NORRAG News 48 on “2012: The Year of Global reports on TVET, Skills & Jobs – Consensus or Diversity?” NOW ONLINE

This issue of NORRAG News looks at the many different meanings of skill in these reports: high, medium, low, foundation, transferable, technical and vocational skills, as well as life-skills. It looks also at the state of skills in both urban and rural areas, and considers skills-for-poverty-reduction as well as skills-for-growth. The reports cover skills in the informal economy, as well as work-based skills and on-the-job training. Some of the reports also consider the emerging meanings and frontiers of TVET.

Here are a few examples of the more than 40 articles to be found in NN48 (the complete issue can be downloaded here):

Editorial: TVET and Skills Development – Some Reflections on Concepts and Discourse

by Kenneth King, University of Edinburgh & NORRAG

The Meaning of Skills in Global Reports

by Peliwe Lolwana, University of Witswatersrand

Beyond “Skills-for-Poverty-Reducation as well as Skills-for-Growth” – New Perspecties in Skills Devlopment in Latin America

by Claudia Jacinto, Institute for Economic and Social Development, Buenos Aires

TVE(T?) and the GMR: Counting and Comparing Apples and Oranges

by Robert Palmer, NORRAG, Amman

An Asian Lens to the GMR

by Chang Gwang-Chol, UNESCO, Bangkok

Transforming TVET and Building Skills for Work & Life: A View from Below

by Salim Akoojee Manufacturing, Engineering and Related Services SETA, Johannesburg

Debunking the Disability Myth with Skills: Tapping a Workforce Employers Urgently Need in Bangladesh

by Mikhail Islam, Chittagong Skills Development Centre, Bangladesh

Russian Perspectives of the World Development Report: Jobs, Migrants and Human Capital

by Svetlana Sigova & Maria Pitukhina, Petrozavodsk State University, Petrozavodsk,

Skills and Skilling in Asia

by Jouko Sarvi, Asian Development Bank, Manila

Post-2015 Discourse in Bangladesh: Can Human Capabilities Development be a Part of the Education Objectives in the next MDGs?

by Manzoor Ahmed, BRAC University Institute of Educational Development, Dhaka

The UNESCO World TVET Report

By Simon McGrath, University of Nottingham.

Amidst the current wave of international reports on skills, the most striking aspect of the Shanghai preview of the UNESCO WTR is the emphasis on a human development perspective on skills that stands in clear contrast to the economistic rationale of most of the reports.

It must be acknowledged that the skills GMR does attempt to marry the economic and a human rights perspective. Like the GMR, the WTR has a strong emphasis on equity, and here the influence of Tomasevski’s work as UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education is very apparent (see my piece in NORRAG NEWS 46 for more on this).

However, the WTR goes further by explicitly looking backwards to a longstanding UNESCO tradition of thinking about learning, best represented in the Delors and Faure Reports, and about broad human development. At the same time, it is also influenced by the human development and capability approach and by more radical notions of work. Whilst these threads are also important to the thinking of other UN specialised agencies such as UNDP (human development) and ILO (work), the WTR is unique in its combination of such positions.

The WTR is an early example of attempts to draw on the capabilities approach in skills development (see IJED 32/5 and Norrag News 46 for early examples of this work) and it is likely to generate further interest in this approach. This offers the possibility of focusing skills systems more on the expressed needs and goals of learners and communities.

It is also quite radical in its approach to work and jobs, in an implicit but highly critical response to the employability orthodoxy.  The WTR continues recent arguments (Standing 2011; McGrath 2012) that work and jobs are not the same thing: “Work must be rescued from jobs and labour.  All forms of work should be treated with equal respect …” (Standing 2011: 160).  It is sympathetic to our arguments that economists’ understanding of work are too narrowly focused on what counts in national statistics and ignores much work that is reproductive of society. Thus, it is standing against a dominant position that is both economistic and highly gendered.

Of course, economic perspectives and priorities remain of great importance, and the WTR reiterates this. Nonetheless, the three lenses (economic, equity and transformative) at the centre of the Shanghai summary of the WTR point to an attempt to transform the skills debate and to push it away from the narrowness of employability, productivity and competitiveness. It is in the success or failure of this attempt that the real measure of the Report’s significance will lie.

