Regional development and vocational training

Cedefop — European Centre For The Development Of Vocational Training

Description

Analysis and promotion of coordination between development and vocational training: Regional monographs. Berlin 1986.
Vocational training

Sujets

• Labour economics
• Regional development
• Vocational education
• Picardy
• Escocia
• Walloon Region (federal region)

Informations

• Publié par: CEDEFOP-EUROPEAN-CENTRE-FOR-THE-DEVELOPMENT-OF-VOCATIONAL-TRAINING
• Nombre de lectures: 38
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

g Regional development
I and vocational training
o Analysis and promotion of
Q coordination between
o_ development and
O vocational training
g Regional monographs
m
V ^ European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training Regional Development and Vocational Training — Analysis c and Promotion of Coordination between Development and
Q) Vocational Training
C Regional Monographs, established for CEDEFOP and pre-
3 sented at an Interregional Forum, organized by CEDEFOP
7t and held in Berlin 24-26 October 1984
o
o
First edition, Berlin 1986
Q.
Published by: O
Ü L CEDEFOP — European Centre for the Development of
ρ ¡ i Vocational Training,
5 Ü Bundesallee 22, D-1000 Berlin 15
U Tel. [phone] Telex 184 163 eucen d
LU
* ^ The Centre was established by Regulation (EEC) No 337/75
\J of the Council of the European Communities This publication is also available in:
FR ISBN 92-825-6278-6
Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication
Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1986
ISBN: 92-825-6277-8
Catalogue number: HX-45-85-090-EN-C
Articles and texts appearing in this document may be reproduced freely in whole or
in part providing their source is mentioned.
Printed in the FR of Germany Contents
Introduction
Regional Monographs
Wallonia
Analysis of the Relationship between Development
and Training and Associated Incentives
Land Nordrhein-Westfalen
Analysis Matrix for Use in the Regional Network
for Monitoring and Promoting the Relation between
Regional Development and Vocational Training
Picardy Region
Provence - Alpes - Côte d'Azur
Regional Organization for Relations between
Vocational Training and Development in the
Provence - Alpes - Côte d'Azur Region
Marches
Scotland
Regional Economic Development and Vocational
Training
Report of the Interregional Forum, organised in Berlin by
CEDEFOP, October 24-26, 1984 Vocational training does not automatically or directly create
employment, but research by organizations like CEDEFOP shows
that it may make a considerable contribution to that end.
A study carried out back in 19 78 took French, Italian and
British examples to demonstrate that job training in fact
played an active role in the creation, preservation and
revival of economic activity. A number of innovatory schemes
set up in response to the problems of disadvantaged groups in
declining areas of employment or industry owed their viability
and long-term success purely to their vocational training
component. Two trends have contributed to the spread of new
forms of development: a radical disruption in the conventional
model of centralized development based entirely on large
businesses with reasonable growth expectancy; and a growing
awareness among local communities of the limitations of the
traditional form of economic growth and the adverse effects
of over-industrialization on the environment, leading to a
demand for involvement in decisions affecting their local
environment and a search for alternative forms of progress.
Research projects were conducted in 1981 and 1982 to analyse
the relationship between economic development and training at
a regional level. For their part, regional authorities were
having to cope with the restructuring of the production system
and their domestic labour market, as well as the redeployment
of the labour force and its training in new skills. Although vocational training systems as a whole were still
monolithic structures geared to meeting the demands of
national employment markets, alternative ways of organizing
vocational training were emerging in response to regional
and local needs in all three countries studied by CEDEFOP.
In Italy, regional authorities were gradually taking over
responsibility for training schemes outside the state
education system. In France, implementation of the new
policy on the vocational education of 16- to 18-year olds
had already been decentralized and local authorities were
themselves involved. In the United Kingdom, the vocational
education of unemployed youngsters over the age of 16 was
co-ordinated nationally by the Manpower Services Commission
(MSC). The MSC is in fact a national body but it establishes
regional training schemes after consultation with local
communities, thus ensuring that decision-making is
decentralized and local needs are taken into consideration.
It has been found, however, that there has been little
regional demand for vocational training and in many cases
it has been expressed only when it has been solicited by an
outside organization prepared to finance a local project or
when it has been stimulated by a voluntary policy of
regionalization. The training offered by employers was seldom
based on the criterion of "regional development". Occasionally
employers' schemes have contributed to development in that
companies have preferred to retrain their existing employees
rather than take on new staff, or training agencies have
taken steps to vitalize a network of small industrial,
agricultural and craft enterprises. These schemes have been
particularly prevalent in France, demonstrating what can be achieved by integrated development plans in which training
is a dynamic force rather than merely a back-up measure.
The schemes in question have been planned as part of wider
socio-economic programmes whose aims have been determined
in consultation with the local communities. They have
affected a wide variety of people and local officials have
been involved in their implementation. The trainers,
specialists in their own fields, have come from different
social and cultural backgrounds; they have used modern
teaching methods which draw on both day-to-day practice and
formal training sessions.
When CEDEFOP decided in 19 82 to work towards the organization
of an inter-regional forum on the issue of the relationships
between regional development and vocational training, it was
following the train of thought started up by research that
had begun in 1978. At a time of decentralization, regionalization
and participation, there was an urgent need to set the problem
in a regional context. Every regional system is the product of
itw own history and development and as such has its own
particular combination of economic and social infrastructures,
capital assets, vocational skills and of course political
colour. If it is to succeed, a development project based in
a given area must make use of all these factors and accept that
they are interdependent. A common cause of failure is the
failure to co-ordinate policy in the areas in which action is
being taken, such as policy on training, the economy, transport
and energy. Armed with the findings of its earlier research
projects, CEDEFOP had a message for regional authorities:
co-ordination is vital in every sphere. With its new expertise
in the co-ordinated management of financial, technological and human resources, the Centre decided to make that expertise
more widely available and consider how it could be
transferred to other areas. Faced with the need for
consultation among institutions, what solutions did these
new-style engineers suggest ? What methods had they
introduced to "synergize" all the available resources in a
particular area? In the absence of co-ordinated development
and training strategies, how had they set about forming a
coherent relationship between State, Region, Employers and
the Local Community? Each of the parties has its own resources
and influences the individual elements of the training system
in its own specific way.
No region can claim to have found a satisfactory system of
co-ordination which perfectly integrates the diversity of
resources available, but work on solving the problem of
"divided forces" is well under way. Institutional and
financial arrangements differ from country to country and
develop according to their own particular logic, and the
plan of action chosen by each region will therefore depend
on its own set of priorities and specific context.
Whether they are called "Schema regional de la formation
professionnelle" (Regional vocational education profile) or
"Contrat de plan Etat-Région" (State-regional planning
contract) as in France, or "Ateliers régionaux" (Regional
workshops) or "Cellules de reconversion" (Retraining units)
as in Belgium, the aim is always to co-ordinate the work of
all the parties involved, either in identifying priority
guidelines and target groups or in mobilizing available
educational resources or creating them if necessary. The fact
that such schemes are in operation is evidence of a growing