Session Information
02 SES 02 B, International Perspectives on VET I: Skills
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper reports on the first stage of an international, multi-disciplinary research project (www.phzh.ch/skillsforindustry) that is examining the factors that help or hinder technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in low and middle-income countries to contribute to inclusive industrial growth and transformation. There are six countries in the comparative study: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Laos, South Africa, and Vietnam.
The research derives from the current context in which many governments of lower income countries and international donor agencies have greatly increased their support to TVET. This renewed interest in TVET can be seen as a response to high rates of youth unemployment in the Global South. Given the important role of manufacturing and industry in job creation and economic transition, a significant proportion of TVET programmes cater to this sector. Historically, countries with strong TVET systems have had also strong manufacturing sectors. While the research available on the role of TVET programmes in industry has been overly concerned with tracing graduates and making inferences about life time earnings and company benefits in the light of human capital theory, we propose to look at this linkage in more comprehensive and holistic fashion. We argue that what is required is the establishment of a political economy of skill formation systems and the linkage of these systems to country as well as company growth and transformation. We are therefore attempting to address what we see as a blind spot in research, but at the same time an issue which is of high importance in the development context.
The research attempts I) to understand the linkage between TVET and (inclusive) company growth as embedded in a broader socio-historical, institutional context, which is highly relevant for how we try to understand and analyse this linkage; II) to focus on the collective and complex consequences – on the company level – of vocational training. For example, hiring specifically trained workers might influence the overall management and structuration of work processes and therefore changes the work environment of the workforce as a whole; III) to acknowledge that TVET regimes and companies operate within a global framework and that processes on this level cannot be neglected in the analysis.
In order to grasp the embeddedness of the linkage empirically we make use of concepts originating from the theory-based evaluation tradition and develop them further. Consequently, we also hope to contribute to research literature on evaluation of vocational education programmes.
In the paper, we start with a brief overview of the research project and a mapping of the related key theoretical issues and methodological debates. Secondly, we present some key findings from the research completed to date, which is a company survey in each country. Thirdly, we outline the methods to be employed in the upcoming fieldwork.
Method
The design of the project has two broad phases over a six-year period, each phase having one distinctive objective. Phase 1 (2017-2020) analyses the contribution of TVET programmes to inclusive industrial growth and transformation at the company level. Phase 2 (2020-2023) examines the factors which hinder or help TVET programmes to contribute to industrial change and transformation. In this paper our focus is on the first part of Phase 1. Most existing evaluations of TVET programmes study the impact of these programmes at the level of individual actors: Who is benefiting from TVET programmes? Who is getting the returns on investment? This is especially true for the development context, where the net effects of interventions are seen as highly relevant. This approach lends itself to tracer studies and (quasi-)experimental designs, which are still seen as the gold standard of scientific inquiry in this context. While the use of quasi-experimental designs in complex systems has been extensively criticized, the real problem is that such approaches cannot shine light on the process of change. One cannot infer what actually happened from the research results, even if issues of internal and external validity are taken care of. However, if we want to learn from existing interventions understanding the process of change is vital. In contrast to the more traditional approaches, we suggest an alternative way of examining the linkage between TVET and company growth and transformation. Rather than basing our analysis on positional gains/losses of single actors, we focus on the change in work organization and production processes brought about by introducing employees with specific skill sets in the workplace. We are therefore interested in the collective consequences of skill development in complex systems. This does not only include examining generative mechanisms, which underlie these changes – to which traditional approaches are remain blind – but also contextual factors. Consequently, the project uses a theory-based evaluation framework inspired by realist evaluation and contribution analysis. This framework emphasises the need to understand context and mechanisms in order to explain intervention outcomes and the underlying processes of change (or stasis). While theory-based evaluation frameworks are in general agnostic towards the employed methods, triangulation and mixed-method designs are encouraged. The research project uses such a mixed-methods approach, combining a company survey with more qualitative modes of data collection.
Expected Outcomes
In terms of scientific outcomes, the research aims to contribute to a rejuvenation of a political economic approach in the skills development literature in order to grasp the social embeddedness of training and its collective consequences in the workplace. The political economic approach to skill formation was established through the study of developed countries, and very little research in the developing world has taken this approach into account, or attempted to develop it further. This project will make an important contribution in this regard. Secondly the project will develop insights into appropriate research methodologies for developing countries, including best ways of obtaining insights into company dynamics as well as conducting impact evaluations. The research will thirdly contribute to international literature about the elements that are most critical for vocational education programmes: in particular it is anticipated that the research will offer evidence of the importance – where this is found to be the case - of work-integrated learning. Finally, the research will develop insights into key concepts that are used in a range of bodies of literature touching on skills and industrial development. Specifically, the project will enrich debates about the notion of productivity in relation to skills and inclusive growth. In terms of policy outcomes, the research will provide insight into which vocational programmes are most valued by employers, the nature of the relationship between vocational education programmes and productivity, and the relative contribution that different government interventions have on the growth of manufacturing. Further, if the project can show which vocational education programmes work under which conditions for whom, this information would be highly valuable for policy makers.
References
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