STATE OF ART ABOUT RESEARCH ORIENTED TO SKILLS DEVELOPMENT OF YOUTH IN LATIN AMERICA IN THE LAST DECADE

Transcripción

1 RESEARCH ON TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL SKILLS FACILITATING INTEGRATION INTO THE LABOUR MARKET STATE OF ART ABOUT RESEARCH ORIENTED TO SKILLS DEVELOPMENT OF YOUTH IN LATIN AMERICA IN THE LAST DECADE Claudia Jacinto (Instituto de Desarrollo Economico y Social, Argentina) February 2012

2 The present study was commissioned to Claudia Jacinto, Coordinator (up to December 2011) of RedEtis (Red Educacion, Trabajo, Insercion Social Buenos Aires), by NORRAG/ERNWACA, with the support of the SDC (Swiss Development Cooperation). It was prepared for and presented at the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) Triennale Meeting which was held in Ouagdougou, Burkina Faso, in February 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 ERNWACA (Educational Research Network for West and Central Africa) aims at increasing research capacity, strengthening collaboration among researchers and practitioners, and promoting African expertise on education so as to positively impact educational practices and policies 2

3 Contents CONTENTS...3 ACRONYMS INTRODUCTION INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS AND SUBJECTS SYNTHESIS OF FINDINGS INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS AND APPROACHES IN THE EVALUATIONS ACADEMIC RESEARCH: PROBLEMS DEALT WITH AND NEW APPROACHES FINAL REFLECTIONS REFERENCES ANNEX: RESEARCH SUBJECTS ACCORDING TO COUNTRY Chile Colombia Uruguay Mexico Brazil Subjects of research in regional work

4 Acronyms ACCESS CEPAL CINTERFOR CONALEP CTT GSE IADB IIEP NGO NUTE PRONABES PROUNI SD SENA SENCE STE TVET UNESCO VT VTI Acceso con Calidad a la Educación Superior Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe Centro Interamericano para el Desarrollo del Conocimiento en la Formación Profesional Colegio Nacional de Educación Profesional Técnica Centers of Technical Training General Secondary Education Inter American Development Bank International Institute of Educational Planning Non Government Organization Non University Technical Education Programa Nacional de Becas para la Educación Superior Programa Universidade para Todos Skills Development Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje Servicio Nacional de Capacitación y Empleo Secondary Technical Education Technical and Vocational Education and Training United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Vocational Training Vocational Training Institution 4

5 1. INTRODUCTION This article revises recent studies about youth, education and employment, focusing on a particular sub field. It specifically refers to the development of skills in youngsters in the area of formal education (mainly technical secondary school) as well as vocational training and training programmes 1. Within this sub field, a more specific area has been separated: the one that refers to documents which examine the processes of development of policies and/or SD programmes and their impact in a wider sense. In fact, the recommended criteria to focus mainly, has been followed: research 2 (that) could address in order to provide guidance to the formulation of national development of policy on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). The questions are derived from the policy debate (Lauglo, 2006). In this case, on TVET in Latin America that in some cases follows the international debate. It is mainly based on surveys of research/studies/consultancies which are available online. Based on states of arts more widely produced by RedEtis a few years after 2000, work produced particularly from 2004/2005 have been surveyed. Approaches and findings from 70 papers in five countries: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay have been analysed and summarized as well as some papers which deal with several countries comparatively. In the search for papers, the subjects surveyed mainly covered the systems/policies/institutions of technical education and work programmes and professional training of young people including the following sub subjects: Detection of sources of data/observatories concerning links between education and work Profile of the population which attends, according to socio economic level (access of lower income groups) Relationships of the TVET institutions with the actors in the world of work: companies/unions/local governments Specific work training programmes for young people Internships or work practices, productive micro ventures and/or self employment, entrepreneurship Process analysis (monitoring) and evaluation of the implementation of TVET reforms, particularly on: o Organization of systems based on labour competencies (developed curriculum, certification of skills, and validation of knowledge) o Improvement/evaluation of institutional quality 1 This paper was developed based on the summaries and reports from the five countries studied with greater depth: Veronica Millenaar and Gabriel Paz were responsible for the incoming information and reports from Colombia, Chile and Brazil while Analía Otero was responsible for Mexico and Uruguay. Alejandra D Angelo and Paula Ottolenghi carried out other national and/or regional summaries. Susan Levin translated the paper. 2 The concept of research is used in a wide sense systematic enquiry, not merely academic research. 5

6 Inclusion of graduates in the work market: external effectiveness of the TVET and specific work training initiatives, follow up of graduates, career studies which link education/ training and inclusion The relation between the research and the policy decision making in the TVET Nevertheless, as will be seen further on, the body of jobs found can be distributed in a much tighter group of subjects. The paper is structured as follows: First, the institutional contexts of elaboration of the selected corpus and the predominant subjects, are identified; second, follows a summary of some important findings of these studies; third, considering separately the body of assessments and the academic research, are analyzed and linked the approaches, contexts and their relations with the policies and intervention programmes and finally, some conclusions are presented. The annexes include the list of publications revised and a summary of the trends in production in the five countries selected. 6