Simon McGrath is Director of Research and Professor of International Education and Development, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham. Email: simon.mcgrath@nottingham.ac.uk

This blog post also appears in NORRAG NEWS 48, 2012: The Year of Global Reports on TVET, Skills & Jobs Consensus or diversity? (April 2013), available free online at www.norrag.org

Post-2015 Global Thematic Consultation on Education: What Role for, and What Voice of, the South in the E-Discussions?

By Robert Palmer.

Who and where is “we”, and where is the Global South in the “we”?

The Post-2015 Global Thematic Consultation on Education included a series of e-discussions Dec 2012 – Mar 2013 (on access, quality, skills, finance), which have been neatly summarised into overviews. But what can we say about the role of the South in these e-discussions? Who participated? And what has been the voice of the South?

NORRAG has done an alternative review of these e-consultations (available here); this does not repeat the overall official summaries of the e-discussions, but focuses on trying to tease out – to the extent possible – the role of the South and the voice of the South in these e-discussions.

Who were involved in the e-discussions?

Those posting comments largely fell into two categories: individuals and civil society organisations (CSOs). However, there were also posts from inter-agency and inter-governmental organisations. A large proportion of contributions were anonymous (see below); as a result, of course, the comments lose their context and therefore, it could be argued, much of their value. When CSOs were contributing, sometimes it was not clear if they were putting forward their own personal views, or their organisational views. The moderators, for the most part, stuck to posing questions or to doing summaries of discussion.

The official summaries of these e-discussions provided a general summary of all the comments, regardless of who or where they were from. These official summaries appear to have over-played the amount of substantive comments and contributions. According to the official summary reports of the education e-discussions, there were 539 responses. On closer inspection about 15% of these could be classified as unsubstantive responses; they were either duplicate posts, moderator questions trying to encourage responses, off topic, or had no or little key message.

The role of the South in these e-discussions

45% of substantive comments were anonymous

What has been the role of the South in these e-discussions? Has it been possible to identify who has participated?

Of the approximately 450 substantive responses:

• Almost 45% were made anonymously; we have no way of telling if they came from the South, the North, the East or the West, or if they were from an individual, an NGO or a President.
• About 1 in 5 substantive responses came from individuals in the South, and a further 1 in 5 from organisations (the bulk of which were international NGOs).

The voice of the South in these e-discussions

Below, we focus on southern respondents versus organisations, and exclude anonymous respondents. We only cover three of the four e-discussion topics in this blog; the last e-discussion on governance and finance only attracted c.56 substantive comments altogether and so is excluded here.

Access e-discussion

With regard to challenges, individuals from the Global South identified the lack of policy implementation and the issue of violence as being important, while organisations did not mention these aspects. Both organisations and individuals cited the links between quality and equitable access, the links between wider inequalities (e.g in income) and educational inequalities, and the issue of discrimination.

With regard to recommendations, individuals from the Global South identified the need to strengthen policies, invest more in public education and train more teachers. Both organisations and individuals from the Global South flagged up the need for special targeting.

Quality of learning e-discussion

With regard to challenges, individuals from the Global South and organisations identified quite a similar range of issues.

With regard to recommendations, individuals from the Global South identified curriculum reform, and the need for better monitoring, accountability and good governance. Both the southern individuals and organisations identified teacher training, investing more in schools and investing more in pre-school as important to improve learning outcomes. Organisations flagged up the need to measure learning outcomes.

Global Citizenship, Jobs and Skills e-discussion

With regard to challenges, individuals from the Global South and organisations identified lack of training of teachers as well as lack of equipment in formal schools as being challenges. Individuals from the Global South tended to also focus on technical and vocational education and training (TVET) challenges.

With regard to recommendations, individuals from the Global South and organisations both identified the need to promote inclusive education, curricula reform and the importance of learning foundational skills as being a high priority in order for education for global citizenship, jobs and skills to be promoted.

Concluding Comment: What is the legitimacy of these e-discussions within the debates?

