Preparing for the Workplace Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy (1994) / Chapter Skim
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4 U.S. TRAINING IN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
4 U.S. TRAINING IN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Pages 103-117
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From page 103... ...
The committee could not in the time available for its work evaluate the effectiveness of American in comparison with foreign training.2 We do believe, however, that in an increasingly competitive international economy, the United States should not ignore possible lessons from the education and training practices of its principal trading partners. Those who extol the virtues of training abroad frequently cite three key features of foreign training systems: close connections to employers, national systems of skills standards and skills certification, and pathways along which young people move in comparatively straightforward fashion from school to work.
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From page 104... ...
Government policies supporting high minimum wage levels, as in Germany, give employers a larger stake in training highly skilled workers who can justify high wages than the stake of employers in countries where they can pay less. Lifetime employment guarantees, a tradition in large Japanese firms, similarly encourage employers to provide training without fear of losing their investment if workers leave.
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From page 105... ...
As in the United States, training for individuals already at work is largely the responsibility of firms, but we find evidence in Australia, Britain, Germany, and Japan of public policies that encourage or require em ployers to Invest In training. Qualifying Training Germany The clearest and most widely cited example of employer involvement in preparing young people for the workplace is found in Germany, with its "dual system" in which young people train as apprentices on the job under the tutelage of experienced masters while also pursing classroom instruction for 1 or 2 days per week.
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From page 106... ...
Twenty-six percent of youths aged 15-18 attend vocationally oriented high schools; the rest pursue academic courses (Kochan and Osterman, 1991:29J. Employers do not expect secondary schools to emphasize technical skills, and for this reason the Japanese educational system is often thought to be very little involved in occupational training.
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From page 107... ...
While ongoing reforms to TAFE include efforts to link firms more closely to the training system, Australian employers have a long history of involvement in training through a well-established apprenticeship system and through a newer, smaller Australian traineeship system established in the mid-1980s. About a quarter of Australian young people are apprentices or trainees; for many years apprenticeships were the dominant form of further training for Australian males who did not complete high school.
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From page 108... ...
Reform efforts at the postcompulsory level are built on changes made in compulsory schooling (which lasts until age 161. The British government has encouraged business interest in compulsory schooling by recommending that employers constitute at least 50 percent of the local boards of governors that set policies for individual schools.
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From page 109... ...
Young people in Britain who do not attend university have historically moved directly into the labor market from compulsory schooling, with no formal training: joining a firm at age 16 or 17 was traditionally the route to many well-paid careers (dickers, 1991:391. Once employed, individuals have had little incentive to invest in training, and the training that firms have provided tends to be very job-specific, in part because wage differentials associated with skills are lower in Britain than in other European countries.
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From page 110... ...
but they are also supposed to promote wider efforts, such as providing help with training to small firms, increasing the involvement of employers with education, and coordinating training policies and finding methods of funding training that will overcome the reluctance of employers to train workers who may then be hired away. Their success will depend on the time and energy devoted by the board of directors, their willingness to help develop a cohesive national strategy rather than pursuing only local goals, and their ability to raise the private funding that will be needed to support efforts (beyond just program administration)
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From page 111... ...
Firms are also expected to assess their own training obligations and liabilities; to police this, the Australian Tax Office conducts compliance audits. Training programs provided by firms must aim to teach employment-related skills and enhance firm productivity.
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From page 112... ...
In both Australia and Britain, governments have recognized that in order to strengthen their training systems they need to establish vocational standards and then to assist in the development of competency-based training programs. Nationally recognized skills certification is thought to be an important part of successful apprenticeship programs because it provides people with an incentive to participate and to accept lower wages while in training.
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From page 113... ...
can have their training programs certified. The National Training Board has decided to establish an Australian Standards Framework of eight competency levels, which will serve as reference points for the development and recognition of competency standards.
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From page 114... ...
Though the National Council for Vocational Qualifications appears to offer more coordination than existed in its absence, it does not reduce the number of organizations entitled to certify vocational skills, but rather expands it, adding employers and private training agencies to the existing mix of further education colleges and other examining bodies. The NVQs have been attacked for being very low-level and for allowing firms to accredit their own trainees without outside assessment for quality control.
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From page 115... ...
That is, they less often change their status from employed to unemployed, employed to student, student to employed, unemployed to student, in-the-labor-force to outof-the-labor force, etc. Apprenticeship has also proven to be an effective means for youths to gain steady employment after their training period even (as in Australia' when the youth labor market as a whole has experienced significant dislocation and unemployment.6 Comparative labor market stability for young adults as it has historically been accomplished in Germany and Japan comes at a price, however.
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From page 116... ...
In Japan, for example, 90 percent of students in private 2-year colleges are female, while 87 percent of the students in technical colleges are male. The differences reflect the lower priority Japanese parents have traditionally placed on the education of their daughters and their preference for keeping them at home: junior colleges offer shorter term programs and are local in nature.
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From page 117... ...
notes that an emerging consensus about the relatively poor skills of American workers "is based on limited direct empirical evidence of how skills and skill preparation vary from country to country." This is particularly true of private-sector training, which is a significant part of qualifying training in some countries and is the major source of skills improvement training in most countries. The growing interest in how training is provided overseas and in the effectiveness of foreign training policies is spurring research efforts on these important issues.
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