Reference paper 1: Cinterfor/ILO

TRAINING FOR DECENT WORK

120.  A lifelong education requires mechanisms that make it possible to establish a learning continuum. Of recent importance among them is the "occupational competencies’ movement", that is completely transforming the way of conceiving education. By competency we understand a person’s real capacity to achieve an expected objective in a given labour situation. The idea of competency is closely associated with innovation in soft technologies, and with new skills profiles.

121.  At present we think that persons are competent when they have a repertory of abilities, knowledge and skills, and the capacity to use them adaptively in a variety of labour contexts and organisations. Reasoned knowledge is assumed, as there is no true competency unless theoretical knowledge is accompanied by the qualities and capacity enabling persons to carry out the decisions dictated by that competency itself. Personal attitudes are also involved, and the affective side of individuals.

122.  The taylorist/fordist model was clearly prescriptive: workers were considered to be qualified insofar as they proved their capacity to comply with a previously established outside standard of behaviour. Nowadays, workers have the dilemma of managing a situation, making complex decision at the very moment of action, assuming personal responsibility before unforeseen situations. All this implies a social involvement that strongly mobilises their intelligence and subjectivity.

123.  Present conditions call for the notion of competency, which is inseparable from action and tested by problem solving. Competency appears as a valuable tool for training people because:

1. it vindicates the conjunction of knowledge, understanding and abilities measured in terms of performance, or capacity to ensure the necessary co-ordination and complementation between basic education and the various forms of occupational training (offered by specific institutions, organised and systematic training by employers, on-the-job training, community action, etc.)
2. it allows for the recognition and certification of learning regardless of how and when it was acquired, and supports the relevance, quality and upgrading of curricular contents and teachers’ training.

124. In a world where knowledge is valued as the main source of competitiveness, a good training system is required, generating knowledge of immediate application in people’s employment and life. Any training oriented towards the generation of competencies for employability has to find new ways of identifying current occupational profiles.

125.  Performance based on competencies is not just a description of the tasks and operations carried out by workers. It has to include the contribution it makes to the achievement of entrepreneurial objectives and, in consequence, the training needs that the training system has to fulfil. Identification of the new competencies required for access to work makes the training subsequently imparted highly effective.

126.  Procedures of dialogue and collective elaboration by workers and employers have proved to be effective for the identification of new competencies. It is no longer necessary to demonstrate that it is the workers who can best explain and understand the everyday problems of their trade. In view of this reality, a decent job is also that allowing for the collective identification, creation and improvement of the processes and results obtained. Decent work necessitates organisations integrating workers in the definition of training needs. Training and dialogue, training and negotiation: in that manner the link is forged between training and decent work.

127. Over and above identifying the competencies required by the new corporate structures, training programmes must assume new characteristics in accordance with current challenges. Training has to become more flexible, recognise the different places where people learn, and know how much time persons have for learning.

128.  The gradual blurring of labour practices that grew mainly during the so-called "industrialised economy" is giving rise to new scenarios in training demand. Workers need to have time-flexible training offers to fit in with their schedules. Their available time for study is no longer compatible with the fixed timetables of traditional training programmes. Decent work requires flexible programmes regarding time and location.

129.  To a large extent, competencies are developed at work. Consequently, a decent job is increasingly becoming a place for learning. Training has to take into account labour contexts as generators of competencies, so that through dignified work, people may have access to open certification mechanisms for the competencies acquired by education or from experience, or a mixture of both.

130.  We first talked of contextual flexibility. Training has to be delivered in a number of non-schoolroom contexts. The work place and the home are nowadays learning environments. The traditional classroom and teaching workshop are no longer the only places where competencies can be developed. Individual learn from experience, they learn at home, and training must recognise that fact and take advantage of it. Training and decent work imply a flexible, non-school kind of training.

131.  The new characteristics of employment are also conferring a new meaning upon the use of time for training. People get trained and develop competencies in different places, and therefore, at different moments. Traditionally set school hours have been disrupted by the varying time availability of modern workers. Access to training should not depend on the predetermined capability of training institutions, but on the needs of those who have to develop their competencies.

132.  Training providers are starting to make their programmes more flexible in terms of contexts and times. The new training offer must break away from the traditional paradigm of learning in the schoolroom at fixed times, and acknowledge the various sources of learning tapped by persons who have to reconcile their social and personal existence with their work.

133.  It is also necessary to assess knowledge according to the level of competencies that persons have accumulated. If they learn in different contexts and at different times, mechanisms for evaluation and accreditation must be readily available to them, and not confined to the "formal" moments of the training process. In consequence, mechanisms are required to evaluate and certify persons’ competencies in a transparent and objective manner. The degree of complexity of training is no longer judged by its duration, but by the occupational skills and abilities it may impart to candidates.

134.  In summary, training in an environment that may favour decent work should endeavour clearly to dispense the competencies required for successful performance. It should develop programmes aiming at such competencies, and promote the creation of transparent and comprehensive certification systems. It should also be as open as possible to access (flexibility of contexts and time), so as to further disseminate the concept of decent work. The idea is to build up training systems facilitating people’s entry and re-entry into the labour market along life.

135.  As proclaimed by the recent Report of the ILO Director General, it is necessary to formulate training policies including measures that may enhance the capability of workers to perform in the changing conditions of current reality. The concept of training has been radically altered, particularly with regard to contents, which will now be more worker-friendly insofar as they will be recognised by more than one enterprise. The increased value of "portable" competencies will enhance workers’ employment possibilities.

136.  The training offer is no longer identified with a single leading institution or agency. Quite the contrary: it is now associated with an array of co-ordinated services supplied by the State, Ministries of Education and Labour, Employers’ Organisations and Trade Unions, among others.

