and educational policies. • The target was the person who was an active worker. • Few attention to the informal sector and isolated groups. • Skills development systems and technical education, were the major features of SD in LA. • The example of the SENAI in Brasil: tripartite funds, tax money funded but private sector run. • Senai produced many clones but the others are not run by the private sector.

7. Changes in SD • Welfare state, subsidiary state and trainer state. • 60s: train the work force in order to face the industrialization process (developmentalist model); • Changes in the 70s because there were challenges in the work market and public support for SD programmes (Brasil). • 80-90s: the link with employment policies (SD for groups at risk situations). 2000 • incorporation of other dimensions (gender, citizenship, intercultural, local and sustainable development). • Decentralization • From training for one job to training for employability. • From training for a work post to training for an occupational field. • Moving towards specific groups. • Link with other modalities (SD in schools; SD with AE) • Institutional diversification, new actors. • SD as a means to repair the wounds that have been generated by exclusion. • The widening scope of SD: SD in AE; in self employment and micro-enterprises; in sustainable development; in community urban workshops; for unemployed youth; in integrated programmes addressed to women.

8. The paradigm of SD in LA • The new role of the State: delegate training in the private sector and promotes training (scholarships). • Equity and competitiveness. • SD acquires a new role in employment and educational policies. • Decentralization imposes new roles to local actors and communities. • SD programmes begin to consider productive and social sector demands. • The target changes: the enterprise as a whole, specific groups: women, indigenous, youth. • New financing schemes: bidding contracts, tax deduction, scholarships. • Interaction between the public and private sector. • The interest of the State to organize and regulate the vast array of suppliers of SD • The new emphasis that has been put on vulnerable sectors and specific groups. • The limits of LLL. • Complex approach (citizenship, sustainable development, gender). • Diversification of SD Providers: S, technical schools, universities and SD centres, unions, private academies, private enterprises, consultants, Ngos. • The content of SD is focused on work skills (competencies). • The leading role of Ngos with specific groups (youth, women)

9. Institutions and programmes SD programmes • National Institutes for SD (Senai, Sena). • Technical Education • Vocational secondary education • Public special programmes geared to training and labour incorporation (IDB, World Bank). • SD Ngos programmes addressed to vulnerable sectors. Programmes where training is part of: • Public AE programmes with a training component (Inea, Chile Califica) • Public labour orientation (La Comuna - México) • Social development programmes that have a training component. • Programmes that promote self employment and entrepreneurship that have a training component (IDB). • Cooperative projects with a training component (rural production cooperatives – Ngos.)

10. Integrated programmes • Integrated development programmes where training is introduced as another component. • Sustainable development programmes and ecotourism (Guatemala): intercultural primary and bilingual secondary education; includes SD; community cooperatives (adults and students); promotional services (health, and support to local schools). Productive workshops where students can go and learn trades. From a short technical course, to tackling the problems of SD in a more holistic, comprehensive and systematic manner

11. SD Ngosprogrammes • Community training workshops (links with Ongs and grassrooots organizations) • Sustainable development programmes (indigenous Ongs) • Street children (rehabilitation and trades). • Disabled • Prostitutes (basic education and trades).

12. Brasil • The provision of SD is not well distributed and reflects the inequality of society because of the private run scheme. • “!Customers of their own products, more efficient, advantage of being run like a business enterprise, industrialists would be controlling a system that produces labour for their own enterprises”. • Cons of the tax system: elite schools, no participation from the government or the workers, lack of transparency, funds are getting reduced, absence of evaluations. • Pros: quality image of the courses, demand focus, efficient decision making process, relative stability funds, avoids mismatch between demand and supply. • Without this tax there would be no Senai. • Tax could be preserved on the condition that: i) workers and the government could take part in running the programme; ii) there is an increase in programmes addressing vulnerable sectors.

13. Brasil - Planfor • Expanding SD as part of employment policies. • Innovative in terms of concepts and operational mechanisms. • Outcomes: only a third of persons got a job. Rather benefits such as: social integration, self-esteem improvement, more informed about work market opportunities, better labour performance. How difficult it is getting people to work • Pros: decentralised (75% of the cities were reached, local capacities were enhanced, focus on vulnerable sectors, innovations in methodologies, techniques and teaching materials, tripartite run, demand oriented. • Cons: affected by public debt, bureaucracy, political discontinuity, decentralization versus centralization, SD for the poor, weak links with employment services.

14. Vocationalsecondaryeducation

15. Secondary education in Mexico Lower (13-15) • General, vocational, telesecondary education, workers’ secondary education and adults’ secondary education. Senior (16-18) • A vast array of secondary schools where most of them offer the possibility to follow up university studies.

