International Developments in Vocational Pathways:
Lessons for Australia
Phillip McKenzie
ACER
and
Monash University – ACER
Centre for the Economics of Education and Training
Presentation to the Conference of the
South Australian Secondary Principals’ Association
Adelaide
3 November 1998
Contact: ACER
Private Bag 55
Camberwell Vic 3124
Phone 03 9277 5585
Fax 03 9277 5500
Email: mckenzie@acer.edu.au
INTRODUCTION
This paper attempts to distil lessons from international developments in the transition from education to work for the current debate on VET in schools in Australia. It draws mainly on the OECD’s current review of the education-to-work transition process in Member countries. The first part of the paper provides some background on the OECD review. In the second section, key findings from the OECD project are presented and their implications for Australia discussed.
The overall conclusion from the OECD review is that improving young people’s transition from education to work requires policy coherence across a wide range of policy fronts – education and training, the labour market, and social welfare. In terms of education policy, the key requirement is to prevent failure at school and to develop the knowledge, skills and motivation for lifelong learning. However, improving participation and success in education are not, on their own, sufficient for overcoming youth unemployment and other problems in the transition to work and adult life. The reality is that supply-side changes to the youth labour market, such as are being attempted through VET in schools, can only go so far.
THE OECD REVIEW OF TRANSITION
OECD Member countries have been concerned with transition issues for at least 20 years since youth unemployment started to rise in the 1970s. Much of that concern has focused on the particular problems faced by early school leavers and young people who lack skills, and on vocational and technical education. But it is now recognised that the transition can pose problems for young people across an even broader span of educational backgrounds, including tertiary education, and the current transition review reflects this broader scope.
The transition review, which started in 1996, is designed to improve understanding of why certain education and training policies provide effective transition frameworks in some countries and not in others, or why they facilitate transition for some groups of young people or in some sectors of activity while they fail to do so for other groups or sectors. The review is intended to improve understanding of the increasingly complex routes that young people take as they move from education into the workforce, and to identify what seem to be the key elements of a comprehensive policy framework.
Because of the large number of countries interested in taking part in the study it was decided to conduct the review in two rounds. Six countries were selected to take part in Round 1: Australia; Austria; Canada (the Provinces of Quebec and Nova Scotia); the Czech Republic; Norway; and Portugal. These countries were reviewed during 1997 and a synthesising report drafted in mid-1998. The present paper is based largely on these six countries, which between them provide a diverse range of economic and social conditions, and different policy frameworks.
During 1997 each country prepared a 40 page Country Background Report in response to a common analytical framework and set of questions developed by the OECD Secretariat. In the case of Australia, DEETYA commissioned ACER (John Ainley, Stephen Lamb and Jeff Malley) to prepare the national background report.
After the Background Report had been received, a four-person review team spent two weeks visiting the country concerned. The country review visits included meetings with senior policy makers in education and employment, education and training institutions, programme administrators, employers’ and employees’ representatives, researchers, and young people. Following each visit the review team prepared a 30-page Country Note that provided the country authorities with the reviewers’ perspectives on issues and policy approaches to transition, and which also supplied material for the synthesising comparative report.
The present paper is based on three papers arising from Round 1 of the review:
In late 1997 a further eight countries were selected to take part in Round 2: Denmark; Finland; Hungary; Japan; Sweden; Switzerland; the United Kingdom; and the United States. This set of country reviews commenced in May 1998 and will run until February 1999. The findings from the Round 2 country experiences will be progressively incorporated into the comparative report developed for Round 1. By the time the whole exercise is completed in late 1999, 14 countries --half the OECD membership – will have been reviewed. Improving young people’s transition from education to work is clearly a high priority for OECD countries.
MAIN FINDINGS AND LESSONS FOR AUSTRALIA
An initial caution: The limits of international analysis
There is no doubt that cross-national research provides opportunities for learning in a number of different ways. Countries are able to learn more about themselves by using international experience and data to reference their performance, strengths and weaknesses. New ideas can be opened up for overcoming deficiencies in education and training, and strengths can be better appreciated. In this process the analysis of similarities among countries may be just as important as the identification of differences. For example, national debate may attribute problems in the transition to work to particular features of a country’s education system when, in fact, problems such as high youth unemployment are also present in countries with markedly different education systems.
