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NETWORK FOR POLICY RESEARCH REVIEW AND
ADVICE ON EDUCATION AND TRAINING
November 2012 Occasional Paper #2
Youth, Skills Development and Work in the GMR 2012: A Research Agenda
By Kenneth King
About the author Kenneth King is the Editor of NORRAG NEWS. He is an Emeritus Professor at the School of Social and Political Studies, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Email: [email protected] The author wrote this paper as part of his own preparation for the UKFIET/UKNC launch of the GMR 2012 in the University of Nottingham on 15th November 2012. The author acknowledges a set of valuable comments from Robert Palmer (NORRAG) on the first draft of this paper. The interpretations remain his own. What is NORRAG? NORRAG (Network for Policy Research, Review and Advice on Education and Training) is a focus and a forum for the analysis of international cooperation in the education and training field. The main instruments of NORRAG are its publications (NORRAG NEWS and Policy Briefs), its website and its Blog and the organization of/and participation in meetings. For more information and free registration, please visit: www.norrag.org NORRAG's Occasional Paper Series In addition to the twice-yearly NORRAG NEWS publication, NORRAG also conducts and commissions research on topics related to international education and training. NORRAG recently introduced an Occasional Paper Series to better disseminate and file such papers. Please see the full list at www.norrag.org NORRAG Co-ordination Address Michel Carton Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) Post Box 136 Rue Rothschild 24 1211 Geneva 21 Switzerland Email: [email protected] © NORRAG 2012
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YOUTH, SKILLS DEVELOPMENT AND WORK IN THE GMR 2012: A RESEARCH AGENDA
By Kenneth King
Introduction The community of researchers interested in skills development have been looking forward to the arrival of the Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report (GMR) of 2012. If the sequence of the GMR team dealing with the other Dakar Goals had been strictly followed, then the GMR of 2008 would have been on Goal 3: ‘Appropriate Learning and Life-Skills Programmes’. Instead, it has come four years later. One of the reasons for delaying the treatment of Goal 3 has been the difficulty former GMR teams had found in defining skills (King, 2011). Hence, there was a good deal of interest in seeing how this new GMR would finally deal with the definition of skills. This is just one of many research issues raised by the new Report. Others relate to a whole series of both old and new debates about skills development. Thus, there are discussions about the demographic dividend; the extent of youth unemployment versus low paid work; skills for rural versus urban youth; the relationship of skills to economic growth; the ‘returns’ on skills; and the pattern of donor aid to skills development. Many of these, excluding donor aid, are analysed as much in the richer as in the poorer countries. There are also plentiful ‘good practice’ examples of innovations throughout the volume. But no theme is more critical to understanding the volume than its conceptualisation of skills development itself. Hence we shall start with this. Positioning skills development in the GMR 2012 Though ‘skills’ and ‘skills development’ do not appear in the GMR’s glossary, these two terms appear more than 2000 times in the whole volume, along with many other combinations such as literacy skills, numeracy skills, basic skills, core skills, cognitive and non-cognitive skills. The GMR 2012’s usage of skills and skills development is defined right at the beginning of the set of five chapters which cover the main theme of the volume (UNESCO, 2012: 171).1 There are essentially three categories of skills considered in this GMR: foundation skills, transferable skills, and technical and vocational skills. One of the interpretive challenges, therefore, is to be clear which of these is being meant when just skills or skills development are mentioned in the text. It may also be a policy challenge if most governments believe that national skills development policies are actually concerned principally with technical and vocational education and training. The first one of these three elements – foundation skills - covers basic literacy and numeracy and these skills are said to be acquired in primary and lower secondary education, ideally of good quality. They are also said to be a prerequisite for acquiring the other two categories of skills, transferable and technical and vocational skills. Of course, this may well be widely the case today, but it should be obvious that many millions of workers have gained (and still do gain) technical skills without numeracy or literacy. And
1 ‘TVET’ (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) is almost never used in the main substantive
chapters of the GMR 2012. Perhaps significantly, it is mentioned that in earlier GMRs attention to Goal 3 has been largely confined to technical and vocational education and training (Ibid).
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they may well also have gained a range of transferable skills without the foundations of literacy or numeracy. There are no less than 775 million illiterates worldwide, and very large numbers of semi-literate or functionally illiterate who have attended schools, but have not acquired sustainable literacy and numeracy. Substantial numbers of these young people and adults do acquire both transferable and technical skills initially through casual labour in factories or farms. The absence of an enabling literacy environment in many countries means that it is entirely possible to continue to work without being challenged to acquire literacy (UNESCO, 2012: 94). The Report offers good reasons for there to be second chance opportunities for these millions to acquire foundation skills, but without the penetration of incentives to literacy, e.g. through print and on-line media, including social networking, many millions may continue with certain levels of skilled work without literacy. The evidence of many workplace-based literacy programmes including in the OECD countries is testimony to the fact that much work can be and is done with minimum literacy (UNESCO, 2012: 104). The second group of skills discussed in the Report is transferable skills. These are referred to a good deal less than foundation skills but they cover what are elsewhere called soft or interpersonal skills.2 These are the skills of problem-solving, communication and teamwork, but in this Report they also cover capacities in the attitudinal or non-cognitive domains such as motivation, self-confidence, aspiration and even entrepreneurial capabilities (UNESCO, 2012: 172). The Report acknowledges that such skills are not based on textbooks, and are ‘nurtured to some extent outside the school environment’ (ibid), but attitudes such as confidence and self-esteem can also be promoted in good quality schools (ibid. 188). The diagram illustrating the relations amongst the three categories of skills is unfortunately not able easily to portray their interaction or complexity. It suggests that transferable skills are only acquired at the upper secondary rather than the primary or lower secondary level, and that they can also be acquired in work-based training (See diagram on p.173 of the GMR). The reality is that these critical soft skills are widely acquired at home, in the family and from wider social networks. Thus the entrepreneurial inclinations of many whole communities in Africa, South Asia and East Asia are not derived only from schooling but from family traditions and social networks. Equally, many of these soft skills are reinforced much earlier than upper secondary education. Teamwork, communication and problem-solving are all very evident in good pre-schools and primary classrooms, as they are also in active home environments. The crucially important conviction in many East Asian societies that effort and hard work can compensate for intelligence, and can ensure success whether in school or in work, comes from home and family, and is then powerfully complemented by teachers or employers. Technical and vocational skills are the third category. The Report notes that these can be acquired through work placement linked to secondary schooling, through formal technical and vocational education, or through work-based training. Again the diagram in the Report is rather unhelpful. It locates technical and vocational skills at the upper secondary level, along with transferable skills; and it presents the same thing for both kinds of skills via work-based training. In fact, versions of vocational education are still available in lower secondary in a number of countries.
