VET: unlocking the full potential of critical skills

Lionel WIJESIRI

Development of Vocational Education and Training (VET) in Sri Lanka has been hampered in the past by a number of factors. We inherited from Britain a tradition that valued academic studies more than vocational ones. Parents, anxious to have their children succeed in the new world, accepted these educational values. Until recently, we did not treat university programmes for training highly skilled workers as vital to the nation’s interest. On the other hand, not only did companies give low priority to company-based worker training programmes, but also these programmes have been inconsistent in quality and quantity because of variations in the business cycle.

It is in this context that we should view with satisfaction the present government’s keen interest in developing the vocational education in Lanka. It had secured the co-operation among the different sectors of industry and labour to increase our worker mobility and to help the economy grow. This may eventually lead to continuous dialogue extending beyond ministerial involvement to such issues of mutual concern as finance of vocational education and standardization of programming on a cost- and power-sharing basis. Incentive for greater co-operation may come from increased competition in the international marketplace.

Private sector

As we go back our contemporary history, we come across few important sector-wide policy reforms which gave an impetus to our vocational education and training. In mid-1990s, the government moved away from being the main provider of training and become its facilitator, standard-setter, regulator and coordinator.

Vocational training. File photo

Accordingly, the private sector was given a more active and participatory role. At the same time, Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission (TVEC) was reconstituted and converted to a statuary body with greater autonomy and increased representation by the private sector.

This move made it possible for the TEVC to respond more closely to emerging skill needs of the labour market. In the year 2000, Skills Development Fund (SDF) was set up to assist the employers to get their employees trained in new skills.

Skill formation

However, this did not have the desired effect due to the lack of motivation to pay for employee training and development. In 2011, under the present government, the University of Vocational Technology (UNIVOTEC) was established.

These are indeed very significant milestones. Yet, more remain to be accomplished.

Across most of the modernised world, apprenticeship has gradually given way to national vocational education and training (VET) systems that seek to supply the skill formation needs of the industries which produce the goods and services we take for granted in our everyday lives.

In Europe, Australia, Japan, China, USA and Canada, VET systems share significant features in common. (1) They are complex; (2) They struggle to keep pace with the labour market demands of changing economies and emerging industries; (3) They find it difficult to meet the needs of small to medium enterprises

And they all face the challenge of aligning their training products and services to exacting, national and global standards at the same time as they are adapting their training to meet changing local needs.

It is in this spirit that we must explore some thoughts about what a VET system in Sri Lanka should aim to be and what it needs to do to get there.

The writer believes that there are two broad elements to be evaluated which seem to be multifaceted issues.

Firstly, the relationship of VET to other sub-systems of education: Secondly, the role of the workplace as a site for vocational education and training.

VET and higher education

The most important thing that VET needs to do is to become more integrated with school and university education. As well as retaining its unique qualities as a form of applied learning, VET needs to extend outwards from its sectorial territory to take up a place within schools and universities, which for their own part need to extend outwards into the world of work as a site for learning .

The idea of links between VET and higher education is certainly not new. However, in Sri Lanka, the progress in bringing VET and higher education together has been slow, and the story is of one way educational articulation from the ‘vocational’ to the ‘higher’ sector, rather than of genuine cross sector links that foster applied learning at all levels. The need for a closer integration between education sectors is irrefutable. Employers talk of the need for graduates with high level analytical abilities and technical skills and increasingly we find graduates of generalist university degrees seeking vocationally specific diplomas offered by technical institutes and trade schools. And it is a call that is not new. Thirteen years ago, UNESCO declared: “Technical and vocational education should develop close interfaces with all other education sectors to facilitate seamless pathways for learners with an emphasis on articulation, accreditation and recognition of prior learning.”

The further we travel into the 21st century the more pressing becomes the need for high order skills and for a new way of understanding what vocational education really means. Formulating and applying solutions to emerging problems of water and food supply, capturing carbon and recycling materials are matters for high level skill, deep applied knowledge and the capacity to theorise and solve unique problems. It calls for a new way of understanding the relationship between practical skills and knowledge production. It calls for strategies to enable specialists from different fields, skill types and levels, to work together as high-order problem solving teams.

Sri Lanka have not yet managed to shift dominant conceptions of vocational education as a pathway for the less able or overcome university fears that too close a relationship will lead to the standardisation of academic work and the erosion of academic freedom.

One way of linking VET and higher education is through what the UK calls a foundation degree and Australia calls an associate degree - higher education qualifications which are offered by VET providers and which provide for specific skill development, broad vocational knowledge and clear guaranteed pathways into undergraduate degree programmes. Both in the UK and Australia, these qualifications are designed in consultation with industry and offer flexible entry requirements.

VET and schools

At the same time, the writer believes that we need to re-integrate vocational learning into school education, strengthening not only VET’s identity, but also the uncertain sense of identity suffered by the young people who have become voiceless by the traditional school curriculum.

There are many students, who are discouraged from taking a vocational pathway. Sadly, too many of them have been unable to resist the pressures exerted by prevailing values and end up locked into desk-bound abstract 'learning about' rather than 'learning how' followed by jobs that don’t really meet their inner aspirations or talents. More than ever, guidance advice and mentoring will be critical if young people are to be truly at the centre of learning and skills development. These intermediary roles can help turn large and impersonal systems into accessible networks, particularly for young people who are at the margins of mainstream provision.

Adopting the workplace

Ensuring that workplace learning is factored into VET and formally recognised not only helps to meet employer needs for ‘work-ready’ graduates and cost effective skill upgrades, it also affirms individual and different pathways to skill acquisition.

Work-readiness is a matter of both confidence as well as competence - being at ease with the routines of skill application; having the capacity to collaborate with team-members, negotiate tasks and to manage these under contingent circumstances. None of these attributes are especially fostered through traditional forms of classroom learning and assessment.

Challenge

In Germany, where workplace learning has a long and strong tradition, some companies use ‘Learning Bays’ - spaces which are located in the middle of work processes for informal and formal learning. Trainers attached to the learning bay are generally skilled workers from relevant departments who act as facilitators for learning specific topics and skills. The concept of the learning bay is also used for the technical skills training of existing workers.

The challenge for VET in Sri Lanka is not just one of curriculum. To contribute to sustainable development, VET needs to re-imagine itself as a different sort of learning community which is dynamically linked to equally envisaged industrial and business communities. What is needed is a new approach to skill formation which has VET working strategically with industry, government and community agencies to achieve agreed economic and social goals.