Nevertheless, one of the major challenges in reviewing the experience of other countries is to determine the extent to which institutions or programs that appear to work well in one country can be readily transferred to other, quite different settings. Education and training arrangements are often deeply embedded in specific national contexts. Therefore, it is important to understand the economic, political and social circumstances that shape the operation of education and training systems, and which may limit their transferability to other countries.
The OECD review is attempting to identify the broad principles underlying apparently successful approaches to young people’s transition from education to work, since these are more likely to be transferable to youth policy across a wide range of countries, rather than specific structures or programs distinctive to each country’s traditions and institutions.
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Lesson 1: Be cautious about the lessons drawn from international studies
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Terminology needs to be treated with particular care
Much of the debate on the need to reform education and training is quite loose in the use of terms such as "general" and "vocational" education. Although there is a common understanding that general education programs are those that are essentially oriented to preparing young people for further study, whereas vocational programs are oriented towards direct entry to the labour market, there are few "pure" examples of such programs. Classification of any one program or country’s system into the general or vocational category involves making judgments about relative emphases.
Such judgments can apparently change quite quickly. For example, in the 1995 edition of the OECD’s Education at a Glance (OECD Indicators), Australia is recorded as having 75 per cent of upper secondary students enrolled in general education programs in 1992, and 25 per cent in vocational education and apprenticeship. In the 1997 edition of Education at a Glance, which uses 1995 data, the corresponding proportions for Australia were 35 per cent of upper secondary students in general programs and 65 per cent in vocational and technical programs. In the space of three years, Australia apparently moved from having one of the weakest emphases on vocational and technical programs in upper secondary education, to one of the strongest. The actual situation has not, of course, changed as rapidly as that. The main reason for the dramatic increase in the proportion recorded as enrolled in vocational and technical programs in Australian upper secondary education is that participation in traineeships and TAFE programs that approximate upper secondary education are now classified, for the purposes of these international comparisons, as belonging in the level of education that involves upper secondary education. The footnotes to data on general and vocational education need to be read very carefully to ensure that like is being compared with like, even within the one country over time.
My overall impression is that what we term "general" education in Australia often has a stronger vocational element than programs classified as general education in many other countries. For example, the general Year 12 curriculum in South Australia includes subjects in areas such as Business Studies, Computer Studies, Home Economics, and Technology that have a clear applicability to the world of work. Such subjects may not be "vocational" in the sense of having been designed in close collaboration with industry, or giving students a qualification that provides direct access to employment in those fields, but they at least have some connection to developments in the economy and labour market. In other countries, especially in Europe and Japan, the "general" curriculum is much more general in that it focuses on languages, mathematics, cultural studies, natural and social sciences that are taught very much with university entry in mind. Subjects such as Accounting or Information Technology are not always offered as part of the general education program in senior secondary education in such countries.
On the other hand, what we term "vocational" education in Australia is often less tightly connected to the labour market than in other countries, especially those with strong apprenticeship systems. Vocational education in Australian schools seems to have more of the character of learning being applied to workplace settings than direct preparation for entry to employment. Drawing these two threads together implies that the Australian secondary school curriculum is much less differentiated than in other countries, especially in Europe.
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Lesson 2: Particular care is needed in the terminology used to describe education and training
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There is need for a lifelong learning focus for the whole age group
Although much of the concern with young people’s transition to work has arisen because of problems faced by early school leavers in times of high youth unemployment, transition can pose difficulties for young people across a broad span of educational backgrounds. Increasing numbers of young people are staying longer in formal education, partly because of problems in the youth labour market, with the consequence that transition issues arise over a wider age span. In Australia, around 20 per cent of young people are still enrolled in formal education at the age of 24 years. Among the Round 1 countries, only Norway (25 per cent) has a higher proportion in education at that age. The OECD transition review has adopted a broad perspective that comprises the whole span of school-leavers including those who enter the labour market directly from secondary school or apprenticeship-type schemes, those who go on to further education and training before seeking work, and those who combine education and work in various ways.