7 2. INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS AND SUBJECTS The institutional variety in the production of knowledge is strongly linked to the subjects studied, the theoretical and methodological approaches and the research relationships with political decisionmaking, as will be discussed later. Generally speaking, research carried by international cooperation, such as the following, can be recognized: a) Evaluations of public policies and/or programmes of international cooperation. (Multilateral credit, bi lateral cooperation) b) Studies carried out by international organisms (UNESCO, Cinterfor, CEPAL etc) Based especially on statistics from Household Surveys and educative surveys. Studies/researches carried out with national support by actors such as: a) Public organisms which develop policies/programmes (Ministry of Labour, Mexico, Ministries of Education on graduate follow up in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico) are notable. b) The National Institutes of TVET like the SENA, and the S system in Brazil are very productive in evaluations c) Centres of public or private research which function with the support of the national system of academic research and/or universities (Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay) d) Individual consultants/researchers and/or private consultancy companies who are subcontracted by State organisms for evaluations (Chile, Colombia). As selection s criteria for this state of arts, many studies are linked to guidelines followed by SD policies. But in such cases, they are concerned with consultancies which use and examine data from secondary sources or it concerns evaluations. In general, levels of SD offer are tackled or it is concerned with case studies which point out problems or analytical reflections rather than providing wide empirical evidence. In only a few cases, there is academic research with wide aims of approach to a policy s level of design, management, implementation and results and/or local work market research and available training for work. Compared with a traditional agenda of issues that link education and work, some topics that had been particularly fruitful during the last decade, can be highlighted 3 : Education and training in labour competencies. This subject is particularly observed in countries such as Colombia, Chile and Mexico who have had projects aimed at the creation/order of a training system based on skills. Basically, it is about evaluations led by the agencies responsible of developing policies and / or by their external funders. 3 Many researches about links between youth, educational degrees and labour inclusion in general are available based on statistical data. Some of them took advantage of especial surveys on Youth made in some countries. This kind of research showing the devaluation of diplomas, the characteristics of youth labour market and the linkages with level of qualification, etc., are not considered in this selection because it is particularly referred to youth and TVET. 7

8 Technical secondary and tertiary education: recent reforms and follow ups. The organization of at least one graduate follow up survey of great magnitude in technical secondary for the first time can be seen in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile (a lead also seen in Argentina). This means that quantitative information about young technicians in the labour market is available and Ministry of Education are normally responsible of these studies. There are also studies normally based on consultancies, mostly based on case studies on the implementation of recent reforms at this level, such as Brazil, Chile and Colombia. Concerning, technical education at tertiary level, this segment has had relative development in recent years, promoted by policies directed at the sector in some countries. Several studies deal with its evolution, difficulties in expansion and challenges for equity and inclusion of the graduates in the labour market in Chile, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico. Quantitative data coming from public statistics on technical education at tertiary level is scarce in some cases. The evaluation of policies and/or programmes of vocational training or work training. This sector covers the area where more jobs have been found. It is a product of its inclusion in projects with international financing and/or requirements of the public management systems and/or those of the National Institutes of Vocational Training (especially, System S in Brazil and SENA in Colombia), the inclusion of the graduates in the labour market is frequently studied. In this field, a certain accumulation of knowledge can even be observed which is reflected in the re direction of policies and/or institutional strategies on the subject. Trajectories and subjectivities related to TVET. These kinds of studies come from the academic sector. They attach importance to collective and individual actors in the construction of social action. Recognizing structural aspects in the construction of educative and work opportunities, three levels of analysis in the work transition of youngsters can be classified as innovative and can be emphasized: a) the logics of actions of subjects, b) the institutions as the place where the implementation of programmes and/or policies are constructed and c) the network approach to local and sectorial links. 8

