From Skill Shortages to Sustainable Work New directions for integrating employment and learning

1
From Skill Shortages to Sustainable Work - New
directions for integrating employment and
learning

• Overheads used at Department of Education,
  Science and Training Skills Forum, Hotel Como,
  Melbourne prepared by
• Dr John Buchanan
• Director (Acting)
• acirrt
• University of Sydney
• September 2005

2
Introduction

• Current skills regime not working
• Old is dieing the new is waiting to be born
• What would a new approach look like?
• Can rising labour productivity and decent work be
  achieved simultaneously?

3
Where am I coming from?Studies of
skills and the future of work

• Metal and engineering
• NSW and Victorian public hospitals
• Beyond Flexibility (BVET 2001)
• NSW and Victorian Manufacturing
• Victorian services sector
• Victorian dairy farmers
• Queensland aged care
• Skill required for sustainable development
• gt Whats going on?
• Example - Victorian manufacturing

4
The Challenge for Victorian ManufacturingDeploym
ent Crushing Development of Labour
Fuels new revitalised growth path

• Scenario A Upward Spiral
• Turning the tide
• Building new capacity
• Modernising existing capacity

Farmers eating their seeds

• Implications(i) limited capacity to handle
• New skill requirements
• Established skill requirements
• (ii) Victorian innovation provide future pointers

Breakdown in on off job training

• Skill impacts
• Direct
• indirect

Excess capacity
Intense competition
Scenario B Downward Spiral steady slide of
manufacturing
Changing role of large workplaces
New organisational forms
5
Overview

• The challenges
• Productivity, decent work and coordination
  failures
• New Directions
• Skill ecosystems, vocational streams, program
  design
• Barriers
• Overcoming legacies of the past
• A way forward
• Building new business and technical education
  capacity
• Conclusion
• Moving beyond market and govt accountability
  mindsets

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The challenges

• (a) Labour productivity
• Capacity to perform gt development
• Actual performance gt deployment
• (b) Decent work
• Quantitative dimension gt wages, hours,
  transitions
• Qualitative dimension gt skills/challenging work
• (c) Coordination failures
• Market failure
• Government failure

7
New Directions (Overview)

• Changing context of work skill eco-systems
• Changing content of work 3 logics of skill
  vocational streams
• Integrating employment and learning
• building new capacity

8
New Directions

• The changing context of work skill ecosystems
• . Clusters of competence shaped by interlocking
  networks of firms, markets and institutions
• . Key elements
• - business setting
• - institutional and policy framework
• - modes of engaging labour
• - structure of jobs
• - approach to skill formation
• gt contexts for balancing of developing
  deploying skills

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(b)Changing Content of Work- Getting Categories
Correct
Key issue not rising or fallingskills. French
literature grasp two dynamics  (a) open-ended
nature of employment contract   - capacity to
perform   - actual performance  (b) notions
of citizenship
gt Tgt Bgt C
Generic Skill
gt realignment of interest in   . cognitive
abilities  . technical competencies   .
behavioural capabilities.
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(b) The changing content of work- Vocational
Streams

• Neither occupations nor dismembered competencies
  gt vocational streams
• Logistics
• Engineering
• Care work
• Customer service
• Information processing/ technology/ admin
• Land use/farming

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(c) Integrating employment and learning better
building new capacity

• Employers their ability to become self reliant
  requires acceptance of joint responsibility for
  skills
• this takes considerable time to nurture
• (2) Educators neither masters nor slaves in
  effective systems
• Barriers legacies of market government failures

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Lesson 3 Barriers to success

• Unhelpful legacies of the past
• Domestic market competition (eg toolmakers)
• Training culture employers whinge, government
  reacts
• Current funding and data collection arrangements
• Increasingly directed at outcomes
• Neglects realities of building and maintaining
  capacity
• High turnover of key personnel
• Problem of management career paths these day
• Problem of no career paths for facilitator type
  roles

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The way forward

• Clarify objectives
• - overcoming market and government failure
• Engaging with new realities
• - Integrating employmentlearning program
• Priority issues
• - Intermediaries, educators and funding model

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The way forward - Clarify
objectives Overcome market and coordination
failures(a) Help employers to become
self-reliant by accepting joint responsibility
for key skill issues(b) Building new
organisational and analytical capacity to
achieve this - move beyond rigidities of
training market mindset - nurture effective
intermediaries/brokers of healthy skill
eco-systems, not just training provision
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An Integrated Employment and Learning Program

• . Systemic arrangements- fund capacity building
  not just specific outcomes
• gt modify info systems, funding arrangements
  and KPIs
• - eg of workers using all skills, balance of
  skill supply and vacancies
• . Essential pre-conditions before particular
  proposals considered for funding- pre-existing
  multi-employer network with own pooled funds-
  educator facilitators capable of
  brokerage/training support
• . Essential program elements - powersharing
  State/Fed Govts, Employers/Unions, TAFE/other
  RTOs
• - nurture facilitators
• - technical assistance/extension service

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The way forward - Priority issues

• Solve market and government failures
• - key role of intermediaries
• - iterative process of building coordination
  capacity and clarifying contours of
  coordination
• (ie coverage of various skill ecosystems and
  vocational streams)
• Education authorities as catalysts
• - program coordination based in DETs (or share
  with DEST)
• - particular projects based beyond education
  authorities
• New funding arrangements
• - only match financial commitments shown by
  employers already acting on a joint basis
• - develop a new Employer Skill Development and
  Use Contribution Scheme (ESDUCS) if progress
  limited after 12 months

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Summary

• The challenges
• Productivity, decent work and coordination
  failures
• New Directions
• Skill ecosystems, vocational streams, program
  design
• Barriers
• Overcoming legacies of the past
• A way forward
• Building new business and technical education
  capacities
• gt What can we conclude?

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Conclusion

• Coordination failures of markets and governments
  are profound
• Solution is neither better markets or more
  accountability
• Key issue building trust and social capital
• gt More efficient sharing of information and
  risk on skills
• Priority employer self reliance through
  acceptance of joint responsibility for critical
  skill issues.
• ie workforce development as opposed to a
  VET culture is needed
• Cautions
• Workforce development more vs how
• The need for realism voluntary if possible,
  obligatory rebalancing if necessary

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Priorities for further research

• Developing new capacity to engage with emerging
  realities
• Defining domains/contours of particular skill
  ecosystems
• Identifying actual and potential vocational
  streams
• Improving knowledge management systems concerning
  both
• New funding models for skill development and use
• Understanding how trust relations in work and
  skill systems are nurtured and undermined