Foster Partnership with All stakeholders

Although governments carry the primary responsibility for TVSD reform, policy design and actual delivery of education and training can best be achieved through a partnership between government, employers, trade unions, business associations, and various stakeholder groups in the formal and informal sectors of the economy.

Partnerships with industry helps accurately to define the vocational qualifications for each trade, the content of relevant occupational standards as well as improvements to the training curriculum aimed at improving its relevance. Likewise, trade unions have an interest in ensuring that workers are able to develop and utilise their productive skills to the full. Burkina Faso for instance has set up a working group between employers and unions to establish common guidelines for the funding of training. The Ministry of Labour is negotiating with employers and unions with a view to reaching a concerted commitment of the two parties on vocational training. Similarly, in 2005, in Mali, the National Council of Employers (CNPM), the National Federation of Artisans (FNAM), the National Workers’ Union of Mali (UNTM) and the Confederation of Trade Unions of Workers of Mali (CSTM) have prepared a statement, called the Bamako Declaration, according to which these organisations are committed to “combine their efforts to foster vocational training, create a new social dialogue, and promote accreditation of vocational training”.

The social partners and the crafts associations in particular, play a very important role in the restructuring of apprenticeship in some West African countries. They offer skills assessment for graduate apprentices so that their skills are recognised in the labour market, and resolve conflicts between master craftspeople and apprentices. In Benin, Senegal and Mali, trade associations help informal apprenticeships evolve into dual training programmes and are also involved in defining the content of skills and competencies. In Tunisia, the conceptually innovative strategy and action plan envisaged a strong partnership with all professional associations for curricula design and oversight of training centres but so far the participation and motivation of some stakeholders has remained low. Although the private sector was strongly involved, other actors were left behind, i.e. employees’ organisation and civil society. Nevertheless, over the last two years, the General Union of Tunisian Workers L’Union Générale des Travailleurs Tunisiens has become involved in tripartite discussions concerning the financing of training.

In many African countries, NGOs are also important partners in training activities, especially for disadvantaged groups and communities.

As highlighted earlier, an orientation towards demand-driven training systems leads to an increasingly prominent role for the private sector. Enterprises, in particular, are expected to undertake a proactive role in training. In countries where there is a strong partnership between the state and the private sector, such as Tunisia and Mauritius, the technical and vocational skill development system has diversified its sources of funding and improved the quality of training, making it more responsive to labour market requirements.

However, in general, the involvement of employers in TVSD remains limited, owing to the weaknesses of private-sector organisations and their lack of interest in training. Many enterprises do not provide adequate training for their employees, with the exception of very limited on-the-job training for basic production skills. This could be explained by lack of awareness of the benefits of training, and the fear of poaching trained workers by other firms. In addition, in some cases the government does not provide any incentives to encourage firms to engage in training programmes, such as sharing the costs of training, or providing tax reductions for firms involved in such activities. In other cases, members of the private sector are poorly coordinated, making it difficult for the government to find reliable interlocutors who truly represent their peers. Moreover, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) barely invest in training programmes, due to budget constraints and lack of understanding of the benefits of these programmes.

These market failures could be handled through incentive schemes for in-service training, disseminating best training practices, and awareness campaigns of the benefits of training in improving productivity and cutting production costs. Indeed, the experience of Malawi and Ethiopia shows that efforts to systematically involve the private sector in the reform and governance of TVSD need to be matched by awareness-raising about the benefits of getting involved, capacity building in communication and networking, as well as technical assistance for organisational development of their associations.

Important efforts have been made by some countries to strengthen the partnership between enterprises and training institutions, through a series of advertising campaigns, awarding participating companies or providing fiscal incentives. The involvement of local industry and professional associations in school’s management is crucial to ensure greater convergence between the labour market and training offered. In particular, these representatives can influence the programmes of study and the implementation of proposed training plans: help aligning programmes of study with the needs of local business, identifying businesses willing to engage in work-study or apprenticeship training, evaluating the learning progress and employer’s satisfaction. To this end, according to the 2006 National TVET Strategy of Ethiopia, training providers will be given the maximum flexibility to develop relationships with individual employers, or business-sector associations concerning the organisation of apprenticeships (with the bulk of on-the-job training taking place in an enterprise and with theory and initial practical exposure provided by a training institution). The Ethiopian Strategy also encourages training institutions to enter in partnerships with small companies and the micro-enterprise sector as these companies represent the target labour market for a large group of trainees.

In Angola, some partnerships were created between government and enterprises, as in the case of Chevron and the UNDP, or between Total, NGOs and local banks. Chevron and other big enterprises offer coaching to micro-activities or microenterprises owners in order to promote small businesses in sectors with high growth potential, such as mechanics or food processing. The advantage of this personalised support is that it can be organised to fit entrepreneurs’ particular work methods. In 2006, Sonangol and other oil companies promoted an initiative called Formação de Fornecedores aiming at increasing the capacity of SMEs to participate in the oil industry as suppliers of goods and services.