9 3. SYNTHESIS OF FINDINGS 1) The type of study which has produced more papers in recent years in the countries examined is the evaluation of vocational training policies and programmes. This occurs as much in programmes with international financing as in programmes incorporated into national budgets, very often aimed at underprivileged sectors. We include different types of study in this area. The most frequent are those which focus on external efficiency, measuring, through graduate follow ups, the impact on the employment and employability of the youngsters. Studies which are more sophisticated methodologically and which work with control groups and econometric techniques are also included, so comparing the results of the trained group with the control one. This last type of work is particularly found in Chile and Colombia. The evaluations carry different weight in the countries examined. In greater measure in Chile and partly in Colombia they are present as a mechanism of management of public policies, installed and financed by the State and/or multilateral cooperation which is involved also with the financing of the program. In the other countries there are more isolated evaluations or they are carried out steadily only in National Training Institutes such as the SENA or the S System. More unusual are the studies of internal efficiency of the programmes which examine the relation between aims, goals and implementation. Nevertheless, there are also some. Among them, there are quite different approaches. Some, mostly consultancies, are based on the logframe model which considers aims and products (for example, ChileCalifica). Others, mostly coming from academic backgrounds, are more concerned with conflictive and at the same time collaborative social relationships between the actors of the training, aiming at a more organizational and socio historic approach (for example, several studies coming from Projoven in Uruguay). This latter approach provides new reflections on the way of looking at the programme in the context of the evolution of the training system in the country. Evaluations, which have dealt with the recent initiatives on setting up a national system of labour competencies in Chile and Mexico, also excel. These initiatives have been the subject of wide ranging evaluations coming from public organisms as well as multilateral financing banks which have carried out multiple criticism (especially in Mexico) and recommendations for the following stages of these policies. Also studies in the academic field have dealt with those subjects with two general approaches: a) accepting the convenience of the model but criticizing its implementation and expressing the need to recognize the conflicts of the process and the history of work training in the country; b) criticizing the conceptual and methodological limitations of the model, especially as far as secondary school and tertiary education is concerned, and asking for approaches from wider and more integral knowledge. Another contribution of only a few studies is to have introduced the perspective of comparison concerning the actual institutions which develop the training and/or have examined the positioning of the different actors who take part in the process (public organisms, companies, unions, youngsters, training centres), showing that the range of a policy or programme cannot be measured independently from this institutional action or from the meaning of the action for the actors. In this way, for example in a study in Chile, it is held that many of the changes carried out in the field of SD 9

10 have gone forward without involving the actors directly affected by these measures and with weak control of the state and private institutions in charge of accomplishing the training policies. Apart from the difference among the training programmes studied in different countries one can observe a) positive results of inclusion of youngsters, it is emphasized out that this result is linked to the new dynamism of the work market in this last decade and b) some methodological conceptual refinement in the design of the programmes which are inspired on the accumulated state of art, such as the introduction of components of basic skills of employability and/or accompanying in the processes of work inclusion. 2) The analysis of the reforms in technical secondary school education, the installation of graduate follow up and the emergent studies on the technical tertiary non university level make up another relevant subject section. a) With respect to the technical secondary school, the findings come from studies gathering available secondary data, interviews with decision makers and only a few researches are based in institutional case studies. There were reforms in the nineties and new reforms in the But the amount of studies available is scarce. New reforms during early 21st century included changes in organization models (particularly in the cases of Argentina and Brazil, where the previous reforms were critically reviewed). Studies based on secondary data and some interviews showed the problems in the conception and implementation of previous reforms. For example, in Argentina, Gallart (2008) and Briasco (2010) concluded that the reforms, which initial intention was the design of flexible options trough the professional technical paths, had not political and technical viability during its implementation, resulting in high levels of fragmentation of the national supply (as technical schools and vocational training institutions depend on the 24 provinces of the country). The implementation of technical and vocational training showed a high level of heterogeneity, thus being identifiable different levels of institutional and curricular complexity, diverse hourly load of the trainings, different approaches with regard to internships as well as different styles and forms of articulation with the world work. There were many disparities in the implementation progress as well as significant heterogeneities for trainings of a same professional profile and many problems regarding quality. The introduction of as part of the general secondary education (GSE) was subject of research coming from the academic ground 4. Gomez et al. (2009) argued in their study led in secondary schools that number of students is not really significant in coverage and that it has an unilateral or "vertical" idea of articulation with SENA, which does not provide spaces for participation to educational institutions. Teachers training is also missing. 4 The project introduced by the Ministry of Education in partnership with SENA, aimed to provide tenth and eleventh grade students in official and private institutions with the opportunity of obtaining general and specific occupational competencies through agreements between educational institutions and the business sector (it s following the strategy named d) in the previous classification). This serves to promote the inclusion of this objective in the institutional educational project, through a number of activities. In addition to training in general occupational competencies, the proposal also recommends the inclusion of specific occupational competencies for all students. In particular, the students requirements should be considered, aiming training at those students with a more defined professional vocation and those needing to find a job early on. The programmes should be recognized as equivalent to those offered under the National Training Service (SENA) in order to enhance double certification 10

