European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training · 2014. 11. 4. · EUROPEAN JOURNAL...

EUROPEAN JOURNAL VOCATIONAL TRAINING 1/94

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EditorialA new title: The Vocational Training Jour-nal now becomes the European VocationalTraining Journal.

An editorial committee: to select arti-cles and guarantee the quality of theJournal.

One aim: to be a platform for debate, asource of innovation to accompany andmould vocational training in Europe.

A new Journal, why?

Vocational training plays a fundamentalpart in changing national economic andsocial systems and in European construc-tion. The choices offered by vocationaltraining will mould the social and eco-nomic future of each country and Euro-pean construction.

Vocational training is omnipresent: in thequest for increased competitiveness, in theemergence of new forms of labour organi-zation, new manpower managementmethods, in the struggle against exclusionphenomena and in social cohesion. Itshould reconci le the needs of theeconomy and democracy, of the marketsand of social life.

To elucidate the choices made bystakeholders, particularly with regard tovocational training policy, the journal hasa twofold mission:

❏ it is necessary and possible to bringtogether the reflections of stakeholdersand of researchers.

❏ issues relating to vocational trainingshould be placed in a context which, al-though surpassing it, helps to mould it.Social changes, economic trends, trendsin labour markets, companies, the struc-ture and content of employment.

Debate and reflection should not ceasehere. Certainly, each vocational trainingsystem has its specific nature and a co-herence of its own. But their rigorouscomparison and the circulation of ideas

give important impetus for reflection andfor the activities of all involved.

For whom and with whom?

The Journal addresses everyone contribu-ting to changing vocational training. Itaddresses decision-makers, social part-ners, trainers, researchers, private andpublic stakeholders. It is not a journalwritten by specialists to address otherspecialists.

It is open to debate and rigorous reflec-tion in order that readers obtain an over-all view of trends in vocational trainingin each country in the European Union,and that they acquire a better understand-

ing of the coherence of each vocationaltraining system and can analyse the chal-lenges confronting vocational training inEurope.

The Editorial Committee is made up ofstakeholders and researchers from differ-ent countries from within the Community.It welcomes articles from a variety ofsources as it does spontaneous contribu-

The creation of an Editorial Committee, the decision of the CEDEFOPManagement Board, marks a turning point in the life of the Journal.

Such a decision, which strengthens the role of the Journal indisseminating information from CEDEFOP, aims to continue to improvequality and to ensure openness to current debates and issues relatingto vocational training in Europe.

The priorities of the Committee are to ensure the relevance of informationwith regard to issues the Community is facing, to ensure readabilityand a balance of approaches. The Committee is autonomous whilerespecting the guidelines set out by the Management Board.

We hope that this new phase will satisfy needs for information onvocational training at a time of great economic and social change in theMember States of the European Union.

Ernst Piehl


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tions. The Journal wishes progressivelyto establish contacts and relations withnational journals in the area of vocationaltraining.

How?

The three annual issues of the EuropeanVocational Training Journal will containarticles drawing attention to studies andresearch work, to innovation or to thereflections of stakeholders.

Certain articles will permit the reader toidentify the more important studies car-ried out in each country of the EuropeanUnion and, in particular, comparativestudies completed on the initiative ofCEDEFOP, the European Commission, in-ternational organizations and European orforeign research teams. A number of ar-ticles will consider the reactions and opin-ions of stakeholders, professional organiz-ations, trade unions, company managers,and those in responsible positions in train-

ing bodies; others will focus on specificexperience. The bibliographic section willtry to provide exhaustive information oncomparative studies of any origin and willsurvey important studies in each country.

The ambitions of the Journal are high.Language differences are not the mainhurdle. Lucid articles are important asthe social, economic and cultural contextof each reader and each author variesgreatly. The Editorial Committee will becareful to ensure that each article con-tributes to understanding the social, cul-tural, economic coherence of each voca-tional training system.

We also wish to progress. A new sum-mary, new presentation, a new biblio-graphical section in this issue is but aninitial stage. It remains for the reader tomonitor, to help and to express his opin-ion on our efforts.

The Editorial Committee


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Competences:the word, the facts

From qualification tocompetence: what arewe talking about?

5Peter GrootingsIt has become very popularrecently in Europe to talkabout “competence”.However, people do notnecessarily talk about thesame thing when they use thesame word. Thus, there is arisk that the longstandingconfusion that has existedaround the meaning of theconcept “qualification” invarious countries now will berepeated with the concept of“competence”.

In Germany

Teaching competence in initial and continuing vocationaltraining in the Federal Republic of Germany 8Gerhard P. BunkThe occupational learning process should be designed in such a way that itinduces the learner to undertake self-organized action in the course of manylearning processes.

The debate in the United Kingdom

Industrial change, “competencies”, and labour markets 15David MarsdenFinding a suitable regulatory framework will be central to the futuresuccess of competency-based skill systems.

“Competence” and Context: Sketching the British Scene 23David Parkes(An) important factor for the British is not the conceptualisation ofa ‘competences’ approach but its implementation in specific economic,structural and ideological contexts.

Measuring competence: the experience of the United Kingdom 29Alison Wolf“If competences are to have any major policy relevance at national or Europeanlevel, the meaning one person ascribes to a competence must be recognisably thesame as another’s. This means that issues of definition and measurement arefundamental”.

Assessment, Certification and Recognition of OccupationalSkills and Competences 36Hilary SteedmanA single, usually a publicly-controlled body is an efficient way of ensuring a simplestable and reliable system of certification. However, ...

Qualification or competence?

Does competence mobilize the worker? 43Mateo Alaluf, Marcelle StroobantsThe shift towards the concept of competence “weakens an approach which placedskills at the centre of a whole set of social factors”.


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In companies

Organizational and political changes in training:What does this mean for competence? 52Ph. Méhaut“...a development in the logic of construction and encouragement of skills”

Trends in Worker Recruitment Practices in Swedish Companies 60Eugenia Kazamaki OtterstenFirms look at the overall grades in communicative subjects rather than for specificknowledge.

An opinion from the social partners

Skills versus competence:Semantic debate, development in concepts or political challenge? 65Interview with Andrew Moore (UNICE),and Anne-Françoise Theunissen (CES),undertaken by F. Oliveira Reis, CEDEFOP.

Reading

Reading selection 70

Reviews 83

Publications received by the editorial office 84


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It has become very popular recently inEurope to talk about “competence”. How-ever, people do not necessarily talk aboutthe same thing when they use the sameword. Thus, there is a risk that thelongstanding confusion that has existedaround the meaning of the concept “quali-fication” in various countries now will berepeated with the concept of “compe-tence”. During a series of small workshopsthat CEDEFOP organized in 1992 with ex-perts from different countries, it provedto be impossible to agree on one com-mon definition of the term.

From our experience in developing Eu-ropean instruments for mobility and trans-parency based on the concept of qualifi-cation we have learned that the meaningof qualification is embedded in the spe-cific context of each individual nationalvocational education and training system.We have also learned that this meaning isdependent on how training systems re-late to labour market structures, systemsof industrial relations, and forms of workorganization. In fact, depending on howthese relations have developed in eachcountry, we have observed that qualifi-cations refer to either educational diplo-mas, characteristics of labour market cat-egories (such as occupations), classifica-tions in wage systems, work posts insidethe enterprise, or particular combinationsof these. Because of this very “societal”meaning of qualifications it has provedto be difficult, if not impossible, to de-velop any European instruments based onthis concept.

Now, does the concept of “competence”offer better chances to develop such Eu-ropean instruments? Recent initiativestaken by the Commission with regard tothe “portfolio of competences” seem toassume that this is indeed the case. Atfirst sight the idea is attractive avoidingas it does all the complex implicationsthat were connected with qualifications.

However, there remains the problem offinding agreement on a) what is exactlymeant by competences and b) how theycan be presented clearly and simply in aportfolio. Moreover, there still remains thequestion as to the purpose of having suchinstruments but that is another matter. Letus here simply assume that there is a needfor something that would make Europeanmobility, either in terms of education oremployment, more easy. Earlier, we havereferred to the problems connected withtrying to establish one generally accept-able definition of competences. A recentOECD conference on the issue came upwith the same conclusion. Until this prob-lem has been solved, it does not makesense to waste energy on the more tech-nical matters implied by the second ques-tion. In practice, however, much of thediscussion has concentrated on exactlythese technical questions.

Given the fact that apparently there existmany def ini t ions of competence,CEDEFOP has tried during a second roundof seminars held in 1993, to clarify why,how and from which quarters in dif-ferent countries the concept of compe-tence has entered the policy debates aboutvocational education and training. In viewof the experiences with qualifications, agood understanding of the societal con-text in which discussions about compe-tence have developed, seems to be a sine-qua-non for any attempt to develop al-ternative European instruments.

A first - surprising - result from these dis-cussions was the fact that in some coun-tries competences are indeed widely dis-cussed but that in other countries the con-cept does not play a major role in thepolicy debates at all. A second conclu-sion was that there where competenceswere discussed, this was done so in or-der to solve very specific problems ofnational educational systems. A third con-clusion was that the debates about

From qualification tocompetence: what arewe talking about?