In terms of legitimacy, the e-discussions cannot claim to be more than illustrative views of a range of some (limited, mainly Northern) opinion. The aggregate summaries presented of the e-discussions disguise a lot of the noise (and sometimes randomness) of the comments made. Even when we try to pick apart were respondents are from and who said what, this is also of limited legitimacy; even if we can say that 1 in 5 of substantive responses are from individuals in the South – just by the fact that they had to give responses online indicates that it is unlikely such individuals would be in any way part of marginalised groups, or in fact from the poor.

In terms of impact, such e-consultations which are then summarized by the moderators may not be a very influential modality, regardless of whether the comments are made by people from the North or the South.

On reflection, those interested in gathering opinions should start by questioning the utility and limitations of conducting such e-discussions; and, if the decision is taken to proceed, ensure that basic data is collected from those responding. Perhaps this lesson has already been learned: when one visits the www.worldwewant2015.org website now it is necessary to register and provide your name, organisation and current country location as a minimum set of background data on yourself. It would have been useful if this had been collected from the 500+ responses for the education e-consultation.

Those interested in contributing to future e-discussions, should take this piece of advice: follow the moderator’s guidelines, answer the question being asked and, above all, keep brief and to the point!

Robert Palmer supports  the Editor of NORRAG News and runs NORRAG NEWSBite. Email: rpalmer00@gmail.com Tweets @SkillsImpact

The Meaning of Skills in Global Reports

Peliwe Lolwana, University of Witswatersrand

The sudden interest in skills development by global and large research agencies is contributing to a very active debate on the relationship of education to the labour market. Central to this debate is the notion that skills have become the ‘global currency of the 21^st century’. There is currently an explosion of literature produced focusing on skills. But is there a common point of reference in the different reports, research, comments and opinion pieces when talking about ‘skills’? Obviously not, and this piece wants to illustrate just this diversity of concepts and definitions of skills.

Taking, the 2012 EFA Global Monitoring Report on Skills, the OECD Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Lives report as well as the McKinsey World at Work report, one can easily see that there is no unanimity in the way the term ‘skills’ is used in these three documents. The Global Monitoring Report (GMR) of 2012, for example, pays a lot of attention on the matter of skills – development and acquisition. In its report on ‘Youth and Skills’, the GMR considers general education skills as the primary skills needed by young people to succeed in the labour market. The GMR puts forward the case of how poor acquisition of foundational skills which are obtained in formal education further discriminates the disadvantaged students. The GMR notes that foundational skills obtained in formal and general education are not only crucial by themselves, but are also needed to build other skills in demand in the workplace, such as communication skills, problem-solving and critical thinking. This report emphasises the need for individuals to acquire foundational skills in order to stand a chance of getting jobs that pay decent wages. In the report, these points are illustrated by analysing the level of schooling of young people in the different economies and as it can be expected, low income countries have large numbers of individuals who have not acquired the foundational skills. Further, disparities in the acquisition of these skills, within the same countries can be found according to gender differences, family wealth and localities.

The second report reviewed here is the OECD (2012) Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Lives. This report underscores the fact that benefits of skills go beyond just the labour market, but affect the individual’s health, civic and social behaviour of individuals as well as democratic engagement and business relationships, tackling of inequality and their appropriateness in employment. However, it is clear that in this report the term ‘skills’ is used for post-foundational skills. In other words, the type of skills used to make a case for better jobs and lives are those acquired after the foundational skills of general and often primary education. The report makes a strong case on how countries must invest, build and acquire these skills in order to have better jobs and societies. This report points to the limitation of past studies on skills that focused on formal education skills. In this report the emphasis is on adult skills, which include literacy, numeracy, problem-solving in technology-rich environments and skills used in workplaces. This brings together skills from general education and the ‘soft and hard’ skills in this broad definition.

