Chapter 2. Progress towards the EFA goals - Unesco

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0 1 0 CHAPTER 2 2 Education for All Global Monitoring Report In the Middle East, millions of youth leave school without employable skills 24. One prominent example is the Mubarak- Kohl initiative, an arrangement involving the Ministry of Education, the German technical cooperation agency GTZ and business associations. The government provides premises, GTZ supplies technical experts and equipment, and business associations contribute training opportunities and allowances. So far, around 16,000 trainees have been trained in 1,600 companies through 45 technical secondary schools. High youth unemployment in the Middle East is about far more than a failure of vocational education. Slow economic growth, rigid labour markets and gender discrimination have all stymied job creation. In many cases, education systems are part of the employment problem. Courses are geared towards rote learning for university entrance exams that are seen as a route to public sector employment. The upshot is that millions of youth leave school without employable skills and millions more emerge from university lacking the capabilities needed to compete for entry into private sector employment (Salehi-Isfahani and Dhillon, 2008). Most parents and students in the Middle East see vocational education as unattractive because it receives meagre budget resources, is often delivered by badly trained teachers lacking in motivation, bears little relation to the skills employers seek and produces certificates that are not subject to uniform standards. Part of the problem in many countries is that the private sector has a limited voice in setting priorities and standards (DFID and World Bank, 2005). As a result, the skills delivered through vocational programmes are often of little relevance. In addition, governance typically falls to a range of ministries and government agencies, so it is often fragmented and poorly coordinated. There are some notable exceptions. In Egypt, innovative partnerships are bringing together governments, business and donors. 24 And Morocco has adopted far-reaching governance reforms aimed at improving quality, relevance and equity (Box 2.13). Box 2.13: Morocco — strengthening vocational governance In Morocco, vocational education has been overhauled in the past decade. It has its own ministry and a national office for vocational training and work promotion. Syllabuses are adapted to trainees’ general education level, with an emphasis on a combination of specific skills and broader capabilities. Vocational schools have achieved good results, with more than half of graduates finding a job within nine months. The proportion of female trainees is rising, reaching 44% in 2006. The vocational system is expanding as the government seeks to foster the skills needed by new sectors such as vehicle manufacture, aeronautics and agro-industry. Source: African Development Bank/OECD (2008d). In India, limited reach and duplication Technical and vocational education systems in many countries suffer from inadequate reach as well as limited benefits for participants. In India, only 3% of rural youth and 6% of urban youth have had any kind of vocational training (India Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 2006; India Planning Commission, 2008). The country’s Industrial Training Institutes and various craft centres are not accessible to the vast majority of the poor. India also has some of the world’s largest reported gender disparities in technical and vocational education, with girls accounting for just 7% of enrolment at the secondary level and their courses heavily concentrated in traditional areas such as nursing and sewing. In general, the benefits of vocational training are not immediately apparent. Some 60% of graduates from Industrial Training Institutes are still unemployed three years later (World Bank, 2006g). Industrial apprentices are more likely to get work, but generally not in the trade for which they trained. Governance problems have hampered India’s efforts to strengthen vocational education. Responsibilities are split among the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, other national bodies and state authorities. Duplication and fragmentation are widespread, there is little control over quality and the certification system is poorly understood by employers. Companies and employer organizations are only marginally involved, though efforts are being made to strengthen their engagement. Sub-Saharan Africa: failing to reach the marginalized Governments in sub-Saharan Africa face some of the toughest challenges in reforming technical and vocational education. Finance is part of the problem – institutions across the region suffer from a familiar combination of underinvestment in equipment, low pay for instructors and problems recruiting qualified staff. But not all the difficulties can be traced to financial causes. Many countries track students into vocational education far too early – often in the face of concerted resistance from parents. Parental concerns are often well grounded. Evaluations point to low rates of absorption of graduates into employment – under half in some countries, including Madagascar, Mali and the United Republic of Tanzania (Johanson and Adams, 2004). The resulting unemployment, even in countries where employers face shortages of skilled secondary 86