PeterGrootingsProject coordinator,CEDEFOP Berlin

Does the concept of com-petence offer betterchances (other than thoseoffered through qualifi-cation) for developingEuropean instruments formobility and trans-parency?

“... CEDEFOP has tried ...to clarify why, how andfrom which quarters indifferent countries theconcept of competence hasentered the policy debatesabout vocational educa-tion and training.”


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competences were not only very coun-try-specific but at the same time thesedebates also “borrowed” elements of thecompetence debates from other countries.

In all the EU countries there is an ongo-ing discussion about improving the qual-ity of vocational education and training,in terms of making it more relevant forthe labour market and the employmentsystem. It is within this general contextthat the concept of competence has beenintroduced in some countries. This alsoexplains the variety of meanings given tocompetence, since its use is directly de-pendent on the definition of the princi-pal problems of national vocational edu-cation and training systems. It is also de-pendent on who defines the problems.Thus, problem setting has been and stillis very national specific. International as-pects normally only are taken into con-sideration in general terms (“internationalcompetition forces us to improve our vo-cational education system”), or in com-parative perspective (“we have to reachEuropean standards”), or in terms of mod-els or tools that can be learned from. Itdoes appear, however, that “European-isation” of education and training is not amajor concern for national policy mak-ers.

❏ In UK, for example, the debate oncompetences was initially steered by theassessment issue while some of the par-ticipants argue that the real problem isthe organization and support of vocationaleducation. The competence approach ishere very much output-oriented andbased on assessment according to detailedstandards (see the articles by Parkes andWolf).

❏ In Germany, the discussion aroundoccupational competence is already morethan 15 years old and was held in thecontext of despecialisation of vocationaleducation in Germany. Here, compet-ences are closely connected to globaloccupational definitions and the debateconcentrates on improving the learningprocess (see the article by Bunk). A simi-lar situation is to be found in Denmark.

❏ In France, the discuss ion aboutcompetences has been initiated in a cri-tique of traditional knowledge-orientedpedagogics in the schools and received

further momentum with the growth offurther education and training of adultsinside the firms. Here, most clearly a com-petence approach conflicts with existingstructures and institutions.

❏ In the Netherlands the present discus-sion is held within the context of a) fur-ther integration of educational streamsand institutions b) decentralization of re-sponsibility for the teaching process (andfor financing) c) a dualisation of all formsof vocational education, including tradi-tional school-based ones, and d) greaterinternal flexibility with more transitionpossibilities within the system. Compet-ences are understood as being similar toqualifications, which in turn refer basi-cally to diplomas and certificates.

❏ In countries such as Spain and Portu-gal, competence is discussed in the con-text of developing a formal vocationaleducation and training system. Here, onecan find a combination of borrowing fromthe UK - in terms of developing stand-ards for initial education; and from France- in terms of developing adult educationand training in the enterprise.

From these various national debates, onecan actually deduce two different typesof discussion themes: one is about intro-ducing a competence-based approachto vocational education and training, anda second is about adapting existing voca-tional education and training to the emer-gence of new competences resultingfrom new forms of work organization andnew types of recruitment strategies ofenterprises. (See on new competences thearticles by Allaluf and Stroobants, Méhaut,and Ottersten). Of course, these discus-sions are not always independent of eachother but the distinction may be useful.

It then appears that discussions about acompetence-based approach are domi-nant in those countries where the provi-sion of vocational education and trainingis weak, or where there is profound dis-satisfaction with the existing system. Inthe first case this leads to focusing ondeveloping standards of achievement andan orientation towards outputs. This wefind most prominently in the UK. In thesecond case this leads rather to improv-ing the process of education and trainingin order to make these more competence-

The debate in EU countries


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based instead of their traditional knowl-edge-orientation. This would be the situ-ation in France. Countries such as Spainand Portugal, faced as they are with de-veloping a whole “new” system of voca-tional education as part of the formal edu-cational system, are then confronted withthe need to both develop standards andto develop appropriate learning proc-esses. The big question will be where theywill put the emphasis.

In contrast, discussions on the need to“adapt” to new emerging competencesappear to be dominant in countries thatbasically avail of a well developed andresourced vocational education and train-ing system. This is the case of Germany,Denmark and the Netherlands. Here, itseems, the introduction of competence-based education is not a big issue sincethere is considerable consensus that thevocational education system indeed pro-duces the competent workers that theemployment system asks for. This is notto say that these countries have no prob-lems at all, but through the involvementof social partners, on the one hand, andconnected with this, through the orienta-tion toward socially accepted occupa-tional definitions, both the industrial re-lations and labour market mechanisms arein place that can guarantee a high degreeof congruence between education andemployment. This does not mean that theother countries are not facing the chal-lenge of coping with new competencesas is illustrated by the belated introduc-tion of general qualifications in the UKsystem.

The actual discussions about improvingthe relationships between education andemployment are distinct from earlier dis-cussions in the sense that they are nowvery much marked by attempts to intro-duce a greater degree of flexibility on theside of the educational system. One canfind this back in the attempts undertakenin the Netherlands for example to inte-

grate different subsystems of educationand thus to increase the internal flexibil-ity of educational institutions. Other ex-amples can be found in the growing in-terest in modularisation of education, orin the discussions about educationalvouchers, which would allow flexibilityin using educational facilities over time.Discussions about flexibilisation of labourmarkets are of course much older. Thediscussions about new forms of work or-ganization also imply the disappearanceof traditional forms of work division, theblurring of demarcation lines, both hori-zontally and vertically, and - not least -the prospect of continuous organizationalchange. The relevance of the concept of“competence” also has to be understoodin this context. It has become of primeimportance for enterprise management tobe well informed about the potentials ofeach individual (his/her competence) inthe work force, in order to be able to de-velop realistic organizational strategies. Itis clear that this means a growing “indi-vidualization” of human resource manage-ment inside the enterprise.

If this is so, then the implications for tra-ditional industrial relations and labourmarket institutions are tremendous, basedas they are on collective and institution-alized categories. Discussion of these im-plications have only just begun (see arti-cles by Marsden, Allaluf and Stroobants,and the interview with Moore andTheunissen). The shift from qualificationto competence at the European leveltherefore is much more than simply achange of wording. It is not always easyto admit that we do not yet know exactlywhat it does mean. But precisely becauseof this, it may well be much too early totry to develop at this stage “simple” tech-nical tools. They may be technically sim-ple but politically very complicated. Thearticles included in this issue of VocationalTraining have been chosen to clarify someof the issues at stake.

“The shift from qualifica-tion to competence at theEuropean level thereforeis much more than simplya change of wording. It isnot always easy to admitthat we do not yet knowexactly what it does mean.But precisely because ofthis, it may well be muchtoo early to try to developat this stage “simple” tech-nical tools.”


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Competence

“Competence” is a term which crops upin a variety of contexts including initialand continuing vocational training. Theterm is used neither uniformly nor alwaysappropriately. Competence, originally anorganizational concept, regulates respon-sibilities for sections and departments ofa state or an enterprise and empowersthe respective heads or managers to makecertain decisions. There is not necessar-ily a congruence between conveyed de-cision-making powers and an individual’sability to take decisions, however. A starkcontrast to everyday working life wherethe customer calls the repair man he con-siders to be competent to solve his (re-pair) problem, i.e. has the ability to solvehis problem. Not everyone who has beenawarded a master craftsman’s certificateand the associated formal competenceenjoys the reputation of a competent spe-cialist, however. In the above example,the crucial factor is the actual ability tosolve particular problems. We shouldtherefore distinguish between formal com-petence as imparted responsibility andmaterial competence as acquired ability.Only material competence is significantin discussions on vocational education.

Vocational competence

Ever since recognized industrial voca-tional training occupations developed inGermany at the beginning of the 20thcentury, vocational training has focusedprimarily on imparting “occupational abil-

ity”. Occupational ability encompassesall the knowledge, skills and abilities re-quired to perform the defined tasks asso-ciated with specific occupations.

The term “qualification” was introducedduring the general discourse on curriculain Germany in the late 1960s and has beenin use in vocational education ever since.To begin with, vocational qualificationsprimarily encompassed all the knowledge,skills and ability required for individualoccupations, but more recently the termhas been expanded to include flexibilityand independence on a broad occupa-tional basis. There is a gradual departureaway from specialization towards de-specialization, away from dependence to-wards independence. The new trainingregulations that have been introduced formany occupations in the Federal Repub-lic of Germany now require training en-terprises to impart the demanded knowl-edge and skills in such a way that train-ees will be able to carry out qualifiedoccupational activities. This incorporatesin particular “independent planning, ex-ecution and checking of tasks”.