2 Foundation skills are mentioned no less than 181 times in the Report; transferable skills just 56 times;
and technical and vocational skills only 22 times. If numeracy skills (50), literacy skills (84) and basic skills (53) are added to foundation skills, then foundation/numeracy/literacy and basic skills occur in total as often as skills development (306).
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But technical and vocational skills are not only acquired in schools and in work; apart from short duration, non-formal skills training, they are very widely available in post-secondary institutes or centres. These are variously called industrial training institutes (ITIs), vocational training institutes (VTIs) or centres (VTCs), further education (FE) colleges, community colleges, further education and training (FET) colleges etc etc. But this whole segment of vocational training does not appear at all in the Report’s diagram (p. 173). Indeed, these terms do not appear in the main body of the Report. This must be of some concern as this third category of skill is very widely acquired in these non-school-based institution, often outside the remit of the Ministry of Education. In terms of conceptualisation, however, the key chapter that discusses the different kinds of skills development is chapter three, entitled, ‘Youth, skills and work – building stronger foundations’. The very title emphasises a key message of the chapter which is that ‘Many young people lack foundation skills’ (Ibid. 179). For the millions who have not completed primary, not to mention lower secondary, there are grim consequences. They don't acquire the critical foundation skills. This will consign them to ‘poorly paid, insecure, and often risky work, and their countries will be deprived of the kind of skills that can drive economic growth’. The morale is clear; that it is the foundation skills found in good primary and lower secondary that ‘is vital to give countries the skilled workforce they need to realise the demographic dividend for development’ (Ibid.180). This might almost suggest that a skilled workforce can emerge from foundation skills. But later in the chapter transferable skills are mentioned as ‘preparing for the world of work’ (Ibid.187). There it is also accepted that ‘acquiring basic literacy and numeracy alone is not enough to get good jobs’ (ibid). Employers are said to be very keen on transferable skills such as those mentioned above. And there follow many examples of good practice in developing socio-emotional skills, confidence, and motivation, - from Peru to USA, and from Portugal to India. Surprisingly, however, this chapter says nothing about the third type of skills, technical and vocational skills. Instead, the chapter ends with a final emphasis on foundation skills, and a warning that those ‘lacking foundation skills face the prospect of extremely low pay’. Hence the need to address the ‘deficit in foundation skills is now more urgent than ever’ (Ibid. 199). Conceptually, therefore, it appears that this Report is more concerned with foundation and transferable skills than with technical and vocational skills. Intriguingly, it does also pay quite a lot of attention to a fourth category of skill even though it is not counted as that. Historically, it should be recalled that the use of the term life skills by the drafters of the Dakar Goal 3 was precisely one of the reasons why it was so difficult to get agreement on what the global monitoring of skills should consist of. Life skills with its psychosocial overtones was closer to interpersonal or transferable skills than it was to either foundation or technical and vocational skills.3 For many in the international skills community, life skills seemed a world away from work skills or even from livelihood skills. It is surprising therefore to find that most of the Goal 3 section of the chapter on the Six EFA Goals is taken up with a policy focus on how ‘life skills education can help tackle HIV and AIDS’ (Ibid. 84).4 Nevertheless, life skills don't make it into the key diagram about the three main skills categories. From examining the relations among the different uses of the word skills in the Report, it is difficult not to conclude that there is not a dynamic working relationship proposed.
3 For an account of how the Dakar Goal 3 got linked to life skills, see King, 2011.
4 Life skills is used 119 times in the GMR report, twice as often as transferable and five times as often as
technical and vocational skills.