The last report reviewed is the McKinsey Global Institute (2012) World at Work. In this report, the notion of skills is tied very closely to jobs and the economy. In fact this report presents a strong case on trends in different economies resulting in patterns on the type of skills that support different economies. The report suggests a stratification of skills from low to high, by education levels and economy levels. In other words, the lower the education levels acquired, the lower the skills and the lower the income levels of the country. In the report, qualifications are used as a proxy for skills instead and presenting patters that show the qualification levels of different income countries, with high income countries boasting  larger quantities of higher qualifications than the low income countries. Also, there is an interesting tracking of the movement of skills from simple and physical work like subsistence farming to higher skills in manufacturing, construction and services in different countries that goes with more investments in the general education, hard technical skills as well as soft skills. In this report, it is clear that high income countries are pushing at the top in their investments in skills for productivity, with the emphasis not only in higher education, but in Science, Technology and Mathematics. Finally, the point that is made here is that different sets of skills are directly related to different sets of industries and different income levels for a country.

In conclusion, there seems to have been really strong attention paid to the skills lately. This is good as this is an education area that has been neglected for a long time by these global agencies that hold so much influence on the education trajectories of different countries. But the reader of these reports must be discerning in reading this literature as the notion of skills still carries many and very differing meanings.

Peliwe Lolwana is a Professor at the University of Witswatersrand, working on an education policy research programme. Email: Peliwe.Lolwana@wits.ac.za

This blog post also appears in NORRAG NEWS 48, 2012: The Year of Global Reports on TVET, Skills & Jobs Consensus or diversity? (April 2013), available free online at www.norrag.org

If Data is Not Wisdom, then Non-Data Certainly is Not

Karina Veal, Asian Development Bank.

Where hide the wise answers to questions vexing TVET policy makers and practitioners in developing countries today? They ask, for example: will benefits outweigh costs of building a National Qualifications Framework. What works best to engage the most marginalized youth in skills training? How can one measure learning outcomes from skills? Plus the perennial, plaintive query, can anyone really say (beyond that it is a nice idea) more about how to actually, practically, efficiently introduce a broad based system of recognition of skill for the informal sector?

If your curiosity is restricted to the development of national frameworks for TVET qualifications you are in luck, thanks to the ILO’s 16 country study (ILO, 2010) of their establishment and effectiveness published in 2010 (1).  It is a good study, but a lonely study.  Where are the reports to help provide answers to other common issues of interest? An authoritative international comparative study on approaches to recognition of skill, or a meta-analysis on successful strategies for inclusive TVET, perhaps?

One may have hoped for some answers from the suite of major reports on skills released in 2012. Certainly there is some very useful teasing out of terminology (2), some good overall conceptualization and some comprehensive understanding of the prevalence of particular types of skills across the globe. But a focus on the issues and, importantly, on perspectives from the developing world is slender, and there is insufficient transformation of knowledge into wisdom, stemming from an insufficient base of data and information.

Yet wisdom is urgently needed. For example the shift in interest towards quality learning outcomes in TVET will be notoriously difficult to measure. Does one take employment (or wage) outcomes as the proxy for relevance and quality? Does one measure (somehow) quality of teaching and curriculum inputs and make assumptions on quality learning outcomes? Is there even any definitive research on the factors that lead to learning achievement in TVET? For learning achievement in schools there is John Hattie’s meta-analysis of over 800 meta-analyses of student learning (Hattie, 2008).  He finds that two-way student teacher feedback repeatedly emerges as the top influencer of learner achievement in schools. How similar might be the findings in the context of the type of learning undertaken by young adults in vocational courses?  The idea of doing a similar meta- meta-analyses in TVET, with its dearth of basic research studies, would not be possible. A simpler meta-analysis on the topic, anyone?

Taking ‘easier’ questions of access to, and participation in TVET, do we have a sufficient base of analysis (beyond straight numbers) even there?  Remember the fantastically useful ‘Education Inequality Tree’ in the 2010 UNESCO EFA Global Monitoring Report (GMR)? It took school participation data and showed that the average 8 years of education in Turkey comprised nearly 10 years for rich boys and only 3 years for poor Kurdish girls. For Nigeria the range was 10.3 years for rich rural boys down to a startling 0.3 years (i.e., one term of school) for a poor Hausa girl. This kind of information can be extremely valuable for government policy makers and the development partners who give them support. Do we have a similar ‘TVET Inequality Tree’ in the 2012 UNESCO EFA GMR with its focus on skills? No, we don’t. Not, presumably because the authors didn’t care but because sufficient base data for that level of analysis is not available.