In the early 1970s, the German Councilfor Education defined “competence” of apupil undergoing education as the objec-tive of the learning process in generalterms, without stating what in general itmeant by “competence”. It also de-manded that humane and socio-politicalcompetence be imparted in addition tospecialized competence using integratedlearning processes. Vocational and oc-cupational educationalists adapted theterm, but saw the goal of training as meet-ing the technological, economic and so-

Teaching Competencein Initial and Continu-ing Vocational Trainingin the Federal Republicof Germany

Gerhard P.Bunk

Professor at the Uni-versity of Giessen.For many years a

member of the REFAAssociation for WorkStudies and Work Organiza-

tion: current chairman of thecommittee for industrial edu-

cational science and staffdevelopment

The motto of the times isChange. The urgent needfor economic survival has

forced vocational workinto radical change. To-day, enterprises are in-

creasingly trying to attaintheir uppermost objectives

- making profit, keepingthe enterprise alive,

achieving the greatest pos-sible efficiency while ob-

serving humanitarian val-ues, securing a high mar-ket share and further de-

velopment of the enter-prise - through the use ofnew technologies, reduc-tion in costs, product in-

novation, more flexibleorganization and more dy-

namic management.These goals are being

reached through perma-nent innovation in the

way the business is run,together with a new social

awareness amongst staff.This has consequences for

the qualifications andcompetence of personnel

and for their initial andcontinuing vocational

training. This article de-fines the term vocationalcompetence, identifies its

contents and points tomethodological means of

teaching competences.


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Occupationalability

KnowledgeSkillsAbilities

Defined and founded onindividual occupations

Fixed operative work

Externally organized

Occupationalcompetence


Associated occupationalfields and work organization

Free planning of work

Organization by theindividual himself

Occupationalqualifications


Flexibility withinan occupation

Unfixed operative work

Self-organized

Table 1:A comparison of occupational ability, occupational qualifications and occupational competence.

cial changes of the current time. Just aswith occupational ability and occupationalqualifications, occupational competenceis based on bundled knowledge, skills andabilities related to a particular occupation,but it also includes a working knowledgeof associated areas as well as work or-ganization and planning activities.

If the move from occupational ability tooccupational qualification was quantita-tive, then the move from occupationalqualification to occupational competencewas qualitative, since, by including organi-zational and planning aspects in training,the empowerment of the traditional em-ployee has changed significantly. Where-as impulses for action previously camedown from above, they can now alsocome from below. The role of the com-petent employee has changed completely:from being ‘externally organized’ to be-ing ‘self-organized’.

Occupational ability, occupational quali-fications and occupational competenceare summarized and compared once morein Table 1 above.

What has been said above can be provi-sionally defined as follows: A person hasoccupational competence if he has theknowledge, skills and abilities he requiresto carry out an occupation, if he can solvetasks independently and flexibly and isboth willing and able to plan ahead inhis working sphere and within work-organizational structures.

What is meant by compe-tence

In accordance with the Didactic Princi-ple, the meaning of occupational compe-tence needs to be ascertained before wecan consider how competence is impartedand what methods might be used. Theconcept of key qualifications proposed bylabour market and occupational research-ers in Germany in the mid-1980s mightbe helpful in this respect. Labour marketpolicy-makers realized that once special-ized occupational knowledge and skillsare taught, they quickly become outdatedas a result of rapid advances in technol-ogy and changes in the economy. Theysaw the need for qualifications which donot become outdated at all or, if they do,then not so fast. Such core skills wouldinclude, amongst other things, latest andinterdisciplinary knowledge and skills(e.g. foreign languages) as well as formalabilities. These include, for instance, in-dependent thought and action, methodo-logical flexibility and adaptability, trans-ferability and foresighted interrelatedthinking.

Social changes in the economy and soci-ety have forced occupational educatorsto broaden the concept of key qualifica-tions to include the dimensions of per-sonal and social behaviour (e.g. coopera-tion and teamwork). But this alone is notenough today. The rapid changes thatcan be observed in production, for in-stance in the form of lean production,have shown that improvements in work-

“A person has occupa-tional competence if hehas the knowledge, skillsand abilities he requiresto carry out an occupa-tion, if he can solve tasksindependently and flexiblyand is both willing andable to plan ahead in hisworking sphere andwithin work-organiza-tional structures.”

Social changes has causedlabour educational sci-ence to extend its concept

Occupational elements

Scope of action

Character of work

Organizational level


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ing and production methods can no longerbe carried out best solely by management.The scope of key qualifications has to bewidened to include decision-making andplanning skills.

It is in the interests of enterprises andemployees themselves that the latter havethe ability, for example, to develop or-ganizational changes convincingly andtake or help to take justifiable decisions.

If we want to classify on this basis theentire range of demands on personnelwith respect to vocational qualifications,we find the following categories of quali-fications: Specialized qualifications, meth-odological qualifications, personal andsocial qualifications and participatoryqualifications. Employees with thesequalifications possess the correspondingcompetences:

Specialized competence is held by thosewho are able to carry out activities andtasks in their field of work in a responsibleand competent manner and possess therequired knowledge and skills to do so.

Methodological competence is held bythose who are able to react to problemsthey are set and to deviations from thenorm in a manner that is appropriate,using the procedure expected, who canfind solutions independently and applyexperience gained to find sensible solu-tions to other problems.

Social competence is held by those whoare able to work both communicativelyand cooperatively with others and whoshow team-oriented behaviour and inter-personal understanding.

Participatory competence is held bythose who are able to contribute towardsconstructing the working environment attheir own workplace and beyond, canplan ahead, assume organizational tasks,take decisions and are willing to assumeresponsibility.

These four competences together makeup the ability to act, which cannot, ineffect, be broken down.

The contents of each competence is pre-sented in Table 2:

MethodologicalcompetenceFlexibility

Procedures

Variable working methods,

situative solutions,

problem-solving procedures,

independent thinking andworking, planning,executing and assessing ofwork,

adaptability

SocialcompetenceSociabilityModes of behaviour

Individual:

willingness to achieve,flexibility, adaptability,

willingness to work

Interpersonal:

willingness to cooperate,fairness, honesty,

willingness to help,team spirit

ParticipatorycompetenceParticipation

Structuring methods

Coordinatory skills,

organiza-tional skills,

combinatory skills,

persuasion skills,

decision-making skills,

the ability to assumeresponsibility,

leadership skills

SpecializedcompetenceContinuity

Knowledge, skills,abilities

Inter-disciplinary elements,occupation-specific,

extended vertical andhorizontal knowledge aboutthe occupation,

enterprise-specific,

experience-related

Table 2: What competence means

Competence to act


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Imparting competence

If - to put it briefly - occupational com-petence encompasses the ability to actwithin an occupation, the meaning of ac-tion - as distinct from movement or beingactive - needs to be clarified in the con-text of the subject under discussion here.

From an anthropological point of view,man is a deficient being who must makehis surroundings life-sustaining in orderto survive. Man changes his surround-ings to form a life-sustaining culturethrough his actions. An action is anybehaviour by which man acts upon hissurroundings. Actions of this nature havethe following basic structure:

Assessment/Goal-setting

Performance Perception

Thought

If one link in this chain is missing, wecan no longer speak of action, since per-formance without thought is simply reac-tion, performance without perception isblind activism, perception or thoughtwithout performance merely observationor contemplation.

Man has to counteract his situation ofdeficiency by constantly confronting hisenvironment - through his actions. Theseactions have to be learnt, since changes,whether they occur in day-to-day life, atwork or in an occupation, require newways of acting. For this reason, action-oriented learning is a necessity for initialand continuing vocational training.

In this context, it is important to clarifywhat we mean by pedagogical action. Alearning action is pedagogically foundedif it is spontaneously and actively directedat a particular goal, problem or task, if itis clearly differentiated in the perceptionof the various phenomena, if it combinestheory and practice, planning and poten-tial means of realization in thinking aboutand performing the task, if it allows scopefor the individual to take decisions in his

own right and allows the individual tocheck his own actions and assess the re-sults.

If such an action becomes the subject ofoccupational learning, we speak of it asaction learning founded on occupationaleducation. An ability to act presupposesaction learning. Action learning need notbe learning in isolated solutions. It canand should be tied to working situations.The actions which form part of the occu-pational learning process should be de-signed in such a way that they induce thelearner to undertake self-organized actionin the course of many learning processes.Learning processes, the methods by whichinitial and continuing vocational trainingare conducted, need to be analysed fromthis aspect.

The range of methods are broken downand described in Table 3.

Table 3 distinguishes between reactionmethods and action methods. In reac-tion methods, the teacher acts and thepupil reacts. The opposite is the case inaction methods: The teacher is largelypassive, whereas the pupil is active. Re-active methods are appropriate when im-parting basic knowledge and skills. Ac-tive methods are a must when conveyingcompetence to act, since actions cannotbe taught; they have to be learnt throughactual action.

Activity methods are characterized by acomplete circle of action. All methodswhich require the learner to apply all partsof the circle of action are deemed actionmethods. Teaching occupational compe-tence and competence to act is a longprocess of learning and gaining experi-ence. The learner attains competence byslowly internalizing the relevant behav-ioural patterns. The consequence for thebehaviour of the teacher, trainer, mastercraftsman or adult education tutor is thathe withholds his activity up to the pointat which the learner, trainee, apprenticeor adult undergoing continuing trainingis still just able to master the next learn-ing stage on his own. From this it fol-lows that the learner is so committed thathe strives to work to the utmost of hiscurrent learning and performance ability.

Attention should be drawn to one furtherrequirement: When talking about new

“... occupational compe-tence encompasses theability to act within an oc-cupation, ...

An action is any behaviourby which man acts uponhis surroundings.”