11 b) The studies of graduates in different countries coincide in finding good inclusion of the technicians in the labour market, especially those from some specialties degree courses that continue their studies in the superior level. Summarizing findings of recent follow ups of technicians in Chile, Brazil and México 5, in general, the data suggest that graduates of secondary technical education (STE) are mainly from the lower socioeconomic sector, although some heterogeneity can be observed by field of studies. This is the case of Chile, where 73% of graduates of STE belong to families of the first three quintiles of the distribution of national income. Something similar happens in Brazil, where most students of the federal network institutions come from economically disadvantaged families and in Mexico, where in general, CONALEP students come from households with lower income levels compared with other students of high secondary education. Once the graduates of secondary technical education complete their studies, their labor market insertion occurs in short periods of time, usually less than three months. Although, the activities carried out by graduates are not always related to the specialty studied, a high incidence of the specialty over activities can be observed. It is interesting to note that the lack of experience at work appears as the main difficulty in finding a job during the first searches. Although, there are few data about income levels of graduates from technical secondary education, the graduates note that people with higher education have better incomes and people graduated from regular secondary education, have lower incomes than their own. Most graduates considered as much appropriated the training received and were satisfied with the choice made. In general, different studies show the importance of the contribution of secondary technical education, even though they point out the lack of articulation between training institutions with the production sector. Looking at the paths in greater detail few studies detect that the segmentation of the labour market also provides the youngsters with different work opportunities: according to the family educative capital and the local and sector context in their professional assignments. The studies often point out difficulties, distancing and different logic in the relation school company, which appears in the complex processes of collaboration for curricular development. In any case, the policies tend to have different perspectives of these processes: while some countries ask for curricular development based on skills, others aim at more integral training in technical education. In several countries, business people have been asked about the profile of skills required and found in the secondary school graduates (Weller, 2008; Marrero, 2006). In general, the comments coincide with the favourable characteristics of the youngsters their skills in the new technology. They require the youngsters to be trained in basic employability skills too, mainly linked to attitudes, use of cultural norms, individual effort, pro activity and others, marking them out as deficiencies in the secondary school. Some academic studies provide arguments questioning this supposed need for greater adequacy or they find it relative because of its simplification of the complex processes of the youngsters inclusion: the main argument is that the creation of employment is produced in the labour market and not in the training. c) Referring to the technical tertiary level, the main findings of the reviewed studies (Turbay, Crespo, Jarbas, Fanelli, in press) can be summarized in the following way: Even though during the 1990s this level supply was stagnated, during the first decade of the 2000's the technical tertiary level increased considerably according to studies from IIEP in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. This growth is the result of diverse factors, mainly: a) the broadening of secondary education graduates; b) the public policies that promoted non university modalities or alternative in 5 Alejandra D Angelo summarized the findings of the follow ups. 11

12 front of the traditional liberal careers by different actions including bursaries and credits and c) greater demands of qualifications for technical jobs, especially in some countries and some areas of activities. Fanelli (in press) develops as it follows the conclusions of the comparison between the three countries. In the three countries, the NUTE constitutes a short term option (between two and three years approximately), with a practical and vocational orientation for the training in soft and hard technologies. Different higher education institutions, either private or public can offer this level. However, in practice, the supply gathers in a few public institutions and in the case of Brazil and Colombia most of the enrollments concentrate in the private sector while in Mexico mainly in the public. The institutions are distributed among different regions within each country. The emerging of the NUTE refers back to the particular history of the different educational systems. However, it is possible to recognize two important processes. The first one has been the result of the transformation of technical and technological courses provided by informal sectors or by different kind of institutions, into more academic courses. The second one is the result of public policies that created non university modalities or alternatives in front of the traditional liberal careers. Even though graduates of NUTE can continue studying to reach a university degree, in practice there are institutional obstacles as well as those of culture and economic capital. The institutions analyzed in the case studies have tried to articulate the different modalities in the same organization or have made arrangements with other institutions to make it possible. Regarding the enrollment growth, it can be observed that it is a very dynamic level in the three countries. However, it is a minority within higher education in Brazil (9.5%) and Mexico (3.2%). On the contrary, in Colombia three out of ten students of higher education attend technical or technological courses. In the three countries, access to NUTE is usually less selective than to the more prestigious sectors of university. Even that, admission processes includes limited quantity of vacancies, exams and other mechanisms which tend to be more rigorous in Brazil and Colombia for the public sector more demanded and for the private sector of higher quality. Another barrier is the payment of fees in the private sector in Brazil and in both sectors in Colombia. To compensate inequalities of students in terms of economic capital, several mechanisms of funds assignment to the demand such as grants (PROUNI in Brazil, PRONABES in Mexico) or educational credits (credit ACCESS in Colombia) have been implemented in the studied countries. There is a considerable proportion of technical tertiary students who come from sectors of lower resources than those of university level; often they do not enroll in the tertiary level straight from leaving secondary school. In fact, in the case of some of them, it seems they return to the educative system to obtain a diploma once they have work experience in their careers (studies in Chile and Brazil show this tendency). The lack of coordination between the technical secondary school and the higher level, the paths and recognition of previous knowledge is not clearly established. The technical tertiary level graduates find better inclusion in the labour market in terms of job and salary quality than those who have only a secondary school certificate but their inclusion is through less qualified and worse paid jobs than that of those who have a university degree. 12