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There is more of a sequential relation suggested between transferable and foundation skills, and some uncertainty about the relations between both of these and technical and vocational skills. We have argued by contrast that foundation or core skills can be picked up in all levels of formal education, as well as in the workplace, and in non-formal education (King, 2009). Equally, transferable or interpersonal, soft skills can also be acquired in all levels of formal education, as well as in non-formal education, the workplace, and crucially in the home and the family. Finally, technical and vocational skills can also begin to be acquired from the earliest years, and particularly amongst families or communities that are closely associated with trade and enterprise. They do mainly now tend to be built upon a foundation of basic education and of work experience, but they are also very widely secured through specialised institutions immediately after basic education. Technical and vocational skills are facilitated by foundation skills, but are often themselves responsible for reinforcing numeracy and literacy (Castro, 1992). Similarly, they can be the location for the exercise of transferable skills. Overall, these three sets of skills cannot be seen in silos, or in hierarchical sequence. Rather they stand in dynamic interaction with each other in the home, in schools, in post-school institutes and in the workplace. It is therefore a pity that a first impression is that foundation skills are more discussed than the other skills, and that the term technical and vocational skills is used least of all. It may well be that this early impression is not confirmed when we examine the detail of later chapters on skills for urban and rural youth. But clearly it will be important to clarify when claims are being made about the impact of skills development on income, growth or productivity exactly which category of skills is being claimed to have these effects. The Scale of Aid for Skills Development The threefold definition of skills development presents something of a dilemma when we come to examine how much external aid is allocated to skills development. If all three dimensions of skill are included then the risk is that measuring aid for skills development will be too vague to be a useful guide to policy. From this angle, it is difficult to be certain exactly what components are included but clearly, in addition to vocational secondary training and training outside the education sector, support to secondary general education is included along with basic life skills for youth and adults (including literacy programmes). This definition of skills development (including an element of foundation skills) produces the conclusion that no less than a quarter of all external aid for education can be allocated to ‘skills development’. This totals some US$3 billion out of a total of US$13.9 billion (UNESCO, 2012: 216-7). This is twice as high as the calculation by King and Palmer for a year earlier and reviewing the same OECD data (2011). However, if general secondary education can really be included in skills development, presumably because of its contributing foundation and transferable skills, then it is hard to see why primary education or higher education could not also be. In fact in the explanation of this particular decision about what might and might not be included in skills development, it is admitted that early childhood and primary schooling and higher education are part of the spending that ‘contributes to skills development more widely’. In a key sentence that illustrates the danger of including as ‘skills development’ every sector of education that provides ‘skills’, it is stated that:
Spending on early childhood care and education and on primary schooling is important to ensure that young people enter secondary school with the necessary basic skills, and higher education is vital to provide the higher level skills needed for the economy. (Ibid. 217, emphasis added)
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What Room for Skills in Secondary Education? A test case of what skills are actually under discussion in this Report can be derived from Chapter 5 – ‘Secondary Education: Paving the Way to Work’. Will secondary education be seen as principally the source of core foundation skills for all, and of transferable skills, or will it also be seen as one of the key sources of technical and vocational skills? An early glance suggests that lower secondary is seen as extending and consolidating ‘the basic skills learned in primary’. Indeed, the completion by all children of a good quality primary education is presented ‘as the first priority in building the skills that individuals, societies and economies need’ (Ibid. 229). This emphasis on core skills is reinforced by the case made for a common curriculum in secondary that ‘consolidates foundation skills’ (ibid. 237). Furthermore, a strong case is made for ‘Transferable skills for all’ in secondary schools, emphasising that schools need to move beyond subject knowledge to promote creativity and problem-solving. But it is acknowledged that this is difficult to achieve where examinations reinforce theoretical knowledge and the memorising of facts (Ibid. 246-247). Even the case for promoting information and communication technology (ICT) is made in respect of developing ‘transferable skills’ (Ibid. 247). On the other hand, the Chapter which is primarily concerned with removing the barriers to secondary education for disadvantaged young people, does see the importance of getting ‘a good balance between technical, vocational and general subjects’ (Ibid. 237). This is however difficult to achieve where secondary education itself is very far from universal, e.g. in Sub-Saharan Africa. There is a strong case made for technical and vocational education where there is a good basis of foundation skills and where there is a labour market demand for skills. In several countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Turkey) it is even argued that the strong link between technical and vocational education and the labour market gives a higher return to technical and vocational than to general secondary graduates (ibid. 239). This is not the case in other countries (Rwanda, Tanzania, Iran and Egypt), and it is claimed that for 18 OECD countries long-term employment prospects were better for those with general education (Ibid.). In a situation in upper secondary where there is a vast array of both public and private institutions and the data are ‘notoriously difficult’ to obtain for those entering different types of institution, the Report understandably does not offer any analysis of what countries have quite separate vocational schools or institutes and which have vocational streams or tracks within general secondary schools. On balance, the Report appears to promote the very old idea of the ‘diversified secondary curriculum’ as a way to avoid perceptions of the ‘vocational track as second best’.5 It is argued that when technical and vocational subjects are of good quality and made more relevant to the labour market, enrolment in these increases, as has happened in some OECD countries. By contrast, if diversification or vocationalisation are carried out without adequate funding and strong linkage to the labour market, then this may be a poor use of limited resources. The Report notes, however, that many countries are pushing for a major increase in the proportion of students in vocational streams, tracks or schools. For poorer countries, what then is the policy advice? The Report’s answer for low-income countries is that the possible gains from diversification need to be weighed against the gains from improving the core curriculum subjects, and the much greater costs of diversification (Ibid. 241). These costs can be substantial as there is some evidence that
5 For some twenty years, the World Bank promoted ‘diversified secondary education’ as the preferred
option for secondary schools. See further Lauglo and Lillis (1988).