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production methods, ‘teamwork’ and ‘leanproduction’ are often mentioned in thesame breath. When production line workis abandoned and team or island produc-tion introduced, employees are called onto change their social behaviour signifi-cantly. Social competence has alreadyaltered in the sense mentioned above. Forthis reason, attention needs to be paidnot only to teaching methods but also tosocial learning models of teaching.

Teaching and learning often take placewith a teacher facing a large number ofpupils. The school teaching situation isa good example of this. In contrast tothis is the individual type of instructionwe find when an apprentice is given in-structions and then attempts to solve a

training task on his own at his workplace.A good example of this is a training work-shop with its vice work stations.

Learning to live and work as a team can-not be taught, it can only be learnt bybeing part of a team. The same appliesto learning to work with a partner. Team-and partner-based learning are not meth-ods. They are social forms of learning asshown in the lower part of Table 3.

Imparting competence -A demand of the times

The motto of the times is Change. Theurgent need for economic survival has

VerbalMethods

LecturesDictationTeaching discussions

Development throughquestioning

Lessons

Language lab.ExplanationInstruction

DemonstrationMethods

DemonstrationIllustrationImitationOccasional instructionIntroductory instruction

BehaviouralMethods

Management behaviour;Decision-making methods;Personnel development;

Speaking and discussiontechniques;

Presentation techniques;Chairing techniques;Group dynamics;Self-help techniques;

Evaluation techniques(Analysis-Synthesis-Change-Evaluation)

ActingMethods

Discovery method;Project methods;Leittext method;Technological experiments;

Development throughresearch;Lessons;

Technical simulation;Pretend and juniorcompanies;

Interactive learning usinge.g. computers;Case study method;Business games;Role-plays;

Creative methods promotingideas and solutions toproblems;

Creative exercises;

Workshops and qualitycircles.

Social forms of teaching, learning and imparting knowledge: Lecturing - Group work - Partner work - One-to-one teaching

Four-step method

Combined instruction

Programmed instructionSuperlearningMetaplan methodFamiliarization(On-the-job-training)

Table 3: Methods and social forms of vocational learning.

Reaction Methods Action Methods


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Technical change

Radical Structural Change

Economicchange

Social change

Contents of work

Changes in the organization of workand in demands

Machinesand tools

Workingmethods

Forms ofsocial working

Anticipation of change through“key qualifications” (core skills)

Newcontents

Reactions of teaching organization to key qualifications

Newmedia

New methods

Newsocial forms

Specialist competence

Goals and results of occupational and vocational teaching processes

Methodologicalcompetence

Socialcompetence

Participatory competence

The ability to act in one's occupation

Material qualifications

Formal qualifications

Personal qualifications

Table 4: The relationship between structural change,qualifications and competence


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allgemeinem und beruflichem Lernen, Ernst KlettVerlag, Stutgart 1974

Faix, K. G. und Laier A.: Soziale Kompetenz,Deutscher Instituts-Verlag, Cologne 1989

Geissler, K.A. und Müller, K.R.: ÖkonomischeKompetenz, in: Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, 23(1977)3,pp. 407-417

Grüner, Gustav: Berufl iche Bildung - sieheberufliche Qualifizierung, in: Die berufsbildendeSchule, 29(1977)11, pp. 625-626

Hegelheimer, Armin: Qualifikationsforschung, in:Schlüsselwörter zur Berufsbildung, Bundesinstitutfür Berufsbildungsforschung ed., Beltz Verlag,Weinheim and Basle 1977, pp. 333-341

Mertens, Dieter: Schlüsselqualifikationen, Thesenzur Schulung für eine moderne Gesellschaft, in:Mitteilungen zur Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung,7(1974)1, pp. 36-43

Mertens, Dieter: Das Konzept der Schlüsselquali-fikationen als Flexibilitätsinstrument, in: Aufgabender Zukunft - Bildungsauftrag des Gymnasiums, U.Göbel and W. Kraemer eds., Cologne 1989, pp. 79-96

Münch, Joachim: Berufliche Qualifikation undsoziale Kompetenz, in: Quo vadis, Industrie-gesellschaft, G. Jürgen ed., Heidelberg 1984,pp. 131-150

No author named: Key word “Kompetenz”, in:Wörterbuch der Pädagogik, W. Böhm ed., 12thedition, Alfred Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1982, p. 308

Robinsohn, Saul B.: Bildungsreform als Revisiondes Curriculums, Neuwied and Berlin 1967

Witt, Ralf: Sachkompetenz und Wissensstruktur,Dissertation, Hamburg 1975

Albach,Horst: Key word “Organisation”, in:Handwörterbuch der Sozia lwissenschaf ten,E.v.Beckerath et al. eds., Gustav Fischer Verlag,Stuttgart etc. 1964, Vol. 8, pp. 111-117

Baacke, Dieter: Kommunikation und Kompetenz,3rd edition 1980

Bunk, Gerhard P.: Einführung in die Arbeits-,Berufs- und Wirtschaftspädagogik, Quelle undMeyer Verlag, Heidelberg 1982

Bunk, Gerhard P.: Führungsorganisation undArbeitsqualifikation, in: Kommunikation undBegegnung, H. Levenig and W. Schöler eds., I.H.Sauer-Verlag, Heidelberg 1989, pp. 257-264

Bunk, Gerhard P.: Schlüsselqualifikationen -anthropologisch und pädagogisch begründet, in:Betriebspädagogik in Theorie und Praxis, K.-H.Sommer ed., Deugro Verlag, Esslingen 1990, pp.175-188

Bunk, Gerhard P.: Arbeitspädagogik, REFAMethodenlehre der Betriebsorganisation, CarlHanser Verlag, 3rd edition, Munich 1991

Bunk, Gerhard P.: Lean Management und Betriebs-pädagogik, in: REFA Aus- und Weiterbildung,5(1993)2, pp. 6-8

Bunk, G.P. und Zedler R.: Neue Methoden undKonzepte beruflicher Bildung, Deutscher Instituts-Verlag, Cologne 1986

Bunk, G.P., Kaiser, M., Zedler, R.: Schlüsselquali-fikationen - Intention, Modifikation und Realisationin der beruflichen Aus- und Weiterbildung, in:Mitteilungen zur Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung,24(1991)2, pp. 365-374

Deutscher Bildungsrat: Zur Neuordnung derSekundarstufe II - Konzept für eine Verbindung von

Bibliography:

forced vocational work into radicalchange. Today, enterprises are increas-ingly trying to attain their uppermost ob-jectives - making profit, keeping the en-terprise alive, achieving the greatest pos-sible efficiency while observing humani-tarian values, securing a high market shareand further development of the enterprise- through the use of new technologies,reduction in costs, product innovation,more flexible organization and more dy-namic management. These goals are be-ing reached through permanent innova-tion in the way the business is run, to-gether with a new social awarenessamongst staff. This has consequences forthe qualifications and competence of per-sonnel and for their initial and continu-ing vocational training.

Symptoms of this change can be seen inthe move from a high degree of labourdivision to complex mixed forms of workand teamwork, from mere operative ex-ecution of work to work requiring ad-

vance planning, from externally delegatedto self-steered work, from static workprocesses to dynamic change, from ex-ternally organized work to personally or-ganized work, from assessment by othersto self-assessment and from responsibil-ity being taken by others to the individualtaking more responsibility. Occupationaldemands of this kind can no longer bemet through specialized competencealone. Methodological competence, so-cial competence and participatory com-petence are also required. An isolatedview or even instruction does not suffice,however. The integration of all compet-ences into an ability to act in one’s occu-pation is called for. The process by whichthis is imparted begins on the first day ofvocational training and in these times ofchange, ends only on retirement.

Table 4 gives a graphic representation ofthe relationship between radical change,qualifications and competences:

“ The integration of allcompetences into an abil-ity to act in one’s occupa-

tion is called for. Theprocess by which this is

imparted begins on thefirst day of vocational

training and in these timesof change, ends only on re-

tirement.”

“Company survival hasconsequences for qualifi-

cations and competence ofpersonnel and for their

initial and continuing vo-cational training.”


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15

The attempt to reconstruct labour marketskills around the concept of ‘competen-cies in employment’ is important. It ismotivated by a number of changes in pro-duction systems and in labour markets.Changing patterns of competition andtechnical progress are generating a needfor more flexible and adaptable skills.High levels of unemployment have in-creased the urgency for re-equiping manysemi-skilled workers who missed out onthe occupational and professional skillsand whose narrow job-based skills arevulnerable in lay-offs. A system of recog-nised competencies, combining a mix oftheoretical training and practical knowl-edge, could provide skills which are bothmore adaptable than those of establishedoccupations, and more transferable thanthose of semi-skilled workers. At the sametime, they could provide a more suitablebasis for adult training. As globalisationerodes the demand for unskilled and semi-skilled labour in the traded sectors ofadvanced industrial economies (Wood1994), it becomes urgent to look for waysto upgrade labour force skills.