Taken together, the reports reflect the still emerging maturity of TVET research. There are still many gaps in the foundations of good basic research (e.g. lack of theoretical agreement on even core terms, lack of solid base of international data) and large gaps in applied research (e.g. large scale studies to find answers to pressing problems).

If you had hoped, like me, that the swathe of new global reports on skills released in 2012 (see NORRAG NEWS 48) might provide well researched knowledge on key issues of strong interest to developing countries, you will remain disappointed.

I will finish by referring to the beginning of this short reflection. It’s surely difficult to write wise, and useful, reports without a foundation of adequate evidence based data, information or knowledge.

End notes:

[1] The answer is: perhaps, but you may find other aspects make a bigger positive impact first.

[2] World Bank’s terrific trio of ‘jobs need skills, jobs pull skills, and jobs build skills’ for example and ILOs ‘how skills are developed, activated and utilized

Karina Veal is a Senior Social Sector Specialist at the Asian Development Bank, Manila. Email: kveal@adb.org

This blog post also appears in NORRAG NEWS 48, 2012: The Year of Global Reports on TVET, Skills & Jobs Consensus or diversity? (April 2013), available free online at www.norrag.org

Don’t Get Lost – Focus on Quality

Eric A. Hanushek, Stanford University.

UNESCO has done both a service and a disservice to those concerned about global development.  GMR 2012, Youth and Skills: Putting Education to Work, brings its analytical attention to bear on the relationship between skills and economic development.  The power of the idea of Education for All has been to underscore that improved education and skill represents the clearest, if not the only, path to economic progress in developing countries.  But GMR 2012, like the underlying idea of Education for All, provides a breath-taking journey through most of the improvement ideas and exhortations of the past two decades – resulting in a distinct lack of priorities.  The real path to development is an intense focus on quality and on broad cognitive skills.

To me, the evidence is very clear that economic growth is closely related to the cognitive skills of the work force. Skills in mathematics and science, as measured by the TIMSS or PISA assessments, track international differences in long run growth and are a good metric for judging the labour force of a country.  Thus, for example, the disappointing development histories of Latin America or of Sub-Saharan Africa can be accurately related to the fact that improvements in school attainment have not translated into achievement of students as measured by international standards.

The importance of quality has of course been recognized in Education for All and is part of the running commentary in GMR 2012.  The problem is not one of omission.  Instead it is burying the quality issue within a very wide array of alternative potential goals, of varying measures of educational processes, of data and comparisons about side issues, and of strong statements about what to do that lack credible support.  What is left is an ability to pick and choose different portions that can leave a country or a development agency too satisfied with progress.  Virtually every country in the world is progressing well on one or another of the items highlighted in GMR 2012, providing some solace even as economic development is stalled.

The first goal should be simply bringing the skills of the current students up to international levels.  This statement implies measuring performance on international scales.  It implies having a priority on schools and what is being learned.

A part of GMR 2012 is also devoted to issues of how to improve quality.  The emphasis is on the old bromides – increase funding, reduce class sizes, improve the training of teachers, and more.  It is remarkable how few of these standard solutions hold up to close scrutiny and evaluation.

Again, it is not omission but burying the evidence in chaff.  The one consistent story is that teacher quality is overwhelmingly important.  The problem is that teacher quality measured by effectiveness in the classroom is not consistently related to the training and backgrounds of teachers. Further, typical salary policies insure that salaries are quite unrelated to the effectiveness of teachers.  Simply pursuing the standard policies offers little hope.

My reaction to GMR 2012 is completely summarized by one overall message:  FOCUS!  The future development of the low-income countries of the world depends crucially on developing a skilled labour force – one that is internationally competitive.  This is a tall order for many developing countries, because currently available measures suggest a huge gap between the skills of those in developed countries and those in developing countries.  Getting there will require a strong commitment to improving the quality of schools and teachers – something that many countries find to involve difficult policy changes.  But the choice is simple:  Improve quality and reap the benefits of future growth improvements, or let the future get stuck with today’s outcomes.