PROGRESS TOWARDS THE EFA GOALS Youth and adult skills — expanding opportunities in the new global economy school graduates, points to a mismatch between learning and labour market needs. The high cost of vocational education is another factor. Partly because class sizes are much smaller than in general education and the cost of equipment is higher, vocational education faces far higher per capita costs – about twelve times the average for primary school and four times that for secondary school (Atchoarena and Delluc, 2001). Problems in vocational education are a legacy of past policy failures and a difficult environment. The quality of provision suffered enormously with deep cuts in spending under structural adjustment programmes in the 1980s and 1990s. Wider problems have also been evident. Vocational systems were designed to meet the needs of formal sector employers, notably in government (Adams, 2008; Africa Commission, 2008). For at least three decades, however, formal sector job creation has stagnated while informal sector employment has grown in importance. In most countries, informal employment and self-employment dominate in both rural and urban areas, typically accounting for over 80% of total employment. 25 Providing training to those employed in the informal sector involves reaching people with lower levels of education. A survey covering Kenya, Senegal, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe reported that half of informal sector workers had only primary education, if any (Haan, 2006; Liimatainen, 2002). The need to reduce poverty makes it vital to reach these people, yet most vocational systems fail to deliver. Traditional apprenticeships and on-the-job training are by far the most important routes to skills development for the vast majority of African youth (ILO, 2007; Wachira et al., 2008). On one estimate they account for up to 70% of overall training (Liimatainen, 2002). The strength of traditional apprenticeships is that they provide youth who have low levels of education with practical, employable skills (Monk et al., 2008). On a more negative note, apprenticeships tend to be biased against young women and the very poor. They also perpetuate the use of traditional methods, offering little theoretical knowledge (Adams, 2008). Vocational education could help redress the equity balance by targeting those who face the most acute disadvantages. Unfortunately, evidence from national evaluations points in the opposite direction. Research in Ghana has highlighted a bias towards regions and social groups that are already better off (Box 2.14). The broader failure to integrate technical and vocational education into strategies for reaching marginalized groups is clear in results from recent evaluations (based on Garcia and Fares, 2008): In Burkina Faso, only one-third of interventions involving technical and vocational education were oriented towards disadvantaged groups, mainly through micro-credit programmes. In the United Republic of Tanzania, out of twenty-eight programmes reviewed, only three targeted the poorest youth, one targeted youth with no education and three targeted rural areas (where the vast majority of the poor live). In a region where 95 million young men and women have no education and are unemployed, have low-paying jobs or have withdrawn from the labour force, second-chance programmes are virtually non-existent. A review covering Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania concluded that ‘most second-chance interventions are small in scale, underevaluated and face severe challenges for sustainability and scalability (Garcia and Fares, 2008, p. xxx).’ The problems evident in vocational education in sub-Saharan Africa are widely recognized by governments, regional organizations and aid donors (Africa Commission, 2008; COMEDAF II+, 2007). Across the region, vocational education is undergoing major reform. Several countries have created or strengthened national training authorities, reformed qualification systems and created structures giving the private sector a stronger voice: In Cameroon, the four ministries involved in vocational education have developed a sectorwide plan linked to the national poverty reduction strategy (African Development Bank, 2008a). In Ethiopia, new curricula have been drawn up and qualification systems restructured to bolster the development of skills that labour markets need (African Development Bank, 2008b). In Rwanda, a strategy adopted in 2007 sets out ambitious goals for changing the image of vocational education. A Workforce Development Authority has been created to oversee coordination and facilitate private sector involvement (African Development Bank/OECD, 2008f). Vocational education is failing to target those who face the most acute disadvantages 25. Reporting conventions make it difficult to compare across countries (Adams, 2008). The reported share of informal employment in total employment ranges from over 90% in Mali (where agriculture is included) to 22% in the United Republic of Tanzania (where agriculture is excluded). 87
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Chapter 2. Progress towards the EFA goals - Unesco

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