Such a model has many attractions, butwhat is less often recognised is that com-petency-based models of skills dependupon suitable incentives for workers toundertake training and for firms to pro-vide training places. If such competen-cies are to be transferable between firms,which is one of their main attractions interms of the ability to redeploy labourbetween firms and to avoid lay-offs lead-ing to long-term unemployment, thenproblems of ‘free-riding’ may arise. Thesewould undermine the incentives for em-ployers to invest. Finding a suitable regu-latory framework will be central to thefuture success of competency-based skillsystems.

This article will look first at the notion ofrecognised competencies and situate themin relation to existing skill systems. It then

looks at the nature of the demand formore flexible, yet transferable, skills, andthen explores the regulatory problems thatmust be solved for there to be an adequatesupply of competency-based skills.

Competencies, occupa-tional and firm-specificskills.

The competency based approach to skillformation involves defining skill status bythe ability to carry out specified types ofwork rather than by the process throughwhich skill is acquired, and certified(Jessup 1990). This involves practicalknow-how, but also some underpinningtheoretical knowledge to enable it to beadapted to new and unfamiliar circum-stances. The relationship between suchcompetencies, occupational skills, and theknow-how exercised in individual jobs isillustrated in Figure 1.

Occupational skills, such as those certi-fied by apprenticeship qualifications, typi-cally involve a broad range of theoreticaland practical knowledge obtained by amix of school-based and on-the-job train-ing. They have had to be fairly broad sothat the workers investing in them maybe sure of an adequate supply of futurework in a large number of firms, and sothat a large enough number of employerswill support them. However, their verybreadth can make their adaptation to newdemands more difficult.

In contrast, many internal labour marketskills, especially those developed mostlyby informal on-the-job training, tend tocontain just the practical know-howneeded to carry out rather narrowly de-fined jobs. This is particularly true of blue-collar jobs under organised on tayloristprinciples. The lack of theoretical inputmakes such knowledge difficult to adapt

Industrial change,‘competencies’,and labour markets.

DavidMarsdenReader in IndustrialRelations, LondonSchool of Economics

The moves to reform skillsystems on the basis ofrecognised competencieswhich might serve asbuilding bricks for moreencompassing skills holdout the opportunity ofmaintaining transferabil-ity where it already exists,and even of introducing itwhere it is currently verylimited. However, asargued in this article, thereforms are unlikely tosucceed unless suitableincentives for the differ-ent parties, and a suitableframework for coopera-tion among employers,and between employersand employees can be setup. Without this, theability of European firmsto adapt to economicchange will be restricted,and the human costgreatly increased.


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to a new environment so that it usuallyhas to be ‘written off’ when people changejobs.

In between these two poles, lie compe-tencies. They are of narrower scope thanoccupational skills, but they are moreaggregated than know-how tied to indi-vidual jobs, and most important, they areintended to be transferable by virtue oftheir standardisation and certification.

The demand for‘competencies’

The accelerated pace of industrial changeposes a major challenge to existing sys-tems of skill formation both for occupa-tional skills, and for the narrower semi-skills associated with enterprise internallabour markets. The likely impact ofglobalisation is to favour the developmentof specialist market niches which placetheir own special demands on skills; thespread of lean production implies greaterskill flexibility and at the same timedestabilises established systems of semi-skilled work; and the greater uncertaintyfor the future of both occupational andfirm-specific skills creates a need for al-ternative concepts of skill that may be lessvulnerable in periods of unemployment.

Globalisation of markets, as expressed bythe European Single Market programme,GATT, and the revolution in transport andcommunications means that the barriersprotecting local markets are being eroded,and larger numbers of firms are now fac-ing international competition. They can

less and less rely upon the ability to servea narrow geographical market with goodsand services identical to those providedby others in neighbouring areas. They canhowever survive by specialising in par-ticular product niches, and by doingsomething better or more distinctivelythan their competitors. Competition thusshifts to providing a particular good orservice better than the competition, spe-cialising in a particular market niche.

Cappelli and Crocker-Hefter (1993) illus-trate the diversity of such niches evenwithin quite narrow economic activitiesacross a diverse range of branches suchas professional sport, retailing, businessservices, and food and drink. Each of theniches requires a particular range of skillsfrom the organisation, their ‘organisationalcompetencies’. Serving a particular mar-ket niche requires competencies whichare adapted to it, the basis of which arethe ways firms manage their human re-sources. This implies success by skillsdifferentiation rather than by standardi-sation according to occupational or pro-fessional norms.

Whether or not ‘lean production’ improvesworking conditions, the evidence for thecar industry indicates that it has set newstandards for productivity and efficiencyin resources utilisation (Womack et al.1990). As a result, many European andAmerican producers feel compelled toadopt it for their commercial survival.Eliminating buffer stocks, and movingtowards just-in-time production entailmajor organisational changes comparedwith established mass production tech-niques. Not the least among these con-

... occupational skills

firm-specific skills...

competencies

“... the greater uncertaintyfor the future of both oc-cupational and firm-spe-cific skills creates a need

for alternative concepts ofskill that may be less vul-

nerable in periods ofunemployment.”

b

B Occupational skills

Certified competencies

Know-how ofindividual work tasks

a a a,b a,b b b

A

Figure 1


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cerns the organisation of work, and thenature of the boundaries between jobs,and hence, between skills. Lean produc-tion requires flexible working patternswhich are impossible when skills are tiedto narrowly defined jobs, or strict divi-sions between categories of skilled work,and between skiIled and semi-skiIledwork.

The decline in the importance of dedi-cated capital equipment and the rise of‘flexible specialisation’ in production in-dustries, and the spread of lean produc-tion ideas from manufacturing into pri-vate and public services through ‘TotalQuality Management’ (TQM) mean thatthese organisational ideas are graduallyspreading across important sectors of theeconomy.

They entail a shift in labour demand awayfrom stable and standardised categoriesof work organisation towards more vari-able ones. The resulting changes in jobclassification systems can be seen in anumber of countries. In Germany, IGMetall’s ‘Tarifreform 2000’ involves theadaptation of job categories to more flex-ible working methods (Huber and Lang1993). In France, job classification systemshave also undergone considerable changeaway from the rigid job categories oftaylorist organisation towards criteria al-lowing greater variability (Eyraud et al.1989, Maurice et al. 1988a). In Britain,many firms have sought to reduce jobdemarcations and adopt more flexiblepatterns of skill utilisation and multi-skilling (Atkinson and Meager 1986).

Finally, in most countries, systems of train-ing for occupations left semi-skilled blueand white collar workers out in the cold.They had to make do with limited oppor-tunities for on-the-job training, and takeadvantage of such promotional opportu-nities as existed in their organisation. Suchskills have always proved very fragile intimes of economic restructuring as theyare not transferable. Yet once workershave passed a certain age, it has usuallybe difficult to enter occupational train-ing.1 The accelerated pace of industrialchange associated with technical change,shorter product cycles, and increasedcompetition have made these workersvery vulnerable to unemployment.

The challenge to existingprofessional and internallabour market structures

The main occupational and professionallabour markets in European countrieshave been built on stable qualificationsin which young workers invest, and whichfirms can recruit externally. Skilled bluecollar workers with widely recognisedqualifications, such as apprenticeships,have a skill they can sell to many differ-ent firms, and so are not dependent oneither the goodwill or the prosperity oftheir current employer. By adapting theirwork organisation so that their job vacan-cies match the skills available externally,employers are able to recruit workers di-rectly from the labour market. Similarpressures apply for professional workersas the boundaries around their work rolesare fairly strict in many organisations (forFrance see Maurice et al. (1988b), for theUK see Lam 1994).

In the case of occupational skills, there isusually a need for sharing the costs oftraining. Trainees are acquiring a skill theycan sell to several different firms, andwhen they leave one firm, they take theirskill with them. It is therefore difficult toexpect firms to assume the full cost oftraining for such skills. Even with a de-gree of cost sharing, the net cost of ap-prenticeship training to British and Ger-man employers has been estimated asequivalent to about 1.5-2.5 years pay of askilled adult (Noll et al. 1983, Jones 1986).This creates a strong incentive to somefirms to cut their training programmes andto seek to ‘poach’ those trained by oth-ers, which further reduces the incentivesfor employers to fund such training. With-out cost sharing, the pressures to poachare even greater. It is widely believed thatthe decline of apprenticeship training inBritain owed much to inadequate costsharing and a high incidence of poaching.

Marsden and Ryan (1990) argue that suchforces can be held in check. If adult work-ers and their unions can be effectivelyassured that low trainee pay will not leadto trainees being used as cheap labour,then it is easier to gain acceptance for anadequate level of cost sharing. In Ger-many this is achieved through the super-visory powers of works councils over

Transferability (of skills)and (training) cost-shar-ing

1 Cost-sharing provisions withemployers have entailed low traineewages which are usually too low topeople once they have familyresponsibilities. Since subsidisedtraining places for older workersthreaten the investments currentskilled workers made in acquiringtheir skills such schemes haveusually been resisted.


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enterprise-based training. Similarly, ifemployers can be persuaded that theirtraining investments will not be poachedby their competitors, they will be morewilling to bear a share of the cost of train-ing for transferable skills. Again, in Ger-many, the chambers of industry and com-merce appear to play a crucial part inmonitoring rates of training, and providea channel through which peer group pres-sures can discourage poaching. In viewof the problems encountered with appren-ticeship in Britain, it would seem that astrong regulatory framework is needed tosustain high levels of investment in trans-ferable skills.

