Search Results for
"Vocational education"

The new vocationalist policies, exemplified by youth training schemes, do virtually nothing to foster economic development. Such moves are very different to the vocational training of apprenticeships. However, a simple return to apprenticeships is not appropriate. The future of training should be less specific and more general, thereby reflecting and promoting future demands: relearning, and flexibility. Industry and education should point to the errors of current government policy and seek this economically relevant training. © 1998, MCB UP Ltd.

The World Bank argues that vocational education and training in developing countries is best left to individuals, enterprises and private sector training institutions with government interventions kept to a minimum. This article argues that this policy prescription is seriously flawed both conceptually and in relation to the current VET policies adopted by governments in the advanced industrial economies as well as the high performing Asian economies.

Many developing countries have relied on the varied forms of diversified secondary technical education as the main venue for training skilled workers and mid-level technicians. But there have been numerous and strong critics aginst this mode of technical education. As an alternative, the Mexican Government established the CONALEP system in the late 1970s. This study tests the viabilit of the system by evaluating CONALEP graduates' labor market performance in comparison with other forms of education. It also supplements the scant literature on the transition from technical education to work and on the use of technical skills. Through innovations - interalia, an autonomous national organization structure, decentralized operations, strong links to industry, use of industry-experienced instructors, termanal secondary program with modest cost recovery, and highly practical courses - CONALEP has forged an effective technical secondary education system aimed at the Mexican labor market with substantial spill-over effects. Although it is a Mexican program, the special features of the CONALEP system bear policy implications for other countries as well. With globalization and rapidly changing technology requirements of the Mexican economy, however, this alternative form of technical secondary education faces new challenges, notably adjustment of its curriculum to changing market circumstances and improvement of its external and internal efficiency.