This message is contained in GMR 2012.  It is simply not possible to substitute “easier” policy changes and to expect the same outcomes.

Eric Hanushek is the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. Email: hanushek@gmail.com

This blog post also appears in NORRAG NEWS 48, 2012: The Year of Global Reports on TVET, Skills & Jobs Consensus or diversity? (April 2013), available free online at www.norrag.org

Transforming Education into Better Jobs and Better Lives

Andreas Schleicher, OECD.

Everywhere skills transform lives and drive economies; and without the right skills, people are kept on the margins of society, technological progress does not translate into economic growth, and countries can’t compete in today’s economies. But the toxic co-existence of unemployed graduates on the street, while employers tell us that they cannot find the people with the skills they need, shows that more education does not automatically translate into better economic and social outcomes.

It all starts with building the right skills. Anticipating the evolution of labour-demand is the essential starting point for that. We then need to improve the quality of learning outcomes, by putting the premium on skills-oriented learning throughout life instead of qualifications-focused education upfront. That’s about fostering demand-sensitive and relevant learning. Skills development is far more effective if the world of learning and the world of work are linked. Compared to purely government-designed curricula taught exclusively in schools, learning in the workplace allows young people to develop “hard” skills on modern equipment, and “soft” skills, such as teamwork, communication and negotiation, through real-world experience. Hands-on workplace training can also help to motivate disengaged youth to stay in or re-engage with education and smoothen the transition to work. The social partners can make a big contribution to developing curricula that include broader, transferable skills and to ensure that good-quality training is available to all.  Preliminary data from OECD’s new Adult Skills Survey (PIAAC) provide powerful evidence on that. You learn something when you are in education between the ages of 16 and 25, but the learning curve is even steeper if individuals combine education with work. All this is everybody’s business and we need to deal with the tough question of who should pay for what, when and how, particularly for learning beyond school. Employers can do a lot more to create a climate that supports learning, and invest in learning. Some individuals can shoulder more of the financial burden. And governments can do a lot to design rigorous standards, provide financial incentives and create a safety net so that all people have access to high quality learning.

But even the best skills simply evaporate if they aren’t maintained and upgraded to meet the changing needs of societies. There are people who are highly skilled who have decided not to work. Why? They may be too busy caring for children or elderly parents; they may have health problems; or they may have calculated that it just doesn’t pay to work. The answer is that we need to make better use of our talent pool.

And equally important, we need to ensure that skills are used at work effectively. OECD data show that this is mirrored in the earnings prospects of people and therefore productivity. If you have great skills and have a demanding job, you’re fine, and you continue to improve your earnings. If you don’t yet have the skills but your job is demanding, you see progress too. But if your employer does not use your skills, your life earnings tend to deteriorate.

So, again, what can we do about this? Quality career guidance is essential: people who have the latest labour-market information can help steer individuals to the education or training that would best prepare them for their prospective careers. Helping young people to can gain a foothold in the labour market is fundamental too. Vocational training is a very effective way to achieve this. Coherent and easy-to-understand qualifications are important to help employers identify potential employees who are suitable for the jobs they offer. And reducing the costs of moving within a country can help employees to find the jobs that match their skills and help employers to find the skills that match their jobs.

There may be young people just starting out, who are well educated but have trouble finding jobs that put their education and training to good use. Here we can shape the demand for skills. Often we think this is all a zero-sum game, that is the demand for skills is as it is and we just need to educate people to meet existing demand. That is a big mistake. There is much that governments and employers can to do promote knowledge-intensive industries and jobs that require high-skilled workers. Adding these kinds of high value-added jobs to a labour market helps to get more people working—and for better pay.

Last but not least, education that fosters entrepreneurships can help create jobs. Indeed, education is where entrepreneurship is often born.

In short, there is a lot more that we can do to develop the right skills and turn them into better jobs and better lives.

Andreas Schleicher is Deputy Director for Education and Skills, and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the OECD’s Secretary-General. Email: Andreas.Schleicher@oecd.org

This blog post also appears in NORRAG NEWS 48, 2012: The Year of Global Reports on TVET, Skills & Jobs Consensus or diversity? (April 2013), available free online at www.norrag.org