Likewise, investment in training in theinternal labour markets of many largefirms and public sector organisations de-pends on there being an adequate frame-work to ensure those involved obtain rea-sonable returns on their investment. Al-though the dangers of poaching aresmaller because of the much reduced skilltransferability, labour turnover neverthe-less represents a loss of training invest-ments to employers. It is therefore com-mon for there to be rising wage and sal-ary profiles with age or length of servicein such environments. These also involvea form of cost sharing as workers start onrelatively lower rates of pay, and to dis-courage quits, deferred pay systems areoften used. For the workers involved,these also represent an investment, andfor this to take place, there must be a rea-sonable expectation of long term employ-ment. Among semi-skilled blue collarworkers in the United States, such expec-tations were often backed up with sen-iority rules regulating job progression andlay-offs. In Western Europe, it was surelyno accident that when industries neededto undergo major restructuring in the late1960s, there was a wave of agreementsand legislation on redundancies. Morerecently, the enhanced powers of workscouncils in countries such as France andGermany in questions relating to lay-offshelps to reinforce the workers’ expecta-tion that their part of the investment infirm-specific skills will be rewarded.

All of these structures have provided astable framework for investment in train-ing by workers and firms, and a frame-work for exchange between workers andtheir employers. Although both workers

and their employers may have a sharedinterest in the long term prosperity of theirorganisations, there are nevertheless con-flicting interests over the distribution ofrewards and in particular the costs ofadapting to market changes. There are twocritical conditions for there to be a stablemarket for training: workers should see areasonable supply of jobs capable of pro-viding a return on their investment; and,where employers bear substantial costs,there should be some control of the ac-tivities of ‘free riders’ who rely on poach-ing those trained by others. Otherwise thenecessary investments will not be forth-coming. The problem is that economicchange is undermining many of the es-tablished frameworks.

The ‘dismantling’ of la-bour market occupationalcategories.

Many of the pressures of economic andtechnical change reviewed earlier are dis-rupting established patterns of investmentin skill formation. The needs for multi-skilling, and for adapting and updatingoccupational skills are placing a greatstrain on established skill systems. Thepace of change of demand makes the re-turn on occupational training more un-certain, and the likelihood of the needfor subsequent training greater. Becauseof the wide range of interested parties,occupational skills are usually slow tochange2 The increasing specialisation inproduct market niches is also likely tocause a diversification of labour demand,threatening the standardisation of job va-cancies required for occupational marketsto function properly. As firms seek toadapt occupational skills to their own re-quirements, there is a danger that the in-crease in non-transferable elements ofskills reduce the person’s ability to findalternative work in other firms. Unusedoccupational skills often decay, but also,skill demands in other firms are alsoevolving so it is not just a question ofremaining in practice, but also of keep-ing up-to-date. The danger with piecemealadaptation is that skilled workers onlykeep up to date in the way their currentemployer needs, so the occupation be-gins to fragment, and established catego-ries of labour market exchange break up.

“All of these structureshave provided a stable

framework for investmentin training by workers

and firms, and a frame-work for exchange be-

tween workers and theiremployers.

... The problem is that eco-nomic change is under-

mining many of the estab-lished frameworks.”

2 On example of this would be theprotracted negotiations in the

German construction industry forthe reform of its apprenticeship

system (Streeck 1985).


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Similar pressures apply to internal labourmarket skills, but the threat comes morein the form of decreased employmentsecurity as firms seek to adapt to morerapidly changing markets. The classic in-ternal labour markets for blue collar work-ers were those of mass production indus-tries which had gained control of a largeand stable market segment in ‘mature’industries (Piore and Sabel 1984). Theclassic ones for white collar workers werethose of head office bureaucracies andlarge public sector/administrations. Theseall provided a stable framework withinindividual workers could invest in skillsthat were specific to their current em-ployer. Similarly for the firms. However,these large employment units are under-going radical change. In private sectormanufacturing and services ideas of ‘leanproduction’ are now also affecting whitecollar work as layers of middle man-agement are cut out, and similar ideasare also beginning to enter the publicsector. Thus, again, an established frame-work for skills investment in being bro-ken up.

Competencies and the needfor a stable framework ofexchange

The intermediate position of competen-cies in between occupational skills andnarrow job-related skills means that someof the incentive problems associated withoccupational skills should be less severe.The amount individual trainees and Xemployers are called upon to invest inany one recognised competence issmaller, and building up the equivalentof an occupational skill can be spreadover a longer period of time, and can evenbe done with several different employers.

Equally, if enterprise specific job-relatedskills lose their attractiveness becauseemployment in internal labour marketsbecomes less secure than in the past, thenrecognised competencies may offer a suit-able compromise. With a larger expendi-ture than for informal on-the-job training,employees can acquire a limited skillwhich is recognised by other employers.

However, a system based on recognisedcompetencies is not immune from the

kind of incentive problems which faceprevious types of skill organisation. Thesecan be illustrated from Figure 1. Just likeoccupational skills, there is a problem ofcost-sharing, albeit, potentially less seri-ous than for apprenticeship. The simplestsolution might be to use governmentfunding to resolve such problems, butthere are a number of serious problemswith this. First, it might be unwise to maketraining decisions too vulnerable to thepressures on public spending when theyshould really be based on worker andemployer expectations about future la-bour demand. Secondly, estimating thenet cost of training (allowing for produc-tive work by trainees) is notoriously dif-ficult, and nothing more than a very roughand ready compensation for employerswould be possible. Thirdly, the adminis-trative burden would be heavy, and mostimportant, it would remove responsibil-ity for training investment and for mak-ing the system work from those most di-rectly concerned. So public funding mighthelp, but it would probably not be suit-able for the whole cost.

If we turn to investment by employers,then by virtue of their intended wide rec-ognition and transferability, competenciespose some of the same problems as ap-prenticeship. The employers’ investmentdepends upon workers’ decisions to re-main with the firm, and on other employ-ers not poaching. Thus, some form of costsharing between trainees and employersseems necessary. For this to be effective,already trained workers have to be con-vinced that the trainees are not simplyproviding cheap labour. Otherwise, it isunlikely that they would cooperate inpassing the practical skills onto the train-ees.

If these problems cannot be resolved,employers may be unwilling to invest, butthey will still need workers with the rightskills. Alternatively, there will be a strongincentive for them to minimise the trans-ferability element, and to eschew coop-eration in training for recognised compe-tencies. Two recent examples illustrate theproblem.

The gap between the non-transferable jobrelated know-how and recognised com-petencies is illustrated by the difficultyexperienced in defining competencies in

“The intermediate positionof competencies in be-tween occupational skillsand narrow job-relatedskills means that some ofthe incentive problems as-sociated with occupa-tional skills should be lesssevere.... However, a systembased on recognised com-petencies is not immunefrom the kind of incentiveproblems which face pre-vious types of skill organi-sation.”

3 An official of the ConstructionIndustry Training Board.


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the Br i t i sh construct ion industry(Greenacre, 1990)3. Job-related know-howwas found to be very dependent uponthe context in which people worked:physical working conditions, size of con-struction site, size of firm, and technol-ogy used. With such variation, the relevantknow-how for one employer was foundto differ greatly from that for another evenwithin fairly narrowly defined operations.

The second problem is that in transcend-ing narrow job-related know-how whichcan often be obtained from ‘working byNelly’ (informal instruction from an ex-perienced worker) a certain amount oftheoretical underpinning knowledge isneeded. Without this it is hard to see howrecognised competencies can be morethan a set of memorised instructions fordifferent operations. In their review ofNVQs in the construction industry,Steedman and Hawkins (1994) found thatmany employers were unsympathetic todefinitions of competencies which werebroader than their principal needs, andwere reluctant to encourage acquisition,for example, of mathematical skills.

Thus, for transferable skills, employershave little incentive to provide trainingbeyond their immediate needs, and inparticular, have little incentive to provideany training that would make the employ-ees’ work experience with them transfer-able.

One solution, favoured by Becker (1975),would be to make trainees pay for trans-ferable skills, in the way that apprenticesshare the cost of their training by meansof low rates of pay while they are beingtrained. Since they would be beneficiar-ies of the increased transparency of theirskills they might be expected to sharesome of the cost. However, many firmsmay not wish their ability to equip theirworkforce for new commercial venturesto be constrained by their employees’ability (or willingness) to fund additionaltraining. A system of training credits hasbeen proposed to enable young peopleto afford such training (CBI 199-) whichcould ease some of the constraints, al-though this would presumably also besubject to the pressures on the publicpurse mentioned earlier.

The solutions so far canvassed rely verymuch upon market coordination throughthe price mechanism. Such analysis high-lights the dangers to which training fortransferable skills or competencies is ex-posed. But it offers little solace to thoseconcerned with policy because the rightproportions of cost sharing are so hard togauge, and the system rests upon a knifeedge. If the wrong proportions are estab-lished, then there is a strong danger thatemployers will pull out, and concentratetheir efforts on training for non-transfer-able skills.