The pathways from vocational education to work, and the linkages between these and the general education pathway, are central policy concerns in most OECD countries. The effectiveness of the general education pathway in preparing young people for work has generally received less attention. Yet in Australia, Canada, Norway and Portugal the direct flows from general upper secondary education to work are sizeable, with between one-third and one-half of all final year secondary students in the general pathway not proceeding directly to tertiary study. Australia, with about one-half of Year 12 students not moving directly to tertiary education, was the highest among this group.
OECD countries are increasingly developing education and training policy from a lifelong learning perspective. The pace of economic and social change is so rapid that that individuals need to acquire new skills and knowledge throughout their adult lives to maintain their employability. This implies that a successful transition to work depends on having a sound foundation for further learning, as well as having skills that the labour market requires now. Improving the transition to work means more than finding ways of helping young people to find work and teaching them specific skills, important though these are -- it also requires helping them to become effective learners throughout their adult lives. Therefore, in considering whether particular approaches to improving transition are effective or not, there needs to be a broader set of indicators, and a longer time horizon, than is commonly used.
Placing the transition from initial education to work within a lifelong framework context raises questions about whether there may be a trade-off between efficiency in the short and the long run, that is, between a rapid, smooth transition to employment provided by equipping young people with recognised vocational qualifications, and a delayed transition offering more durable lifetime career opportunities through a strong general education. However, as discussed below, experiences in countries such as Austria and Norway suggest that it may be possible to design pathways that ensure both a smooth transition from initial education to work, and access to lifelong learning opportunities that maintain and build employability.
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Lesson 3: The policy framework for improving young people’s transition to work needs to encompass the whole age group and be placed in a lifelong learning perspective
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A successful start in the labour market is vital for young people
Given that employers use both qualifications and experience to select workers, early school leavers are at a double disadvantage. They tend to spend a relatively long time searching for a first job and they are more likely to end up with work of poor quality. Although low-pay jobs can be a stepping stone to better employment, the evidence suggests that such jobs are often only temporary, and that the unqualified young person soon returns to the unemployment pool.
Yet not all those who leave school before completing upper secondary education are necessarily at risk in the labour market. The greatest problems face those who do not subsequently enrol in further education, and who are unemployed or outside the labour force altogether. What happens in the first year after leaving school is particularly important. Longitudinal data analysed for Australia, France, Germany, Ireland and the United States in the OECD’s Employment Outlook 1998 indicated that young people who are either unemployed or outside the labour force in this first year after leaving education spend substantially less time in work over the following five years than those who find work early. This is especially so for young women with low levels of education.
However, as Figure 1 indicates, the extent of disadvantage faced by early school leavers varies markedly among this group of five countries. Unfortunately, Australia is second only to the United States in how little time, on average, that early school leavers are likely to spend employed in their first five years after leaving education.
Figure 1 Average number of years spent employed over the first five years after leaving initial education by persons whose highest level of educational attainment is lower secondary
Source
: OECD, Employment Outlook 1998, Paris.|
Lesson 4: Long-term employment prospects improve if a job is obtained soon after leaving education
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Early entry to vocational pathways increases participation, but at a cost
Broadly speaking, those countries in which the decision about entry to vocational pathways is taken early in secondary school experience relatively high participation in vocational education and training. For example, in both the Czech Republic and Austria decisions about entry to vocational education and training are commonly made in lower secondary school. In the Czech Republic about 85 per cent of upper secondary students are classified as being in some form of school-based vocational education or apprenticeship, and in Austria about 75 per cent. In countries such as Australia and Canada, where the decision about entry to vocational programs is delayed until at least upper secondary education, enrolments in vocational programs at school generally involve only about 10 per cent of students.
The strong apprenticeship systems in the German-speaking countries have had a good track record of keeping youth unemployment in the 15-19 age group at comparatively very low levels and at ensuring that these labour market benefits persist for young adults. This has led to many efforts at developing similar arrangements in other countries. Over the years it has become obvious, however, that a whole range of social, economic and political conditions need to be fulfilled for apprenticeship systems to function successfully. In countries such as Australia, with relatively deregulated labour markets and little organised involvement by employers or trade unions in education and training, these conditions are hard to create quickly.
Furthemore, the early tracking of students into separate streams that is common in much of continental Europe is highly socially selective (the social elites are concentrated in general education), and rigid in that it is difficult to cross between the vocational and general pathways once the early specialisation has started. Furthermore such countries are now finding that students are preferring pathways that keep open the option of university study and firms are increasingly reluctant to provide training places for the young.