16. Cons of vocational education • Vocational education are always for the poor. • The curriculum’s vocational orientation does not match the opportunities. • Has low impact on self employment. • Higher pay backs in general secondary education. • Teaching staff lack technical and pedagogical skills. • More expensive than general secondary education. • Precarious material conditions lead to low quality training • Tends to a premature socialization • Schools are torn between academic and vocational goals

17. Pros of vocationaleducation • It is not a matter of having well equiped schools (recovery of community resources). • Teachers are trained the job. • All education has a low job procurement impact. • There are types of local employment whose potential can be exploited. • Though the experiences are not strong ones, they do train people for work and give them confidence in the skills they developed. • With quality vocational training it is possible to achieve basic and technical competencies and impact at the local level. The need to vocationalize secondary education in rural and marginalized contexts.

18. Telesecondary • Research as part of the curriculum • A link with the community • Corporal expression • Communication skills • Education and work alternate. • Trade workshops (bakery, metalwork, agriculture). • Teachers trained within the experience. • Institutional and educational links. • A continuous teachers’ training programme.

19. Whatthe “communitylinkedtelesecondary” schoolsachieve. • Social and work competencies • Work integrated into everyday school life (a well rounded education). • Linkage between theoretical and practical knowledge. • Better achievement in basic competencies (language and mathematics). • Job practices that make students familiar with the world of work • A more elaborated code that enables them to interact better with outside world. • Educational quality in terms of critical skills, a research focused attitude and a sense of community. • Vocational orientation and educationally focused development • Some examples of effective high quality workshops. • Satisfied students who learn. • The work component works better because it is linked to the other components of the model

20. Theimportance of VSE • Critics and research have shown that in good conditions VSE can be effective in terms of addressing peoples SD development needs. • How to expect them to work if there is no quality behind? • What to do with all the children that do not follow up senior secondary education? China • Vocational and technical secondary education contribute to higher incomes. • For rural migrants is effective in raising incomes, more than general secondary education (the problem is less than one in five continues beyond basic education -9 years) • Vocational training adds to income for those with this training.

21. Cons about technical schools • The poor need courses in a hurry, so courses must be short. • With so many courses careful targeting is impossible. • 50% of courses teach no marketable skills, do not lead to jobs. • Hundreds of training centres (quick courses for the poor?). • Huge overall waste of resources. • Access to precarious jobs. • What is the role of this modality of SD?

22. Vocational training (VT)What there is to be learnt • That being the last alternative for many, there is need to add supplements, to enrich the curricula (academic and other dimensions). • That many do want to follow their studies, therefore the need to support (scholarships) and promote education. • That courses as a first in life training have an impact on educational and work trajectories (study follows work). • That it is an opportunity to get a job, social mobilization, to continue studying. • That there is the need to provide quality and increase the impact. • That courses are focused on practice. • That here are those who are interested in a basic training and those who want to develop a profession out of those trades (the need for different strategies). • That if offers an opportunity for those who do not follow up studies.

23. ‘Chile Joven´: a youthfocusedprogramme • Chile Joven: a program sponsored by IDB loans where private and public providers bid for training contracts. Conditions were that courses had to be of quality and firms were committed to hire the students for the same time as the duration of the course. Provides internships in situation of high unemployment. • A programme that meant to be focused but ends up without the focus. • Proyecto Joven (Argentina), Programa de capacitación laboral para jóvenes(Colombia), ProJoven (Perú), Projoven (Uruguay). • Chile Joven ended up being a programme that fostered precarious jobs, few successful self employment initiatives, training agencies that did not provide high quality training. A training programme that does not train enough.

24. Somethingsto share fromyouthfocusedprogrammes? • The macroeconomic context as the major constraint. • To go beyond specific training. • Integrated strategies. • Developing institutional links • Internships • The participation of youth. • Tutorships that help youngsters incorporation in the world market. • Take into account all kinds of youth (indigenous, rural, city slums, migrants, young women with children). • Developing self employment skills. • Developing social and work skills. • Self-employment schemes require training, tutorship and financial support. • Mix training with education (Chile Califica – Jóvenes con más y mejortrabajo - Arg).

25. Where lies the social scope of SD? • SD has tended to privilege the modern sector of the economy. • Even if SD policies focus more on vulnerable sectors (planfor), still SD remains ‘SD for the poor’. • The limits of LLL for countries whose population has a very low level of education. • NGOs as the leaders • No more a ‘no man´s land’ (AE programmes incorporates work and SD programmes focus on vulnerable sectors). • Low returns for investments • Lack of sound work strategies. • The need to focus on peoples’ everyday works and local knowledge. • What happens to the rural areas? • Complex approach. What model or SD are we looking for?

26. What could be learnt • An integrated curricula (Ngos). • The need thus to add new contents to the curricula (computing, attitudes, languages, technical skills) in lower and senior SE. • Participation (Ngos) • A link with the world of work (formal and informal). • Enrich the curricula with gender, environmental and citizenship contents. • Quality (VSE, technical schools and SD in the informal sector). • The link with education (Chile Califica) • Evaluation: going beyond the economic and productive impact.

27. A post reflection • There are certainly important programmes addressed to vulnerable groups, the problem is they pose serious challenges within the field of policy making. • How to institutionalize successful programmes? • How to build policies founded in democracy?