There is another reason for doubting afull market solution, highlighted in Wolf’sarticle in this volume. That is, if one isseeking an exhaustive definition ofequivalence of competencies, then oneis quickly led to a highly bureaucraticsystem of rules defining all the possiblesources of variation in different contextsand how these should be allowed for. Thiswas not the spirit of apprenticeship train-ing in Britain, nor is it that of Germany.

The missing element is that of joint regu-lation by employers and by employees.No rule book can provide an exhaustivedefinition of all the circumstances to betaken into account for full transparency.Instead, what is needed is the sort of regu-lar contact among those concerned whichcan generate a customary understandingof what margins of variation are tolerable.To return to the German example, thechambers of industry and commerce cre-ate a culture within which employers un-derstand what each other mean as con-cerns training needs and standards. Thesupport of works councils and unions isalso important, particularly for reassuringtrainees that they are investing in skillsthat will continue to be valid for sometime ahead, and for ensuring that a cus-tomary level of quality is adhered to.

The price mechanism can convey theincentives for the different parties, but itis less good at regulating the categoriesof exchange. The latter are critical to theeffective functioning of a market for train-ing.

An alternative path is not to worry abouttransparency, and to leave firms to de-velop their own notions of competencies.However, what appears to work in largeJapanese firms may not prove successful

“No rule book can providean exhaustive definition

of all the circumstances tobe taken into account for

full transparency. Instead,what is needed is the sortof regular contact among

those concerned whichcan generate a customary

understanding of whatmargins of variation are

tolerable.”


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21

elsewhere, and the cost of the Japanesesystem to employers is not always appre-ciated.

Womack et al. (1990), and Aoki (1988)stress the nature of the two-way exchangebetween Japanese firms and their work-ers. Flexibility within the employmentrelationship rests on reciprocity, and inparticular on the expectation of long-termor lifetime employment. Such policies arecostly to firms, and they prove their com-mitment to them by striving to maintainstable employment during recessions asin the current recession. If they were toengage in substantial lay-offs now, theywould also be abandoning the frameworkfor flexible working by their employees.

European firms, on the whole, offer agood deal less employment security thando their Japanese counterparts, as is il-lustrated in Table 1. Moreover, the statis-tics conceal the strength of the implicitcontract between large Japanese firms andtheir regular employees on employmentsecurity.

Thus in the absence of lifetime employ-ment, and given the vulnerability of purelycost-based solutions to the provision oftransferable skills, it seems that Europeancountries need to concentrate on not justdefining systems of recognised competen-cies, but also on getting the right struc-ture of incentives and supporting institu-tions.

The costs of failure

Throughout this article, great importancehas been attached to the need for trans-ferability of competencies. In the absenceof a tradition of lifetime employment evenin large firms in Europe, it is critical to

consider the incentives for workers toundertake training. If their skills are tiedto their current employers, then the like-lihood is that they will be reluctant toinvest their own resources, and they willalso be resistant to employer decisionswhich would jeopardise their skill status,even if it is acquired by seniority. Thus,we could face both an inadequate supplyof skilled labour, and undue resistance tochange within firms. Lack of transferabil-ity would also worsen many of Europe’sunemployment problems.

The pressures of industrial change out-lined earlier all seem to point towards aprogressive internalisation of skills withinorganisations unless there is some posi-tive action to sustain transferability. Therapidity of change is pushing many em-ployers to seek to adapt occupationalskills by adding their own forms of addi-tional training which are not standardised.New technologies and new organisationalprinciples diffuse unevenly and at differ-ent speeds, so in the absence of outsidehelp, firms have little alternative to adopt-

“European countries needto concentrate on not justdefining systems of recog-nised competencies, butalso on getting the rightstructure of incentivesand supporting institu-tions.”

Table 1. Distribution of employment by currententerprise tenure 1991

United Nether- Spain United France Germany JapanStates lands Kingdom

>1 year 28.8 24.0 23.9 18.6 15.7 12.8 9.8> 5 years 38.3 37.6 53.7 45.0 57.6 59.0 62.6

Source: OECD 1993; Note: Germany, Japan, Netherlands 1990; Spain 1992

ing their own individual solutions. Theseare a threat to the transferability of occu-pational skills, and in the long-run arestoring up problems of labour marketadjustment for the future.

The pace of change is also underminingestablished internal labour markets forsemi-skilled work, and skills based onlong experience. These skills are not verytransferable, and the risk is that the threatto the economic status and income levelsof those concerned will reduce willing-ness to accept restructuring.

“The moves to reform skill systems on thebasis of recognised competencies whichmight serve as building bricks for moreencompassing skills hold out the oppor-tunity of maintaining transferability where


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References.

Aoki M. (1988) Information, incentives, andbargaining in the Japanese economy. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge.

Atkinson J. and Meager N. (1986) Changingworking pract ices: how companies achieveflexibility to meet new needs. National EconomicDevelopment Office, London.

Bees M, and Swords M. (eds). (1990) Nationalvocational qualifications and further education.Kogan Page, London.

Cappelli P. and Crocker-Hefter A. (1993)Distinctive human resources are the core compet-encies of firms. EQW Working paper WP18, NationalCenter on the Educational Quality of the Workforce,University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Huber B, and Lang K. (1993) Tarifreform 2000:Forderungskonzepte und Verhandlungsstande imBereich der Metallindustrie. WSI Mitteilungen, 12/1993, pp. 789-797.

Jessup G. (1990) National Vocational Qualifications:implications for further education. In Bees M, andSwords M. eds.

Jones 1. (1986) Apprentice training costs in Britishmanufacturing establishments: some new evidence.British Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 24, no.3, November, pp.,333362.

Lam A. (1994) The utilisation of human resources:a comparative study of British and Japaneseengineers in the electronics industries. HumanResource Management Journal, Spring.

Marsden D. W, and Ryan P. (1991) Institutionalaspects of youth employment and training policy:reply. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 29:3,September, pp. 497-505.

Maurice M, Eyraud F, d’lribarne A, and RychnerF. (1988a) Des entreprises en mutation dans la crise:apprent issage des technologies f lexibles etemergence de nouveaux acteurs.

Laboratoire d’Economie et de Sociogie du Travail,Aix-enProvence.

Maurice M, Mannari H, Takeoka Y, and Inoki T.(1988b) Des entreprises françaises et japonaises facea la mecatronique: acteurs et organisation de ladynamique industrielle. Laboratoire d’Economie etde Sociologie du Travail (CNRS), Aix-en-Provence.

Millington J. (1990) Engineering training andfurther education: a changing relationship. In BeesM, and Swords M. eds.

Noll 1, Beicht U, Boll G, Malcher W, andWiederhold-Fritz S. (1983) Nettokosten derbetrieblichen Berufsausbildung. Bundesinstitut furBerufsbildung, Beuth Verlag, Berlin.

OECD (1993) Employment Outlook 1993, OECD,Paris.

Peters T. J, and Waterman R. H. (1982) In searchof excellence: lessons from America’s best-runcompanies. Harper and Row, New York.

Piore M. J, and Sabel C. F. (1984) The secondindustrial divide: possibilities for prosperity. BasicBooks, New York.

Steedman H, and Hawkins J. (1994) Buts et porteede la formation professionnelle: les jeunes del’industrie du batiment en GrandeBretagne, enFrance, et en Allemagne. Formation Emploi,forthcoming.

Streeck W. (1985) Die Reform der beruflichenBildung in der West-deutschen Bauwirtschaft 1969-82. Internationales Institut fur Management undVerwaltung, Berlin.

Womack J., Jones D. T., and Roos D. (1990) Themachine that changed the world. Rawson Associates,New York.

Wood A. (1994) North-south trade, employment andinequality. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

it already exists, and even of introducingit where it is currently very limited.However, as argued in this article, thereforms are unlikely to succeed unlesssuitable incentives for the different parties,and a suitable framework for cooperation

among employers, and between employ-ers and employees can be set up. Withoutthis, the ability of European firms to adaptto economic change will be restricted, andthe human cost greatly increased.”


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‘Competence’ and Context:

Sketching the BritishSceneDuring the mid-1970s and early 1980swhen a ‘competence’-led approach wasfashionable in North American VOC/TEC(vocational and technical) and Commu-nity colleges, a story circulated about a‘bag-person’ (someone who carried his/her worldly possessions in a black plasticbag). The substance of the bag person’slament and the broad theme of this pieceis:“All my life I wanted to be someone; now Iknow I should have been more specific”.

The reconstruction ofBritish Vocational Educa-tion and Training

For a variety of reasons, the preoccupa-tion with ‘competences’ in North Americahas given way to other definitions of at-tainment (Unwin, 1991). However, in Brit-ain, throughout the 1980s there has beena thoroughgoing attempt to reconstruct,along competence-based lines, the voca-tional education and training (VET) sys-tem. Bob Mansfield (1989) comments:

“UK vocational education and training isbased on a model of development whichreverses previous approaches. Rather thandesign curricula to meet assumed needs,representative occupational bodies iden-tify “occupational standards” which areclear and precise statements which de-scribe what effective performance meansin distinct occupational areas”.