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Lesson 5: Early entry to vocational pathways can increase participation, but at a cost
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Purposes need to be clarified when introducing vocational content into predominantly general education programs
The attempts in countries like Australia and Canada to introduce a stronger vocational element into upper secondary school raise questions about the role of the vocational content. Is it to deliver an occupational qualification that provides direct entry to the labour market? Or to prepare students for entry to tertiary studies that will provide such a qualification? Or is it to motivate students both to continue at school and to see the choice of a vocational pathway, rather than extended general education, as a desirable post-secondary option?
In Australia, all three purposes (direct entry to employment, preparation for tertiary-level vocational education, and motivating low achieving students) seem to be present in the VET in schools debate, and are to some extent conflicting which each other.
If the purpose of the vocational content is to provide an employment qualification, greater depth and rigour is required than if its purpose is primarily to motivate or to link to further study. But this can raise dilemmas if the stronger emphasis on vocational preparation means that the possibility of entry to tertiary study is reduced. Where the general education pathway is long and chosen by the majority of students, and has few recognised exit points, the introduction of vocational education content can be a strategy for preventing parts of it from becoming a dead end for lower achievers, and for reducing failure at school. But if the vocational content is not designed primarily to provide an employment qualification, some means of capturing its benefits through ensuring strong links into further education and training need to be found.
The fact that VET courses in Australian schools are now commonly linked to the national qualifications framework gives them some currency in the labour market. In addition, the possibility for having assessments in vocational courses recorded on final school certificates enables them to be used for tertiary entrance. Both of these features of the Australian approach to VET in schools are significant in an international sense, and are attracting attention from other countries. However, in practice it may be difficult to achieve the employment preparation and tertiary entrance purposes simultaneously.
If vocational programs in Australian secondary schools are to eventually attract significant enrolments, and to broaden beyond motivational vehicles for those who are not interested in mainstream schooling, the linkages between vocational programs and post-school work and education opportunities will need to be clarified and strengthened.
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Lesson 6: The further development of vocational programs in upper secondary schools with a strong emphasis on general education requires the employment and further education objectives of those programs to be clarified and strengthened |
The purposes of general education also need to be clarified
It may well be, though, that the real problem with a lack of clarity of purpose in secondary schooling comes not so much from introducing more vocational content for a minority of students, but from uncertainty about the objectives of the general education pathway where the large majority of senior secondary students remain enrolled.
In thinking about this question, the OECD review team that visited Australia in 1997 drew on the 1994 Schools Council discussion paper The Role of Schools in the Vocational Preparation of Australia’s Senior Secondary Students. Given the goal of making the completion of senior secondary school (or its equivalent in the VET system) virtually universal, the Schools Council paper suggested that there are three models Australia could use to realign its secondary schools to better fit with the reality of student interests and aspirations:
The OECD review team observed that the dual model in a sense recreates an older Australian system in which separate technical colleges existed alongside academic secondary schools, but this time the technical or vocational option would exist within the same building. This model requires the least change on the part of the academic subject teachers who set the tone in most Australian secondary schools; but its downside, given the predominant culture, is that the vocational stream, as it was in the older system, will almost inevitably be perceived as second class.
The unitary model, which is the path that a number of Australian school systems have taken in promoting a single school certificate that is recognised for entry into tertiary education or work, reduces the separation implicit in the dual model, but it nonetheless maintains a clear distinction between academic and vocational courses and pathways within the secondary school. The integrated model begins from a different premise: namely, that all students need to be prepared for both work and further learning, and that all students, whether headed for university or directly into the labour market, will benefit from a programme of studies that integrates academic and applied learning. The integrated model would appear to be more consistent with the need to prepare all students for lifelong learning.