13 3) The SD systems as a whole A few studies stand out which, beyond the evaluation of programmes, have made efforts towards an evaluation of the system of SD in its entirety, such as the SENCE in Chile or the National Institute of Employment (Instituto Nacional de Empleo) in Uruguay which set out (in these cases from different perspectives) guidelines for future actions. Only some national papers and other papers with regional approaches generally contribute to broader approaches of SD systems and about preparing youth for work, mostly in the comparative sense. Many times these documents have deepened the analysis more of the vocational training than secondary or tertiary technical education where there are only few examples of studies. They have often highlighted the heterogeneities between countries depending on the configuration of labour markets and the historical evolutions of SD systems. Some countries show many strengths in their training systems but mostly addressed to formal workers. Two important findings that are repeated in studies focused on the SD system as a whole are: There are high levels of inequality and pockets of poverty that prevent a large proportion of the population from acquiring the basic skills that formal education should be providing. Vocational training as a whole is more like a collection of agencies and programmes superimposed on each other rather than an actual system, and it does not give coverage to the whole population targeted (Gallart, 2008; Weller, 2008). Perspectives about SD are frequently different or even contradictory. Ministries of Education and Labour differ in such key training issues as skills certification systems, while the social oriented institutions in charge of poverty reduction programs fund more traditional ad hoc training, where skills based curricula and certification are not even contemplated. Sometimes national public organizations involved in skills development have little internal coordination and linkage with other institutions, as they work on isolated objectives, interests and priorities and have never developed a long term vision in technical and vocational education and training policies (Jacinto 2008; Vera, 2009). 4) Trajectories and subjectivities related to TVET studies, mostly academic, adopted the perspective of studying youth trajectories (for example, Sepulveda, 2010 Guerra, 2009; Pieck, 2011). They examine the ways in which individuals absorb TVET experiences, how they are motivated and the way they use them to obtain other resources such as social capital, economic support, social participation etc. are also considered relevant. They therefore show that the training experience and knowledge acquired there can in the subsequent careers of young people, be used in the improvement in the quality of the job to which they have access as well as in the activation and in other social and subjective aspects such as the wider range of social capital or the construction of a future occupational project. For this more comprehensive view, we turn to the comparative analysis of the work inclusion between different moments of careers (longitudinal studies) and the testimony of individuals in order to fully understand the processes. And in this way, examining the programmes along career paths allows them to see ruptures in the biographical settings. 13

14 4. INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS AND APPROACHES IN THE EVALUATIONS. The evaluations are normally based on the theory of human capital and the assumption that the educative and training investment will improve the perspectives of the work inclusion of young people, that is, it will be valued on the labour market. The evaluations are supported explicitly (as in the work of Geo Consultores 2008, in Chile) or implicitly as in the models mainly developed by Schultz and Becker. They point out that differences such as sex, age, educative level, degree of training or development of character and experience have an influence on human capital and, consequently, on the productivity of workers. Experience and training in the workplace are also included in some studies, according to further contributions. In general terms, these studies have recognized the work performance of the graduates of financed programmes as the main way to measure the results of the Training Programmes. This methodology and approach has spread as an instrument of evaluation of training, covering secondary technical school education too and in a few cases, tertiary non university technical education 6. The scale included to measure performance not only covers income but also the quality of work, levels of qualification and the relation between work and studies carried out. In Colombia, one of the countries studied, where evaluation culture has most spread, studies which analyze the effects of the training programmes in broader terms have also been found, such as the approach to work, capacity for venture, management capacity and promotion of associability (Fedesarrollo, 2010). Likewise, the studies analyze the effects on the institutions involved in some programmes, such as in companies and training bodies in the case of Youngsters in Action (Jóvenes en Acción) (IFS, SEI, Econometría, 2007). Besides, a study which has evaluated the effects of all the actions of the SENA in the generation of social capital of the beneficiaries (Sarmiento and others, 2007) stands out. The methodological approaches find different levels of sophistication and some debates. They range from the follow up of graduates carried out some time after training to longitudinal research papers which study and compare different moments in the inclusion trajectories of youngsters. However, as far as evaluation is specifically concerned, counter factual evaluations have been developed since the 1990s, normally encouraged and demanded by programs funded by International Cooperation. Quasi experimental control groups were created in almost all youth programs financed by the IADB (Castro and Verdisco, 2001). As everywhere, the bias of these techniques has been debated, and it is often argued that these approaches tend to focus on economic outcomes while a range of social benefits that may be associated with training are underestimated. Distinguishable are evaluations carried out on wide programmes (which, for their part, include components developed in different levels of the SD system) in tandem with a public policy, at times with sophisticated techniques which analyze components, measuring reach and results, suggesting causes of obstacles linked to implementation as a base for new stages/restructuring of the programmes: cases of CONOCER in Mexico; Chilecalifica in Chile. For example: an evaluation of the IADB on the system of tax exemption in Chile (main training policy instrument in this country). In the study it is suggested that this presents flaws which do not contribute towards toning down the negative external effects, product of the flaws in the market: 1) the tax exemption does not reach smaller companies; 2) the state incentive is insufficient to activate demand and offer of training; 3) the State limits the quantity of participants per training (20) as well as the hourly rate; 4) special cases, productive as well as regional, are not served; 5) the training mainly aims at soft competence: 6 University education is largely using the methodology of follow up, but these studies were outside the scope of this paper 14

