Chile’s TVET Strategy
At the beginning of this year, Chile published a new Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) strategy. CEMETS’ own Ursula Renold and Katherine Caves wrote the foreword to the strategy. This blog post is the English version of that foreword.
By Katie Caves
At the beginning of this year, Chile published a new Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) strategy. CEMETS’ own Ursula Renold and Katherine Caves wrote the foreword to the strategy. This blog post is the English version of that foreword. The full document is external pagehere.
The TVET Council of Chile is developing a long-term strategy to smooth education-to-employment transitions for all workers. The new TVET strategy needs to seek close cooperation among actors from the education and employment systems and provide substantial workplace learning opportunities for all students. The following introduction to the Chilean TVET strategy summarizes the essential aspects of an effective and efficient TVET system.
Strong TVET Systems
Theoretical and empirical studies have shown that at least four characteristics are key to strong TVET systems: good governance, education-employment linkage, permeability, and quality.
TVET Governance
Good governance has two dimensions: how actors work together (type of governance), and how actors’ behavior is incentivized (mode of governance). The two axes of type and mode define four models of governance, shown in Table 1. Within types, coordinated governance puts all functions in one or a few ministries and fragmented governance spreads TVET functions over a variety of ministries. For modes, input-oriented governance defines exactly how to deliver programs and output-oriented governance gives implementers freedom to deliver programs within standards. Output-oriented financial regulation distributes resources on a per-student basis, while in an input-oriented uses expenditure-based financing.
Table 1: Governance Models
Education-Employment Linkage
One factor unique to TVET is its relationship to employment. Education-employment linkage is a power-sharing relationship that enables TVET programs to minimize potential asymmetries between those systems. Communication and coordination among relevant actors is central to ensuring that TVET programs meet the needs of the labor market. It also minimizes the potential issues of communicating across systems. In general, higher linkage in a TVET program relates to better labor market outcomes for graduates. Like governance, education-employment linkage depends on the institutions in a given country and local preferences for how to organize relationships between the private and public sectors. The KOF Education-Employment Linkage Index is a benchmark tool that helps countries diagnose the strength of stakeholder engagement.
Permeability
A TVET system is an interdependent group of social institutions embedded in the broader education system of education and training. This prevents dead-end programs, and enables individuals to change or re-orient their careers at any point in their lifelong learning careers. Permeability requires both options and access. This means programs at multiple levels and in both academic and vocational pathways. It also means clear entrance and exit conditions, crosswalks, and mechanisms that let individuals move through the system.
Quality
Quality assurance is another keystone of an equitable TVET system that serves the needs of individuals, the economy, and society. A strong quality assurance mechanism keeps incentives aligned among individuals, schools, training companies, and society while maintaining the social status and attractiveness of TVET as an option for young people. It prevents apprentice or trainee exploitation, lack of learning, and problems progressing into new programs or employment.
TVET in Chile
Chile’s choices for how it defines good governance and education-employment linkage, plus a commitment to permeability and quality, determine how Chile can best allocate the functions of a strong TVET system among government branches and levels. It is important to recognize that "strong" is associated with high quality and “system” with the interdependency of certain functions.
Key Insights for Chile
Coordination is a critical function of TVET because actors’ actions must align so the system can be efficient, effective, and equitable. For Chile, governance in the IP and CFT programs might need to become more coordinated because the framework curricula and qualification standards would be more effective if set on a national level. If Chile does choose an integrated and output-oriented mode of governance, a single body defined in the TVET Strategy can become the coordinating body for TVET processes throughout the CVC.
Linking education and employment is also key, especially as it relates to financing. TVET programs are more financially complex than academic education, and involve funding from both the public and private sectors. Dialogue and power sharing between educators and employers drives the balance between incentives and regulations. As Chile develops a TVET model through this TVET Strategy, its approach to education-employment linkage will also define its financing of TVET application.
Permeability is an issue in Chile because TVET programs are not yet very attractive to young professionals, so it will be a major project as Chile enacts this TVET Strategy. This will also follow Chile’s decisions on governance and education-employment linkage. Those establish who has the right to make permeability-related choices or organize dialogue with other relevant authorities.
Before this TVET Strategy, quality was an issue in Chile because no clear quality control or prioritizes education-employment linkage, it can improve by distributing quality control to each region under a national framework of quality standards.
Conclusion
This TVET Strategy provides Chile with a vision of a TVET system with differentiated options that serve every individual, the economy, and society. Based on this strategy and decisions about how to organize TVET governance and education-employment linkage, Chile can develop a new TVET system that lives up to the vision of this strategy and all of the characteristics of a strong TVET system. While implementing this strategy it will be more important to keep going than to exactly fulfilling a certain goal. Changing a TVET system takes time, so each Presidency can add its own important stepping-stone toward an effective and efficient TVET system.