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Lesson 7: Any consideration of young people’s preparation for work must also involve those who are enrolled in the general education pathway
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The strongest growth is in pathways that lead to both employment and higher education
The common experience in countries is that vocational pathways which lead only to employment are proving less attractive to young people and their families. Where vocational pathways generate qualifications that lead to either work or to further study, the attractiveness of vocational education is rising. In Austria, for example, participation in the five year vocational colleges that allow such an option has been at a high level for many years and continues to rise (it is currently over 20 per cent of the cohort), and participation in apprenticeship, which does not normally enable entry to higher education, is falling. In Norway, where the vocational pathways in upper secondary education now enable students to qualify for both work and higher education, participation in the vocational pathways is rising. A similar development is evident in the Czech Republic, where about 37 per cent of students entering upper secondary education are now going to technical schools that also provide access to higher education, compared with 24 per cent in 1989. This growth has been mainly at the expense of the vocational schools which provide only very limited access to tertiary study.
There is a strong argument from the perspective of lifelong learning for enabling young people to obtain such combinations of qualifications. They can encourage students to see the world of work and the world of study as intertwined and can be a highly desirable form of preparation for an uncertain economy. For example, while in Austria the immediate employment rates of those who have completed apprenticeships and those who have completed five-year vocational programmes are similar, the latter are able to build "longer" careers because their courses provide general education skills that give access to higher education at later stages in life.
The effective provision of such pathways, though, requires far-reaching changes in curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, and strong partnerships between schools, enterprises and tertiary institutions. It is worth noting, that "double-qualifying" pathways through upper secondary education are generally longer than pathways which lead either to tertiary education or to employment. For example in Austria, where such courses have operated successfully for many years, the programs last for a year more than regular secondary education, and involve students in extensive contact with enterprises through summer internships and enterprise-based project work. In Norway, where the 1994 reforms greatly expanded the opportunities for vocational-track students to enter higher education, such students need to engage in an extra six months of school study in order to sufficiently lift their general education skills and knowledge if they want to enter higher education.
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Lesson 8: Ensuring that vocational pathways can qualify young people for both work and tertiary study increases their attractiveness, although programs that lead to high-quality employment and education destinations can be demanding and require more time |
The most successful vocational pathways have strong enterprise involvement
The common ingredient in successful approaches to education-to-work transition is the development of partnerships between education institutions and enterprises of all sizes and in all parts of the economy. The importance of partnerships at the national level between employers, trade unions and government in setting the curriculum, assessment, certification and financing frameworks for dual or apprenticeship systems in countries such as Austria, Denmark, Germany and Norway has long been recognised. In such countries the close involvement by employers and trade unions at national level is also evident in support for vocational education and training at the regional and local levels. Such involvement requires considerable resources, including the preparedness to engage in extensive consultation and the patience to work towards long-term results.
Building education-industry links is not easy, especially in countries like Australia where employers’ associations and trade unions do not have a strong tradition of working in partnership towards social goals. To do so normally requires the initiative to come from educators, who need to find ways for enterprises to have more than token involvement in program development and student assessment. Developing such relationships requires considerable time and resources if enterprises are to eventually see that they can benefit as much as the students and the schools.
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Lesson 9: Vocational pathways that involve strong links to employers and enterprises result in better labour market outcomes than do those with weak links
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CONCLUSION
As indicated at the outset, the overall conclusion of the OECD transition review is that improving young people’s transition from education to work requires a comprehensive policy approach that involves far more than education and training policy alone. The most sustained example of such coherence is probably to be found in the youth guarantee approach which the Nordic countries have been developing over the past two decades. The evolution of this idea has led to the concept of a guaranteed opportunity for all through a position in either education, training or work. Whether each individual takes up the opportunity is ultimately his or her own decision. However, a system of incentives and penalties, and tight safety nets for those who fail, helps young people to develop towards useful and productive roles.
Youth unemployment has not been eradicated in the Nordic countries. However, the number of very young people in the labour market has been considerably reduced, and stronger partnerships have been developed between educational institutions and enterprises. The Norwegian and Swedish experiences in particular show the value of individualised follow-up measures for those who have left school early, or who are at risk of leaving early. Such services, in which municipal governments play key roles, can be resource intensive. However, the Nordic experience also shows that there is no inevitability about the number of early school leavers, and that chances for successful intervention seem to be higher while young people are still in school. Offering a range of pathways suited to differing interests and needs at the end of compulsory education encourages a higher proportion of young people to remain in education and training. Intensive measures to help early leavers in the labour market can be all the more effective if resources are freed up by keeping their numbers low in the first place.
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