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minimal diversification with just a handful of vocational subjects is not effective (Ibid. 242). The policy advice is therefore problematic: that high cost good quality diversification of general education, when closely linked to the labour market, is a good investment for richer countries. But minimal diversification in poorer countries many not be worthwhile. Since the link to the labour market is constantly being mentioned as the key element in vocational relevance, it is not surprising that a good part of the second half of the chapter is about ‘strengthening the links between school and work’. Formal apprenticeship is one of the main illustrations of this linkage, but it is of course a fundamentally different modality than diversified secondary schooling. It is based on the notion of quite separate vocational institutions (such as the berufschule or the Centre de Formation d’ Apprentis) and the workplace. Apprenticeships in developed countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France don't so much link the workplace with the school system but with specialised training institutions. By contrast, in developing countries, as we shall note later, the traditional apprenticeship systems have little or no linkage with the formal school system. While the Report is very positive about formal apprenticeship, it warns that there is no easy transfer of this German, Swiss or Austrian model to the developing world where modern sector firms are scarce, and where there is no long history of employer support to vocational training. It is therefore valuable to have an illustration of a policy transfer project, in the shape of the Egyptian dual system,6 but the numbers of apprentices in the project remain very small in what is now a country of over 80 million people. For a Chapter that is majorly concerned with reducing the barriers for poorer young people to being in or not completing secondary, it should not be surprising that open and distance secondary education is reviewed with this population in mind. Understandably perhaps, very little of the open and distance options mentioned are technical and vocational (with the exception of Turkey). Alternative vocational pathways are also included in this chapter. These turn out to be a couple of illustrations of community training centres or private and NGO vocational institutions, in Kenya and Ethiopia. These are useful as far as they go, but, as mentioned before, the really major alternative vocational pathways in the form of VTIs, VTCs, ITIs, FET colleges and FE colleges are almost totally absent from this Report. The important chapter on secondary education concludes with rather a mixed message on what kinds of skills are critical in linking schools to work. It is no longer about diversified secondary schools, but a bald claim about skills and jobs: ‘Secondary education offers the best hope for youth to develop skills that would put them in a strong position to get good jobs’ (ibid. 253). And when it comes to the kind of skills that employers are said to repeatedly ask for in new recruits, we already know that these are transferable rather than technical and vocational skills. What Skills for Reducing Poverty and Promoting Growth? Apart from discussing the crucially important role of the links between schools and work, the Report also addresses the equally long-standing question of the relation between skills, poverty reduction and growth. Again, it is essential to tease out what dimensions of skill might relate to poverty reduction or growth. The first sentence of Chapter 4 is not much help in this regard:
6 The Mubarak-Kohl initiative
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The key role of skills in fostering prosperity is evident worldwide: countries that have invested wisely in skills training have made considerable progress in equitable development. (ibid. 203)
It is not of course argued that skills lead ‘automatically’ to jobs or growth, nor whether it is skills or growth which should be pursued first. Both need to be pursued in a coherent integrated manner. Even though it is claimed that jobs depend on the growth of the economy and on wealth distribution, the ‘right skills’ are also said to be necessary. It could not stated more clearly: ‘The rate of economic growth, and the way the benefits of growth are shared, is intimately connected with skills development’ (Ibid. 203). Admittedly, the relations amongst education, skills and growth are not straightforward, since there is a two-way interaction between growth and a better skilled workforce. ‘Even so, the evidence is clear that investing in skills pays dividends’ (Ibid. 203). Up to this point, we are not clear what kinds of skills are being discussed in this very positive relationship. Then suddenly it becomes a little clearer. Better maths scores, as measured even by the lowest benchmark on the PISA maths test, would over ten years translate into increased economic growth of 2.1 percentage points (Ibid.). Even more generally, it is claimed that ‘education’ can make a very substantial difference to economic growth:
The investment in education would pay off handsomely: for every US$1 spent on education, between US$10 and US$15 would be generated through the economic growth premium over a working lifetime of eighteen to twenty-two years (Hanushek and Woessmann, 2011, quoted in UNESCO, 2012: 205).
It might appear that maths scores on PISA, ‘education’, and ‘skills development’ are almost interchangeable as far as their potential impact on growth is concerned. But nothing is more dramatic than the claim that ‘The Republic of Korea’s investment in skills development has contributed to its impressive economic growth’ (Figure 4.1 UNESCO, 2012: 205). Of course, the dramatic change in Korea’s fortunes, as compared with Tunisia, Colombia, Ghana and DRC, is attributed to several factors. But it is claimed that ‘the key to the Republic of Korea’s success has been the linking of skills development with broader strategies aimed at stimulating the economy’ (Ibid). When this is teased out in a box (4.2) covering a whole page comparing Korea and Ghana (ibid. 207), we then hear that there were several factors in play including foundation skills in the early years, then technical and vocational secondary education, and flexibility between technical and vocational and general education. In summary, the transformation from poverty to wealth couldn't have happened without widespread basic education and well-coordinated systems for providing skills. But a key issue in this whole process was just how ‘extensively and rapidly skills needed to be transformed’ as Korea moved from an early stage of industrialisation to higher value-added goods and services. It is noteworthy also that the Report is doubtful that this kind of transformation could have been handled by the private sector: ‘The state played a key role in matching skills supply to demand’ (207). By contrast, the failure of Ghana to match Korea is in part attributed to failure to invest in skills for the future economy. This key section on education, skills and growth provides a dilemma for the policy community. On the one hand, it would appear that investing in skills ‘pays dividends’. Equally, better maths scores also pay dividends in economic growth. Similarly, a dollar spent on education generates US$10 to US$15 through the economic growth premium in some twenty years’ time. But there are also messages that there needs to be an enabling economic environment if the investment in skills development is to pay off; after all, the