15 administration, customer service. Likewise, the training system is not linked to long term policies. And on the other hand, state intervention has not encouraged a training offer of quality, nor is work training and higher level technical training coordinated (Rucci, 2010). But apart from empirical valuable data provided by evaluations, they are also a political issue. The political nature of the evaluations is interestingly put into play in the example of the SENA in Colombia where there was a change in the focus of the TVET policies and in particular around the role of the national institution. From around 2005 the SENA caused an interesting debate on its impact and the reasons for which the studies presented uneven results. The case is the following: Studies on the impact of the actions of the SENA dating from the nineties but published at the beginning of 2000 do not recognize the significant impact of its training actions (for example, Núñez and Medina, 2005). Later studies show evidence of positive and satisfactory results. The report carried out in Colombia provides two possible explanations for the results, contrasting with previous studies. On one hand, it could be owing to the recent impulse provided for the SENA which has enabled its actions to become more efficient 7. But also, this could be due to the different methodologies used to carry out the evaluations 8. In this sense, it should be stressed that the corpus of studies carried out most recently firmly justify their methodologies and suggest that the studies are reliable and conclusive results can be reached using them (and go beyond the contradictory results which studies carried out earlier). Obviously, the change in political strategy around the SENA in the nineties and in the present decade enables the studies to be placed in a larger context. Therefore, two key questions on the evaluations are: What were the aims? In general, to know and restructure, set down bases for the restructuring of actions. Although, not only that. To what extent do political deciders, stakeholders and planners make interventions more dynamic by reintroducing the provisions of the elaborated contributions, as Abdala suggests? One should wonder to what extent the corpus of detected evaluations run the risk of turning evaluation into a mechanism of information that allows us to discover only what was foreseen a priori, as is often said. It turns out to be a difficult question to answer without knowing the political and institutional contexts in which the evaluations were carried out. Nevertheless, while data was collected with methodological thoroughness on the relation between aims/products; on the development of components; outstanding issues and obstacles in its realization, taking into account a wide variety of factors, they constitute pieces of knowledge and provide data and reflection for decision making in public policy. They provide reflection on their effectiveness and possible improvement. All of this while recognizing that no evaluation is ever neutral. Another issue is what the uses of the results of the evaluation are. 7 The strategic plan has attempted for the SENA to position itself as an organization of knowledge. Among these issues, the current role of SENA is to support entrepreneurial development and technological services for the productive sector, encourage projects of innovation and competitiveness, participate in the reduction of the frictional breach which is present between offer and demand in the labour market etc. 8 The comparison between SENA graduates and SENA non graduates is carried out through the Propensity Store Matching. 15

16 5. ACADEMIC RESEARCH: PROBLEMS DEALT WITH AND NEW APPROACHES The academic research examined usually questions the adequacy between educative levels, offer of training and the inclusion in the world of work, giving rise to discussion of the theory of human capital. Focusing on the highly segmented job market, studies based on statistics show that opportunities to access the most productive sectors are more and more reserved for those with the higher education levels. The requirements for obtaining quality jobs are drifting towards the completion of secondary school (SITEAL, 2006). Those who do not get a secondary certificate constitute the largest group among those unemployed and/or excluded from the formal sector. But there exist many differences among countries regarding their educational expansion heterogeneities and their labour markets configurations. A recent study by Fanelli and Jacinto (2010) including data from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru presented the following conclusions at this respect. Data regarding the relation between educational credentials and labour inclusion reveal, in general, a positive association between higher levels of education and better conditions of labour inclusion. In all countries considered, the activity rates grow as educational levels rise, although there are important differences between them according to their labour markets and educational expansion. In Argentina and Chile, with the higher unemployment rates of the group, the weight of major levels of schooling results slightly meaningful over unemployment only over those who have more than secondary level, mainly in Argentina. In particular, in both countries can be observed that the secondary diploma is devaluated in terms of getting a job. In Mexico, as unemployment rates are very low, the incidence of the credential in terms of possibilities of being unemployed can not be clearly observed. On the other hand, is interesting to point out that in the rest of the countries the unemployment rate grows as the educational level increases. It is probably that it is linked to the fact that these economies do not generate many jobs in the more dynamic sectors of the economy where the more educated would expect to work. Other two labour indicators reflect more positively the labour inclusion of the more educated. The levels of wage earnings strongly grow as educational credentials increase, except from the economies with higher levels of formality: Argentina and Chile. In these countries, the educational credential has a limited weigh in the first and a bit more moderated in the second. Also, the percentage of the ones employed in the formal sector increase as the educational levels grow. This happens in all countries to the extent that 80% or more of the population that reached more than an upper secondary level are employed in formal sectors of the economy. In the other hand, people that did not complete upper secondary show high levels of informality. Summarizing, the value of diplomas is reflected in a better labour insertion (at least in the selected indicators). But it decreases in the countries with a larger educational expansion, only the higher education diplomas seem to be associated to better jobs opportunities. Apart from the recognition of structural aspects in the construction of educative and work opportunities, three approaches to analyses of work transition of youngsters can be classified as innovative and can be emphasized: a) the logics of actions of subjects, b) the institutions as the place where the implementation of programmes and/or policies are constructed and c) the network 16

