Connecting education and work: Vocational streams and the capabilities approach

1. Connecting education and work: Vocational streams and the capabilities approach Mary Leahy L.H. Martin Institute mary.leahy@unimelb.edu.au

2. Overview • Introduction • Context – Government’s response to social, political and economic imperatives • Vocations, vocational streams and capabilities – a quick scan of the literature • Defining and understanding the relationships – findings and discussion • Implications for policy • Conclusion

3. Introduction • NCVER project ‘Vocations: the link between post-compulsory education and the labour market’ • Conceptual analysis • Part of the development of a theoretical framework

4. Context - Government’s response to social, political and economic imperatives • The Australian Governments seeks to build a more highly educated population to • Improve productivity rates • Increase innovation • Increase social inclusion • 10 year reform agenda includes improvements to pathways through tertiary education • Assumption that a more highly educated population will be more productive, innovative and have higher rates of social inclusion • Nature of the education • Structure of the labour market • Relationship between educational and occupational progression • Level of inequality

5. More context - pathways • The promise of pathways is seductive • Second chance for early school leavers • Opportunities to change career or progress to a higher level position • However pathways • A long way around for working class kids • Cannot really address inequalities • NCVER project findings • Links within education and between education and work are weak • Second qualification is more likely to be in the same sector • Most VET graduates employed in a job that doesn’t correspond to their qualification • Australian labour market characterised by stasis and occupational segregation

6. A quick scan of the literature • Pathways are a series of transitions • Transitional Labour Market (TLM) approach • Transitions require support to be successful • Institutional arrangements may facilitate or hinder successful transitions • Focus on the life course • Capabilities approach (Sen and Nussbaum) • Alternative to flawed theory of utilitarianism • Focuses on what people need in order ‘to be and to do’ to live the life they have reason to value • Set political goal as capabilities rather than functioning • Appreciation of the corrosive effect of entrenched disadvantage • Intrinsic value of people • Humans are social beings

7. Drawing implications from the literature • Important to provide people with the skills and knowledge for ongoing employment and social membership • Narrow job-specific training cannot • Prepare people for a changing labour market • Equip and empower people to find better ways to do their job (innovation) • Shift to a higher level of abstraction • Vocations – a group of occupations in the same broad field and involving a related set of practices • Vocational streams – bring together linked occupations and related educational programs centred on a set of practices e.g. care

9. Implications for policy • Stronger rationale for educational and occupational pathways • Emphasises commonalities between the occupations in a vocational stream • Easier to identify educational and occupational pathways • Pathways based on a broad field of practice • Expand opportunities • Employers who will be able to draw on a bigger pool of potential employees • Individuals to move horizontally and vertically • Individuals prepared for a career not a specific jobs • Help school leavers make decisions about study and employment

10. Conclusion • The conceptual framework of vocational streams underpinned by the capabilities approach • Shifts attention to the development of a person’s attributes, knowledge and skills • Shifts attention away from a specific set of job tasks and roles • Highlights the need for social, cultural, economic and political resources