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key to Korea’s success was ‘linking of skills development with broader strategies aimed at stimulating the economy’ (Ibid. 205). Thus at the end of the section, there remains a conundrum about whether there is a semi-automatic consequence for growth of investing in skills development (or in education, or better maths scores), or whether these outcomes are dependent on an enabling set of economic policies. It is perhaps not helpful in this regard that one of the key messages by Director General of UNESCO in her one-page foreword to the GMR is that ‘Evidence in this Report shows that funds spent on education generate ten to fifteen times as much in economic growth over a person’s lifetime’ (Ibid. i).7 At the end of the chapter on ‘Investing in Skills for Prosperity’, it may be surprising to conclude that governments and aid donors ‘need to reallocate funds to ensure that all young people have foundation skills’ or that aid moneys currently allocated to the imputed costs of educating students in higher education in Europe should be re-allocated to ‘skills development programmes within developing countries’ (Ibid. 225). What does skills development mean here? The answer is straightforward: ‘The first priorities (for re-allocation) remain ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to acquire foundations skills – through primary and lower secondary education’ (ibid. 219). What Skills are Covered in National Skills Development Policies (NSDPs)? This question highlights the challenge of the GMR’s wide, three-dimensional definition of skills development. Many governments, such as Bangladesh or South Africa, which have some variety of NSDP, are essentially concerned with the supply of skilled workers, whether through the formal TVET system in schools and colleges, in vocational training institutes, or in workplace-based training, formal or informal (Engel, 2012). These plans seldom pay attention to foundation skills as acquired, for example, in primary and lower secondary schools, or to transferable skills. The GMR 2012 is correct to point out, however, (Ibid. 211) that many of these so-called national skills plans, including India’s, pay scant attention to the role of the informal sector or traditional apprenticeships in skills development, even though these are in many countries really massive systems. The GMR, Youth Unemployment, and Work, in Richer and Poorer Countries The great majority of the world’s young people, between 15 and 25, are in low-income countries, some 170 million of them. The Report argues, in Chapter 3, that these young people could, as mentioned above, provide a demographic dividend,8 as the ratio of working-age people to dependants rises. But economic growth will only receive a boost if this current young generation enter adulthood with education and skills. If, by contrast, they lack the foundation skills from primary and secondary, they may not be able to build the transferable skills needed in the workplace such as problem-solving and critical thinking. Without these skills, then ‘unemployment, poverty and social dislocation’ could lie ahead (UNESCO, 2012: 177). The notion that foundation skills can critically contribute to skills development and to this dividend is forcefully argued: ‘Ensuring that all young people achieve at least a good primary and lower secondary education is vital to give countries the skilled workforce they need to realise the demographic dividend for development ‘(Ibid. 180).
7 Education researchers will recall the famous, frequently misquoted adage that four years of education
make a difference to farmer productivity. The research actually stated that four years of education ONLY made a difference in dynamic, enabling agricultural environments. For a discussion see King and Palmer, 2006. 8 ‘The rising ratio of working-age people to dependants could give economic
growth a boost: a demographic dividend’ (UNESCO, 2012, 170).
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Given the potentially crucial impact of foundation skills, the GMR calculates that there are some 200 million young people currently lacking these in 123 low and middle-income countries. To this figure, there could shortly be added the 61 million primary age children who are currently not in school. We have therefore some iconic figures here: 170 million young people aged between 15 and 24 in low-income countries, 200 million young people lacking foundation skills in both low-income and middle-income countries, and arguably needing a second chance. And then there are the youth who are unemployed. Here, the Report provides some more iconic figures, such as South Africa with 50% of its young people unemployed, or Palestine and Spain with 40%, Tunisia and Italy with 30% (Ibid. 193. Figure 3.11). But the overall percentage of the world’s youth population which is said to be unemployed is only 13% totalling 75 million. There are of course problems with lining up Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Italy, Tunisia and many others in a figure illustrating youth unemployment versus adult unemployment. In many countries, youth unemployment figures are directly calculated from the numbers claiming unemployment benefit, apart from the criteria of being available and looking for work. So it is difficult to know whether countries with reportedly high levels of youth unemployment, such as South Africa, Palestine, Tunisia or Ethiopia, are reflecting these figures even without any state support for the unemployed. This lack of clarity on the relation between youth unemployment and state support is reinforced by the data that in eight out of thirteen African countries, young people ‘face a wait between school and work of more than five years’ (Ibid. 192). While some of this discussion about youth unemployment levels gives the impression of considerable similarity between OECD and lower income countries, there is a crucially important acknowledgement of difference in the analysis of youth unemployment:
In countries with high rates of poverty and little state support for the unemployed, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds --- have no option but to take whatever work they can find, often under undesirable conditions (Ibid. 190).