137.  However, this greater abundance of training agents, and the efforts that are generally being made for the sake of change and modernisation, affect the very concept and effectiveness of training. The participating actors require support, as do those in charge of formulating policies in the area of development and training of human resources, so that they may better equipped to generate training programmes, get acquainted with the best practices and learn about current experiences.

138.  Along those lines, the occupational competencies’ approach has been prominent in most of the training activities implemented by vocational institutions, ministries of labour, ministries of education, employers and trade unions throughout the Region.

139.  Vocational Training Institutions in the Region have been trying out their hand at evolving occupational profiles based on competencies. They have also been updating their training curricula and refining their evaluation instruments. For that purpose, social dialogue has been promoted and links have been established between employers and workers, with a view to devising more relevant and accessible training programmes. The following institutions may be enumerated in this connection: in Central America INSAFORP of El Salvador, INTECAP of Guatemala, INA of Costa Rica. In the Caribbean, INFOTEP of the Dominican Republic and the National Training Agencies (NTAs) of Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago. In South America, the competencies’ approach is already being utilised by the SENA of Colombia, INCE of Venezuela, SENATI of Peru, SENAI of Brazil, INFOCAL of Bolivia, and others.

140.  In Brazil, opening up to the international market has increased the demand for high-quality products, and consequently for highly qualified workers. The SEFOR of the Ministry of Labour and the ILO, are jointly implementing a project for the design of a certification system. The diversity of the training offer in the country, and the interaction of many actors in a scenario where training is being dispensed not only in the institutional environment of the "S system" (SENAI, SENAC, SENAR, SENAT) but also by a large number of other private institutes connected with communities or sectors, has created a situation in which occupational certification can make things transparent, facilitate workers’ mobility and improve the quality of training.

The project is taking into account the whole range of vocational training experiences in Brazil, from those run by NGOs and trade unions, to the ones of the "S system". Introduction of the competencies’ approach is a critical aspect of the proposal the scheme may submit. Several international models have been analysed in that connection; the experiences of Brazilian enterprises have also been identified and disseminated.

141.  A special feature of this undertaking is the participation of SEMTEC, which implies a coming together of formal secondary education and vocational training. The framework provided by the new Brazilian Law of Basic Education Directives made it possible for SEMTEC to start work on certification and adoption of the competencies’ approach. The objectives of education and labour have many things in common, and joint action is facilitating harmonisation.

142.  In Mexico, the experience of the CONOCER started in 1995, and is the most extensive initiative in the Region in the field of certification of labour competencies. It responds to the Mexican Government’s interest in getting the different actors to take part in the development of training based on competency standards, and the certification thereof.

The main components of the occupational competencies’ system are the following:

• Defining technical standards of occupational competency by branch of activity or occupational group, by the social actors with government support.
• Establishing mechanisms for the evaluation, verification and certification of the knowledge, abilities and skills of individuals, regardless of the way in which they have been acquired, provided that they comply with the technical standards of competency.
• Turning the training offer into a flexible modular system based on competency standards, to enable individuals to move from one module to another, according to their needs.
• Creating demand incentives to promote the new system among the population and enterprises, endeavouring for equity in the handing out of training and certification opportunities, without overlooking the needs of marginalised groups.

In the establishment of a nation-wide system, more emphasis is to be laid on defining standards for the more general functions in the different economic branches, technological languages and occupational areas.

This initiative is ultimately intended to find a valid alternative for linking together the different modalities of education and training and the employment demand of the country. The challenge is to face the modernisation of the educational and occupational training systems, not only to adapt them to the new economic and technological conditions, but above all to make them accessible for all sectors of the population, and endow them with adequate and relevant contents, and the level of quality that the labour market requires. 45 Committees for the Standardisation of Occupational Competencies are at present in operation in Mexico, 57 pilot experiments are being run in different sectors of economic activity to promote certification, and 7 Certifying and 9 Evaluation Centres have been accredited. The first 120 Certificates of Occupational Competency were awarded on 13 December of last year.

143.  The concern for employability and proper use of human talents has gradually brought about greater participation by Ministries of Labour in the implementation of training models that may fulfil needs, in the framework of active employment policies. From an initially quantitative intent, that focused on the need to remedy the situation of groups that were vulnerable to unemployment, another policy has been adopted. It does not leave aside the first approach, but it incorporates a qualitative ingredient aimed at delivering qualifications that may be of use all along a person’s active life, rather than brief fragmentary courses of short duration and difficult follow-up.

144.  The Ministries of Labour of Argentina, Chile, El Salvador and Uruguay are beginning to implement training and certification models. Argentina counts on proposals created from Instituto Nacional de Educación Tecnológica, INET (National Institute of Technological Education) and another one has been elaborated within the ILO destinated to the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Training of Human Resources. Uruguay, and Chile more recently, are formulating projects for the creation of systems for training and certification of competencies. The Ministry of Labour of El Salvador is closely involved in the development of a system of this kind by the Salvadoran training institute.

145.  There are also instances of private companies that have incorporated the competency model for the management of their human resources. Cases of this kind are to be found in the automotive sector, the graphic industry, food processing and the pharmaceutical area, to name but a few.

146.  In several countries, trade unions have been concerned to include in collective bargaining new aspects of labour relations, such as access to a relevant and ongoing training. Applications of the competencies’ approach are now appearing, with the participation of workers and management representatives in the design and analysis of job profiles. All this in a joint effort, in one hand, to raise productivity and competitiveness, and on the other hand, the development of new ways or schemes of negotiation and dialogue between the union and the enterprise.

147.  These efforts are leading to the development of a common language wherein the contribution of workers is valued by its results, and more transparent methods are used for recognising it, like the certification of competencies, whichever way they have been acquired. Thus, the road to decent work is built upon a relevant, flexible and adequate kind of training.

Index