17 approach to local and sectorial links. The aim of research is often towards understanding the tension between these logics. We will visit some examples of academic work, some approaches/input which have made a contribution to the richness of the way of looking at the problems of young people s work inclusion in the last decade. As an example of the importance of a network approach to local linkages between youth and the world of work, an academic paper detected in Mexico attaches particular importance to the understanding of the education work network in the framework of the type of local development. Effectively, the relation between education and work are placed time and spacewise and these coordinates turn out to be fundamental in the study (Ibarrola, 2000). Among their many findings it is questioned whether greater expansion of education brings improvement to work conditions and income. In fact, the case shows that traditional and handcraft characteristics of the sector studied (and the structural reasons for the remain of traditional patterns of production) have a greater influence than the extension of basic schooling or training for work in positions, ranks and in the income of young workers of either sex working in the shoe industry. Another group of academic papers picks up on the approach of institutional case studies (which have a long tradition in Latin american s research) but in the light of the implementation of training programmes designed outside the institution. The institutional studies already had varied backgrounds in earlier decades and in papers collected in the present decade it can be seen that they especially helped to understand the conflicting logics in which the actors involved construct the action. It is particularly interesting to stress that they are papers which have studied training programmes not from an evaluative model to study its effectiveness alone as if it were a black box but to understand the social construction which is produced from the model to the actors and what happens in the area of the so called implementation. The implementation is constructed by the social actors who participate in the different levels of development of the programme. In fact, a conflictive interaction is produced between the designed policies, the institutions and the actors. The studies collect evidence of permanent tension between the technical nature of the implementation and the socio political and cultural conditions where it develops. For example, two research papers deal with the case of the Projoven programme in Uruguay 9. The model of intervention is studied and how different types of training centres redefine their profile based on the institutional logics (Albada, 2008; Jacinto, 2009). The first paper focuses on the dynamics of networks of interaction: entrepreneurial and union, NGOs and government agencies, that is the intervening actors from It stands out that the interaction is characterized by stability and shared commitment, added to this; clear rules which facilitated structuring and predictability of the behaviour. On the other hand, the development of each organization is independent, there is no demand for specific occupational profiles and the training decisions are in the hands of each body. However, fundamentally, one axis is the backbone of the programme: that its state of being an institution remains in a tripartite organism with budget independence from the state. The second study argues that the continuity of Projoven (decade and a half) is due to the fact that it has been the only programme which in its consolidation stage offered short work training, showing itself to be a kind of mechanism with positive results even in periods of high unemployment: it provided legitimacy in the light of the tripartite body (companies, unions, state) which finances it. The permanence of the programme benefited sustainability of training institutions which included it within their continuous strategies of intervention although the relationships between the unit of general management of the programme and the bodies were still logics in tension. 9 Uruguay Report 17

18 Another example are two studies in Colombia 10 which, based on interviews with teachers and other primary sources, examines the coordination programme between the SENA and academic secondary schools (Gómez Campos et al., 2009b, Celis Giraldo y Díaz Ríos, 2010). The papers describe the process of coordination and point out that adaptation by the schools to the SENA programmes (even adapting their institutional Project) is required. This coordination does not start with the actual needs of the schools but with the need of the SENA which tries to increase enrolments by incorporating secondary school students (secondary school students are counted as SENA students). The coordination is produced vertically and the teachers show little motivation to be trained as they do not receive payment or higher points for this extra task. Added to this, the management of practices in companies (a component of coordination) is carried out in the same schools or even with the same youngsters so questioning the pedagogic benefit of this experience. Another group of innovating contributions can be found in the field of the studies of subjectivities. The role of the subjects, the subjective meanings of the action and/or the youth trajectories has come up as a subject of its own of post modernity. How youngsters build their own training and work trajectories in the framework of social and biographic determiners and how much this must be taken into account to understand their training and work strategies has provided new input towards the understanding of the relations between education and work. The biographic, school and work trajectories are excellent instruments to examine the experiences of subjects (and the youth transitions) in the contexts both macro structural as well as institutional in which they develop, enabling evidence to be provided for the formulation of what has come to be known as policies of subjectivity. Among the examples of this type of work the papers of Sepúlveda (2007) in Chile, Guerra (2009) in México and to a certain extent Marrero (2005, 2006) in Uruguay, could be mentioned. Linked to this type of study but in fact, concerned with the meanings of the action there is another series of papers. It vindicates a wide concept of work and in particular, the area of work training outside technical education and traditional and institutionalized professional training. It is concerned with work training oriented towards marginal sectors. It refers particularly to the rural area where the work of non governmental organizations has been very intense. This perspective can be defined like this: When asking about employability, stable or precarious work inclusion, effectiveness, especially the effectiveness of strategies, the achievements and limitations of programmes, it is necessary to first ask the question on the meaning of work, on the new links between meaningful participation, education and work, between written culture and work, between subjects, social group and work (Messina, Pieck y Castañeda, 2008). They point out that far from the demands of the formal labour market, in the area of informal work, the knowledge required is closely related to everyday life. In the framework of the informal sector of the economy, work training does more for people s productive activities, for their survival strategies and for their capacity to reinvent life, leading to new jobs, changes seemingly fragile but at the same time ones which bear the passing of time (Idem, P. 21) This perspective takes up the old Latin American tradition of popular education, setting out the need for the significance of learning for subjects. Research on these lines leans strongly towards the voice of the subjects themselves, their history and experience. 10 Colombia Report 18