This absolutely key point about unemployment benefit and its impact on youth unemployment figures is not mentioned in the GMR Summary, but there is a warning there that unemployment figures don't give the full picture of the problems young people face (UNESCO, Summary, 28). In the words of the full Report, youth unemployment may be a good indicator in rich countries, but ‘precarious jobs or very low paid employment may be more relevant in middle and low income countries’ (Ibid. 190). Even more starkly: ‘Many young people do not have the luxury of remaining unemployed’ (Ibid. 197). With the benefit of hindsight, it might have been useful to have provided some basic labour market information, distinguishing countries with very different levels of formal and informal sector work, and very different social security and benefit systems. This might have suggested some health warnings around providing youth unemployment figures for both richer and poorer countries. Even in the telling box 3.6 which contrasts high unemployment in Brazil with low paid work in Cameroon (Ibid. 198), the text still talks about high youth unemployment in Brazil and very low rural unemployment in Cameroon (1%). Of course, later in box 3.6, the key point is made that ‘The bigger issue in Cameroon is working poverty, as it is for many youth in low income settings’ (ibid.). Arguably, this essential point about working poverty needs to be made forcefully right at the beginning of the chapter on Youth, Skills and Work. Otherwise, there is a inescapable tension in a chapter that is subtitled ‘Building Stronger Foundations’ between providing foundation and transferable skills, including through second chance modalities, on the one hand, and the reality of the labour market on the other. One very powerful message
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running through the Report is that better foundation skills for the millions upon millions who don't have them will indeed ‘improve their prospects’ (ibid. 177). As we saw above, ‘investing in skills pays dividends’ (Ibid. 203). But the other starker message, which comes out a little less clearly in the Report, is that a lack of foundation and other skills is not the only reason that young people cannot get work; ‘Stagnant economies, corrupt politics, and nepotism can also play a role’. What does this mean for the 170 million young people who we said earlier were in low-income countries? We are also told in the Report that, in addition to the various groups who are said to be unemployed, there are no less than 152 million young people who are in work that pays less than US$1.25 per day. The figure we are not offered in the Report is what proportion of these 152 million did actually complete their primary and lower secondary education, and secure their foundation skills. The author’s work with the informal sector in rural and urban areas of Kenya would suggest that a high proportion of those working in the informal economy have completed no less than 12 years of education. The supply-side notion therefore that foundation skills for all, including by second chance means, would substantially change the opportunities for young people requires serious interrogation. The more demand-side question is why 90% of the new jobs in India are in the informal sector. The same is true for many other low and middle income economies. The Urban Informal Sector – a Chance for a Better Future? It is very welcome that the GMR 2012 provides a whole chapter on ‘Skills for Urban Youth’ and that much of this is concerned with how existing skills training can be expanded for urban youth. The downside is that the parallel chapter on ‘Skills for Rural Youth’ makes no mention of the informal sector at all. The reality, of course, is that the informal sector, and informal skills acquisition is widespread in both rural and urban areas. Equally, therefore, the so-called traditional apprenticeship, which is much discussed in the urban youth chapter, is very much alive and well in the rural areas of many, but by no means all countries. The informal sector is portrayed generally in rather negative terms in the Report. It is precarious and low-paid. On the other hand, it is also acknowledged, following the Report’s overall finding that education impacts positively on earnings, that ‘Education can enhance earnings in the informal sector’ (Ibid. 262). There is accordingly discussion of how young people in the informal sector can benefit from second chance programmes etc. There are also several examples of how more capacity development can be added to micro-finance programmes, and how traditional apprenticeships could be expanded and formalised. The drawback is that there is little sense of how widespread these so-called traditional apprenticeship systems are.9 They are certainly commonplace in both Francophone and Anglophone West Africa, but it is not really possible to claim that ‘In Sub-Saharan Africa, traditional apprenticeship is the main type of skills training in the informal sector’ (ibid. 271). There is informal training in the informal sectors of Eastern and Central Africa but it cannot really be called ‘traditional’, with all the norms and legacies of West African models (King, 1977 and 1995).
9 The modalities may still be traditional but the education levels of the apprentices and several of the
trades (e.g. mobile phone repair) are modern.
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Some attention is given to how the specifically traditional apprenticeship system might be modernised, both through formalisation and through innovation towards a version of the dual system, combining theory with practical training. The Report notes that the latter is an example of an aid-dependent innovation which is not yet sustainable. We shall, however, return to the issue of the many projects and initiatives mentioned in the Report in the next section. Skills Training for Rural Youth – Escaping from Poverty? The Report rightly analyses that rural populations are often involved in multiple activities, with individuals combining small scale farming, seasonal casual labour and microenterprise activities (Ibid. 279). We have already mentioned that it is regrettable that the discussion of the role of traditional apprenticeship in the chapter on urban young people is not paralleled in this chapter on rural skills. Many young people in rural areas acquire both farm and non-farm skills through forms of apprenticeship, as well as learning on the job.10 However, in this chapter there is a strong view that ‘the productivity of young people can be enhanced’ through appropriate education and training, just as there was an assumption about education enhancing earnings in the informal sector. The issue is what education and training, and in what context and environment? Recognising that poverty is widespread in many rural areas, especially in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, there is firstly a need to ensure that foundation skills are available, particularly for girls and young women, either directly in schools or in second chance modes. ‘Providing foundation skills to all rural young people’(Ibid. 284) is a first step, since, arguably, any further training needs this basis. However, a strong case is made for programmes providing skills beyond the basic level if they are to move out of poverty through more productive engagement in agriculture or non-farm activity. There are several suggestions for this skills provision. As with the urban chapter, it is proposed that microfinance programmes be more linked to appropriate skills training. But there are many other proposals made such as agricultural cooperatives, farmer field schools, use of ICT, business skills, and entrepreneurship development. The chapter as a whole is full of illustrative initiatives from many different countries, as well as a small number of boxes capturing iconic projects in Malawi, Egypt, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Indeed, much of the text is written by first making a generalisation in a sentence or two, e.g. ‘Innovative training programmes for non-farm work can be beneficial in encouraging people to remain in rural areas’ (Ibid. 291) and then following this immediately with one or more illustrations. It is perhaps worth underlining that several, but by no means all, of the illustrative initiatives and innovations are linked to non-profit and non-state providers. By contrast, there is very little reference to the role of the regular publicly provided agricultural extension service; indeed the term agricultural extension only appears once in the whole Report, and there to claim that extension services have tended to benefit richer and more educated farmers (Ibid. 288)
10
It is noted in the chapter that there are of course carpenters, electricians, plumbers and builders in the rural areas (Ibid 291).
