INVENTORY OF THE TRAINING RESOURCES
IN VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
POLICY ANALISIS
INTRODUCTION
This
paper presents the results of a review of the training programmes in
the field of TVET proposed by about one hundred universities and training
centres. Its purpose is to answer the following question: which
opportunities exist for the agencies to fulfil their staff skills needs
in the field of technical and vocational education policy analysis?
This research shows that the field of education dominates the supply,
while the training resources that focus on technical and vocational
education policy analysis are scarce.
THE RESULTS
Our
first aim was to make a repertory of the training resources specifically
directed to TVET. Inwent is nearly the only one to offer
a course focusing on the policy level (“Educational policy planning
and research in the field of TVET”). A large majority of the
programmes is directed to the trainers and/or orientation counsellor
and therefore corresponds to the project and/or programme level.
For example, the Asian Institute of Technology presents a course that
“aims to improve participants ability in effective design and implementation
process, managing the human dimensions of training, and using ICTs in
training.”1
On
the other side, some international organizations, as for instance the
European Training Foundation, offer workshops on vocational training.
But they focus specifically on the specific context of one or a group
of countries. The ILO Training Centre programmes on vocational
education specialise on one aspect of training, as for instance quality
management, impact evaluation or competency based training programmes.
Some
francophone training centres propose programmes on ing茅nierie de
la formation (training engineering). The course offered
by the Centre international d’茅tudes p茅dagogiques focuses
on the design, the implementation and the evaluation of training actions
and devices both in the public and private sector. However,
this program lacks specific contents of the policy level analysis.
We
also found out programmes that focus on education and training.
But the review of their contents show that much more attention is given
to the first one than to the latter, which allows us to conclude that
training appears in fact as only a sub-component of education.
The
few results of this first review led us to broaden our research criterion.
First of all, we explored the field of international and comparative
education, for which the supply is wider. This field is “devoted
to the systematic analysis of the operation and effects of the world’s
education systems”.2 This type of training
is directed to a large audience: from teachers to policy makers. Moreover
it is strongly phased with the co–operation agencies strategies: the
programmes that we have reviewed offer specialisation on questions as
conflict resolution, inter – or multi – cultural education, educational
administration, adult education, etc. Do those courses include
contents on TVET? Most of the times, this is not clear, because
they not define what is meant by “education”. Beside this
fact, even if some of the programmes offer optional courses on TVET,
they are centred around education and are therefore not able to satisfy
the demand in the field of TVET policy analysis.
The
same happens with the programmes on education and development, “centred
around frameworks and analysis of education, based on case-study and
experiential accounts, alongside the study of education policy and practice
in a development context”3; with the courses on educational
policies, “designed to provide an interdisciplinary understanding
of today’s policy and practice.”4; and with the programs
on educational management – frequent in Latin America – that aim
at training “the people working in education management at the micro
and macro level, operating on the criterions which orient the practice
of those who take decision in the daily context of the educational institutions
and organisms.”5
We
also looked at the programmes focusing on human resources development
and management. This kind of course is directed to the development
of the staff of both the public and private sector. Focusing
on the skills “in designing, implementing and evaluating training
programs for employees and organisation”6, it focuses on
in-service training at the program level.
CONCLUSION
The
review of training resources available on technical and vocational education
and training shows that the training institutions in their majority
do not consider the latter as a specific field of study, except when
they focus on the training of the trainers and the projects designer.
If TVET is taken into account, it is mainly as a sub-component of education.
In this sense, the supply is not adequate to strengthen the co-operation
agencies capacity in policy analysis and to constitute TVET as an autonomous
scientific and strategic field.
Finally, considering the decentralisation trend that affects the co-operation agencies, it is important to note that the training resources are concentrated in Europe, North America and Australia, with lower intensity in Latin America and Asia, and are quasi absent from the African continent.