19 6. FINAL REFLECTIONS This article analyses the main tendencies in the production of knowledge of a particular sub field within the studies on education and work. Going back to what was stated in the introduction: It specifically refers to the development of skills in youngsters in the area of formal education (mainly technical secondary school) as well as vocational training and training programmes. Within this subfield, a more specific area has been separated: the one that refers to documents which examine the processes of development of policies and/or SD programmes and their impact in a wider sense. It is important to emphasize these specific areas as the field of production of knowledge of education and work generally is much wider. At the same time, the research involves only a specific area in geographic terms as it only refers to the countries and general papers selected which despite covering more than 80 pieces of work many others have been left out. The corpus as well as papers products of consultants, evaluations such as studies based on secondary data (statistics or other research) and academic research have been included as all of them apart from their differences have all made a contribution towards the knowledge of the subject, especially concerning recent policies, new institutional models and/or new approaches as well as regarding social process of building programs and/or youth transitions. With such a focus, it is to say that there are not many systematic studies which allow to arrive at findings based on solid empirical evidence. There exist even less studies concerning comparisons between countries. Analyzing the corpus, several questions arise: To what extent are the documents directed to create inputs for policy making on SD? Are they aimed to study or evaluate policies? Beyond that, do they provide input for this? What are the dialogues established between empirical research and decision making in the different policies of SD? Certainly, as shown in this paper, a first answer concerns the institutional context in which each study was elaborated. Evaluations are especially designed to contribute to the assessment and/or for feedback of policies or programmes. Even though, we have indicated their technical or political constraints. It is worth noting that a part of the research reviewed have been promoted through contests by the ministries of education, particularly in Chile and Mexico. The aim of contributing to policies is also explicit in the studies supported by international organizations such as UNESCO. This means that there are signs of agreement between the researcher and the policy making at least on the formulation of applied research questions. But it can not be assured that it is a means to improving the capacity of those engaged in policy dialogue to learn from the findings generated by research. Policies and research have their own agendas and it is legitimate for that to be so, although the research findings are desirable inputs for policy planning. At the same time, some progress have been made towards mechanisms for the generation of knowledge on TVET such as surveys for graduates follow up studies, implemented by government agencies, which provide good data on job insertion of technicians. The provision of these responses in the context of the economic recovery of the region during the 2000s, turned to be a key question to provide inputs for the planning of TVET reforms. However, apart from follow up studies carried out by some well known VTI's, such studies have not been included as permanent policies for secondary and tertiary levels in most of the cases studied. 19

20 Although some studies could be detected, the research on youth employment in the informal sector has not been a frequent subject of research. The specific study of certain sectors of activity and the knowledge and competencies involved in each occupational sector, is not a frequent subject of academic research in our corpus. In the same sense, an in depth analysis of formal and non formal education linkages and their impact on youth strategies and trajectories (and at community level) is not available in the corpus reviewed. From a general point of view, the predominance of exploratory or descriptive approaches or evaluative models of the income product type enables certain findings to be highlighted but it is not sufficient to carry out strong empirical evidence which could be used for decision making. It could also be held that in the group of research on social and educative subjects, systematic and systemic research linking youngsters to the TVET is scarce. For example, there are studies on institutions and actors, but a subject to be further researched (although there are exceptions, as we have seen) are these complex and multidimensional processes that implies systemic approaches on policies: relationships between discourse and action (at central, local, institutional levels), as well as the ways policies are re created in educational institutions by the actors responsible for implement them at schools. One possible hypothesis is that remaining in the cross section of social studies of the world of work, education and youth, the problems addressed by this state of art, don t seem to be the ones that attract the most researchers who are immersed in academic institutions and/or the national research systems. It is worth asking oneself about the socio historic, contextual, financial and institutional reasons which lead to a relative relevance of these subjects of research. However, the formulation of policies is also usually far from the logics of decision making based on empirical evidence. Sometimes the lack of research is not regretted: in many cases the adoption of a policy model or strategy is based only on political perspectives and reasons. As Gallart (2008) said the policies change in successive governments and there s a difficulty in linking up interventions and evaluating outcomes in the middle and long term. The legitimacy itself of the policies seems to depend little on that base of support. Even more, in some cases evaluations and even research are conceived as sources of legitimization of actions and not as technically different ethic spaces. As it was said in previous papers, the evidence based policies in SD label is hardly realistic but some progresses have been made towards mechanisms for the generation of knowledge on the field. 20