14
In research terms, it would be valuable to assess this process of presenting what might be termed good or best practice.11 There may well be over a hundred of these best practice illustrations. Inevitably, they raise research questions about policy transfer versus policy learning.12 Many of them are presented as ‘positive’ or as ‘successful’; others such as national qualifications frameworks are presented with a careful review of the research evidence and of their pros and cons (Ibid. 252-3). It may be particularly necessary to examine the implications of such innovations when the numbers said to have been successfully reached have been small and when the initiative has been more or less entirely aid-dependent. For instance, there are innovations written up positively as successful which have only reached 200-3000 participants. Equally, when there is a dramatic number attached to the project’s success, there are additional reasons to be careful because of the tendency for media to lift out of context such quantitative evidence. One of the most remarkable of these is the claim, in respect of farmer field schools, that ‘crop value per acre increased by 32% on average across the three countries, and by 253% for those who had not had any formal schooling’ (Ibid. 289). What makes this finding perhaps rather controversial is that the whole tenor of the Report has emphasised the vital need for good foundation skills to be the basis for any additional training; yet here is a powerful example that might appear to point up a quite different lesson: training works without foundation skills.13 As with the examples of education and training from urban areas, it is important that claims about the impact on agricultural productivity of foundation skills or further training be carefully situated and justified. Although it is forcefully argued that extending foundation skills via primary and secondary schools and improving their relevance to rural areas are ‘key priorities’, it is also worth noting the Report’s emphasis that for the impact of approaches to rural skills to be maximised ‘they have to be combined with other poverty alleviation approaches’ (Ibid. 284). Monitoring Skills Development: A View from Statistics We have seen that one of the challenges for the last ten years has been the definition of skills. With the three aspects of skills associated with the GMR 2012, it could be anticipated that no new tables would be needed for foundation skills, apart from those which have already been used in recent GMRs. Beyond these, there has not been any attempt to include statistics on transferable skills. As far as technical and vocational skills are concerned, the GMR 2012 retains the pattern of earlier reports and has just one column indicating what is the number of students at the secondary level taking technical and vocational education, and then the female percentage of that number (Table 7, Ibid. 368 ff). This number is not broken down by lower and upper secondary, nor is there any indication of what subjects technical and vocational education consists of, by gender.14 There had been a proposal by the G20 to create internationally comparable skills indicators by 2012. These included indicators such as ‘Participation of Youth in Apprenticeships’. However, these have not been used in the current GMR, and they don't
11
For a critical analysis of best practice in international education and training, see NORRAG News, No 39 (2007). It is worth noting how frequently in the Report, the terms ‘success’, ‘successful’ and ‘successfully’ have been used – almost 150 times. 12
See Policy transfer or policy learning: Interactions between international and national skills development approaches for policy making’, 25-26 June 2009, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva 13
When the 17 pages of the chapter on rural skills are captured in 2.5 pages for the Summary, this farmer field school finding is included. 14
More data on precisely this area is one of the ten concluding concerns of the GMR 2012.
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look like being used before the 2015 deadline (Ibid. 83). The result of the complexities in agreeing and collecting skills-related data is therefore that there have been no new tables representing skills development in the present Report. Indeed, the GMR, despite its own work on the skills definition notes: ‘Any post-2015 international goals for skills development need to be more precisely defined and to set out clearly how they can be measured’ (Ibid. 83). The GMR 2012, Skills and the Post-2015 Development Agenda It might be expected, as the debate about the role of education and skills in any post-2015 development agenda heats up, that this Report might have made a crucial contribution to the position of skills in this debate.15 However, apart from a brief comment on the role of the Global Partnership for Education in any post-2015 financing framework, and the note about the ongoing need for more precise definition of skills for the future, there is no mention about the potential role of skills development in the post-2015 discussions except for a proposal relating to making foundation skills for all a possible target:
A global target should be set to ensure all young people benefit from lower secondary school, with the aim of achieving universal lower secondary education of acceptable quality by 2030. (Ibid. 31, 300).
GMR Conclusions and Concluding Comments The lens through which the GMR of 2012 has looked at skills development has been from the perspective of the disadvantaged, the marginalised, and the poorest sections of both rural and urban societies. These are predominantly the groups that have still failed to access primary school, or have dropped out before becoming numerate or literate. Like the GMR 2010 which argued that effective and equitable skills development policies were not possible where a majority of the population does not reach secondary school (UNESCO, 2010: 77), the GMR 2012 remains very concerned with the most marginalised and the excluded. This is surely a main reason why in their ten concluding lessons for policy there is such a strong emphasis upon access (Ibid 299-303). No less than half of these lessons learnt are explicitly about greater access and more effective outcomes for the millions who don't reach schools or who drop out before successful completion. The perceived need for all to reach at least primary education underlines the focus on second chance. Equally, there is a powerful case made that all young people should benefit from lower secondary. Thirdly, upper secondary education needs to be ‘more accessible to the disadvantaged’. This powerful focus on access and equity explains why foundation skills for all remains an absolutely core priority:
One of the most important messages is that all young people need a pathway along which they can acquire strong foundations skills, starting from early childhood right through to lower secondary education and beyond. (UNESCO, 2012: 299).
Foundation skills are also seen to be a critical prerequisite for poor urban and rural youth to be able to profit from further training opportunities. It is foundation skills that are also the principal target for the policy lesson about additional funding, so that all young people ‘have a good foundation in education’ (Ibid. 303). There is also a strong argument for focusing on disadvantaged young women, on harnessing the potential of ICT for young people, and on strengthening data collection of both school-based programmes and those beyond the formal school system. For the poorest youth, both urban and rural, in survival
15
For Skills in the post-2015 agenda, see NORRAG/UNDP, 1st
June 2012, and NORRAG, 12 September 2012 (www.norrag.org).
