Vocational Education in the New EU Member States : Enhancing Labor Market Outcomes and Fiscal Efficiency
This report explores the fiscal aspects of vocational education reform in the context of secondary education as a whole and considers the implications of any changes in the vocational education (VE) system for post-secondary and other modes of skill development. The report begins by describing the inherited system of vocational education in the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe which was based on the assumption that everyone had to be trained for a specific occupation before starting work and that it was the function of vocational schools to provide such training. The report explores the scope for improvements in fiscal efficiency via a number of propositions about VE in the EU8 countries today: a) It would not be possible or advisable to fund adequately a traditional VE system which would provide ready-to-work recruits with narrowly specialized skills for the economy's enterprises; b) One way to reduce costs to government would be to locate practical training entirely in-plant but this is increasingly difficult; c) EU8 employers' traditional expectations of a fully-subsidized VE system delivering ready-to-work, specifically-skilled recruits are unreasonable; d) Traditional VE was the traditional answer to the question "What to do with those who have performed less well in basic education?" but this answer no longer convinces; and e) Parents and students are showing an increasing preference for general education (GE) over VE. Each of these propositions was discussed in this report not with a view to prescribing a detailed "one-size-fits-all" strategy for all the EU8 countries, but rather to deriving some principles that continued reform of VE could take into account, to the benefit of fiscal efficiency.
| Summary: | This report explores the fiscal aspects
of vocational education reform in the context of secondary
education as a whole and considers the implications of any
changes in the vocational education (VE) system for
post-secondary and other modes of skill development. The
report begins by describing the inherited system of
vocational education in the former socialist countries of
Central and Eastern Europe which was based on the assumption
that everyone had to be trained for a specific occupation
before starting work and that it was the function of
vocational schools to provide such training. The report
explores the scope for improvements in fiscal efficiency via
a number of propositions about VE in the EU8 countries
today: a) It would not be possible or advisable to fund
adequately a traditional VE system which would provide
ready-to-work recruits with narrowly specialized skills for
the economy's enterprises; b) One way to reduce costs
to government would be to locate practical training entirely
in-plant but this is increasingly difficult; c) EU8
employers' traditional expectations of a
fully-subsidized VE system delivering ready-to-work,
specifically-skilled recruits are unreasonable; d)
Traditional VE was the traditional answer to the question
"What to do with those who have performed less well in
basic education?" but this answer no longer convinces;
and e) Parents and students are showing an increasing
preference for general education (GE) over VE. Each of these
propositions was discussed in this report not with a view to
prescribing a detailed "one-size-fits-all"
strategy for all the EU8 countries, but rather to deriving
some principles that continued reform of VE could take into
account, to the benefit of fiscal efficiency. |
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