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or subsistence activities, there is a recognition that skills training alone will be insufficient to lift them out of poverty. Overall, the conclusions continue to emphasise the absolutely critical role of the foundation skills. There is some acknowledgement also of the role of transferable skills such as problem-solving. But it is difficult to come away from these conclusions with any clear message for the technical and vocational dimension of skills development. There is, admittedly, a suggestion for a better balance in upper secondary between general and technical and vocational education. There is also recognition of how traditional apprenticeships provide transferable and job-specific skills, and several examples of ‘particularly successful’ agricultural training schemes are picked out. But, as we have already mentioned, for the planner in India concerned with their industrial training institutes, or the department planning the development of further education and training colleges in South Africa, or for the UK’s further education sector, there are no clear messages, since this hugely varied post-school world of public industrial, vocational and agricultural training was not the focus of the GMR. Or rather it was only the focus in so far as access to this level of post-school training institution is markedly affected by policies of equitable access to primary and secondary education. We started this paper with the research interests of the international skills development community. For those in that community with comparative education and skills concerns, there is a good deal to reflect on in the GMR 2012. On balance there are many more examples and illustrations drawn from countries such as India, China, Ghana, Kenya, Brazil, South Africa and Colombia than from the UK, USA, France, Germany or Japan. But given that the greatest challenge to foundation skills and to reaching the EFA Goals by 2015 are found in Sub-Saharan Africa and in South Asia, such a focus can be justified. A Last Thought on Education, Skills, Youth Unemployment and Growth 21 years ago the World Bank (1991) issued its first policy paper on Vocational and Technical Education and Training. It had several highly controversial messages about both public and private sector vocational and technical training. But like the GMR 2012, it was very clear ‘about the need for workers to have a foundation of basic competencies to make retraining effective’:
The most cost-effective use of public resources to improve the productivity and flexibility of the work force is thus investment in general education at the primary and secondary levels (World Bank, 1991: 9).
The GMR of 2012 has certainly re-made a powerful case for this foundation, with a perspective on the poorest young people. What it has been less ready to tackle are the policy options and critical choices facing many ministries of education, of labour and of planning which face a huge variety of school-based vocational education, of institution-based vocational education and training, and of work-based training. The poorer countries of the world do not have the dangerously high levels of youth unemployment seen in Europe today for the very reasons argued by the Report, - that young people cannot afford the luxury of remaining unemployed when there is no state support. On the other hand, the historically unparalleled levels of youth unemployment in recent decades in Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy are all resting on universal, compulsory systems of foundation skills. Much larger structural issues in their economies and in their labour markets are impacting upon the supply and demand for labour. Arguably, it is precisely these wider macro-economic factors which are given insufficient attention in this Report. An outstanding
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research question must be what the investment in foundation skills development can secure for poorer countries when there is very fragile labour market demand for young people even with full basic education. References De Moura Castro, C. 1992 Vocational and Technical Education: International Context, in Encyclopaedia of Educational Education, Macmillan, Basingstoke. Engel, J. 2012. Review of policies to strengthen skills-employment linkages for marginalised young people. Background paper for EFA GMR 2012, UNESCO, Paris; downloadable from: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002178/217878e.pdf Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, 2009. Policy transfer or policy learning: Interactions between international and national skills development approaches for policy making’, 25-26 June 2009, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. King, K. 1977. The African Artisan. Heinemann, London. King, K. 1995. Jua Kali Kenya. James Currey, Oxford. King, K. 2009. A Technical and Vocational Education and Training Strategy for UNESCO: A Background Paper, International Expert Consultation Meeting on Technical and Vocational Education, UNESCO, 12-13 January 2009, Bonn King, K. 2011. Skills and Education for All from Jomtien (1990) to the GMR of 2012: a Policy History, International Journal of Training Research, 9:1-2, pp. 16-34. King, K. and Palmer, R. 2006. Education, Training and their Enabling Environments: A Review of Research and Policy. Post-basic Education and Training Working Paper, No. 8, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh. Downloadable at: http://www.dfid.gov.uk/r4d/PDF/Outputs/PolicyStrategy/King_Palmer_Educ_Env_PBET_WP8.pdf King, K. and Palmer, R. 2011. New Trends in International Cooperation on Technical and Vocational Education and Training. Background Paper for the World Report on Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET), UNESCO, Paris. Lauglo, J. and Lillis, K. 1988. Vocationalising Education: an International Perspective. Pergamon, New York NORRAG News, No 39. Best Practice in Education and Training: Hype or Hope? Downloadable at http://www.norrag.org/en/publications/norrag-news/online-version/best-practice-in-education-and-training-hype-or-hope.html NORRAG with UNDP, 2012. Post-2015 Politics and Foresight: What Room for Education? 1st June 2012, Graduate Institute, Geneva NORRAG, 2012. Education and Skills in Post-2015 MDGs and EFA: Actors, Agendas and Architecture, 12 September 2012, Graduate Institute, Geneva
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UNESCO, 2010. Reaching the Marginalised.. Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2010. UNESCO, Paris. UNESCO. 2012. Youth and Skills: Putting Education to Work. Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2012. UNESCO, Paris. World Bank, 1991.Vocational and Technical Education and Training. A World Bank Policy Paper. World Bank, Washington.