John Burke (1991) elaborates this themeof deliberate reconstruction :

“The competence-based movement is mostvisibly represented in the National Coun-cil for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ)which has brought about a quiet revolu-tion in vocational education and train-ing. It is important to appreciate that theNCVQ network is not simply one develop-

ment in a series of short-lived reforms, itis a fundamental reorganisation and re-orientation in vocational education andtraining with major, far-reaching conse-quences. In comparison, previous attemptsat reform in terms of new initiatives, cur-ricula and examinations appear as“tinkering” with details in the superstruc-ture. Originally inspired by the seminalWhite Paper ‘A New Training Initiative’(Employment Department, 1991), and re-inforced by White Papers in 1984, 1985and 1986, NVQs involve a radical re-conceptualisation of the purposes of edu-cation and training, the needs of the in-dividual, the technical requirement ofassessment, set in the context of nationalneeds now and well into the next cen-tury.”.

What is a competence-ledapproach?

This apparent revolution has been insti-tutionalised by the National Council forVocational Qualifications (NCVQ)whose main apologist is Gilbert Jessop(1991), its Director of Research, Devel-opment and Information :

“The most significant feature of the NewTraining Initiative was the introductionof a new concept of “standards”; althoughits significance was little understood bythe reader in 1981.

‘By specifying learning objectives in theform of outcome standards, independentof any course, programme or mode oflearning it becomes possible to create aframework of such “standards” which canbe adopted by any course or programme.The standards provide the unifying con-cept for all learning.

“In order that people can achieve thestandards, and have their achievements

David ParkesDeputy director of theEuropean Instituteof Education and So-cial Policy (E.I.E.S.P.*)in Paris. Currently“President” of the

European Forum on Educa-tional Administration.

The purpose of the author“is not to explain thespecifics of the compe-tence-led approach inBritain but to examine thebroader political, intellec-tual, cultural, structural,organisational and educa-tional contexts of theBritish situation.

... It is true that many ofthe trends ... are world-wide rather than specifi-cally British ... but theBritish example is seen asend-of-spectrum and oftenunrepresentative of thedifferent traditions inmedium-sized Europeanstates. Of course, this may... be due to being ahead ofthe game.”

* EIESP is an independant bodyworking for international organi-sations and national governments inWestern and Central Eastern Europe


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is common even among experienced em-ployees” (M.S.C. 1985).

“The ability to perform in work roles orjobs to the standard required in employ-ment” (NCVQ, 1989).

Why don’t we embrace it aswarmly as we might?

Again, it is not my purpose to explain thespecifics of the competence-led approachin Britain but to examine the broaderpolitical, intellectual, cultural, structural,organisational and educational contextsof the British situation.

An unascribed quotation from a large in-ternational organisation suggests “that theBritish have very seductive tools, what apity they do not have a VET system to ap-ply them to.”

This is unfair but it gives us two insights.The first is that there is some general ‘Con-tinental’ resistance to the British approachand its missionary presence on the main-land. The second is that the British arereconstructing their system(s) and that thisrequires a specificity which is absent inother systems which, however adaptive,have shared internal implicit or explicitvalues. Consequently, it is possible to beseduced by the methodology being pro-duced but relaxed about its (perceived)relevance to (perceived) mature and moresuccessful systems. Resistance is largelyto the intensity of the presentation of theBritish case and (however unlikely) itsimpact on the Community scene. It canalso be argued that the British are aheadof the game; that the same approachesand issues are having to be - or will haveto be - confronted in, say, France andGermany but are either being deferred orare less visible.

Of course, as Alison Wolf (1993) pointsout “there is no such thing as a single sys-tem” :

“Governments find it nearly impossible todevelop a coherent long-term policy - inlarge part because they are trying toachieve a number of quite separate objec-tives. They are attempting to compress intoa single national system programmes

recorded, the standards are “packaged”in the form of units, of credit and qualifi-cation. Qualifications, in the new system,are defined as groups of units of credit,groupings which relate to occupational re-quirements.”

There is a mass of literature (see the bib-liography in the annex), from protago-nists, theorists and practitioners with ahuge variety of short and long texts ex-plaining the policy, the terminology andthe politics.

It is interesting to read these in archeo-logical layers from 1981 on as they refinethe concepts, attempt to deal with prob-lems of implementation and cope with thecontinual moving of the policy goal posts.(FEU 1984; Mansfield and Matthews, 1985;UDACE 1989; FESC 1989).

For the purposes of definition, I quotefrom “A Guide to Work-based Learn-ing Terms”, FE Staff College (FESC) 1989:

Competence/occupational compe-tence is variously defined as:

“The individual capacity to undertakeactivities requiring independent plan-ning, implementation and self-monitor-ing.” (German Engineering EmployersFederation, 1985).

“The ability to use knowledge, product andprocess skills and as a result, act effectivelyto achieve a purpose.” (Hayes, 1985).

“The possession and development of suffi-cient skills, knowledge, appropriate atti-tudes and experience for successful per-formance in life’s roles” (F.E.U., 1984).

“The application of skills, knowledge andattitudes to tasks or combinations of tasksto standards under operational condi-tions.” (Prescott, 1985, Personal Commu-nication)”.

“Occupational competence is the abilityto perform activities in the job within anoccupation to the standards expected inemployment. The concept also embodiesthe ability to transfer skills and knowledgeto new situations within the occupationalarea and beyond to related occupations.Such flexibility often involves a highermastery of skill and understanding than

How to definecompetence?

Are the British aheadof the game?


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which imply very different sorts of educa-tion and training, to reconcile individualinterests and ambitions with wider socialconcerns and to do so in a situation ofinherent uncertainty about the future”.

A third and important factor for the Brit-ish is not the conceptualisation of a‘competences’ approach but its implemen-tation in specific economic, structural andideological contexts. For example, thereis much internal debate on the narrow-ness of interpretation required by the LeadBodies in the UK and the feeling that,despite the rhetoric of ‘range’, ‘broad-based’, ‘dynamic’, and ‘adaptability’ thereis a danger of a structural disposition to-wards the ‘narrow’. Typical of such com-ment are :

“... occupational standards are basedimplicitly on a concept of competencewhich may be either narrow or broad infocus. The consequence of narrow or task-based standards will be a “standards”framework which will not meet the needsof a modern economy. We need instead abroad concept of competence to drivestandards and associated assessment andlearning systems”. (Mansfield, 1981).

“There are now clear indications of dis-satisfaction among policy makers at thenational level about the narrowness of thestandards specified by Lead Bodies whichprovide the basis for NVQs”. The Confed-eration of British Industry (CBI) hasruefully noted : “The emphasis on stand-ard-setting_by separate industry bodieshas not naturally led to the developmentof cross-structural ‘generic’ competences”.(Ibid).

The intellectual context

The intellectual context within which thenotion of ‘competence’ is to be found issubject to considerable debate. This de-bate takes place within theories of learn-ing and ideas of knowledge which aresomewhat sketchy. My main referencepoint here is a collection of papers called“Knowledge and Competence : currentissues in training and education” ed-ited by Harry Black and Alison Wolf(1991). A major question is that if a cer-tain body of knowledge is always essen-

tial for performance, why should it belisted in the ‘standards’ at all? Surely youcan infer it from effective performance?But of course, it is not as simple as that.Specifically, Alison Wolf (1991) writes :

“One very important point is that com-petence is a construct and not some-thing that we can observe directly.Equally important are the various com-ponent parts of “competence” which ap-pear in the literature, whatever the labelthey carry. Thus, we can actually agreethat knowledge and understanding con-tribute to competence while being unabledirectly to observe or measure any one ofthe three.”

She goes on to point out that conceivingof knowledge as a randomly arrangedstore cupboard full of facts completelyviolates what we know about the structureof the human mind. We should perhapsgo back to Descartes who, after all,pointed out that “memory is not a cup-board but an integral part of the body it-self”.

Wolf goes on :

“1. Knowledge and understanding are notdivorced from performance. It is more ap-propriate to see behaviour (or perform-ance) as deriving from knowledge struc-tures.2. Knowledge and understanding areconstructs which have to be inferred fromobservable behaviour just as much as com-petence itself.3. Knowledge is highly contextualised. Toinfer knowledge with confidence, espe-cially when it has broad applications, oneneeds breadth of evidence.4. Knowledge and understanding are of-ten (and/or) best learned ‘in use’.5. Inferences about underpinning knowl-edge and understanding must be madewith due caution regarding the possibil-ity of alternative or incorrect schemata.”

This unease is reflected not only concep-tually but in the approach to implemen-tation. Haffenden and Brown (1989), talk-ing of teachers, remark:

“In summary it can be seen that there arewidely differing perceptions about thenature of competence. The lowest coher-ent and comprehensive view of compe-


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the system, in resourcing levels and in abroader-based curricula - as well as theother factors outlined above.

The NCVQ system is a voluntary one -just one aspect of a voluntarist nationalnegotiating stance with employers whichattempts persuasion rather than legisla-tion. This is also true of the local roles ofthe Training and Enterprise Councils andit is complementary to the decentralisedcharacter of the bodies awarding qualifi-cation :

“This would, however, be of little conse-quence if employers had a firm commit-ment to human resource development.”(Raggatt, 1991).

Structural and organisa-tional issues

There are two broad themes on which torecapitulate :

1. specificity is necessary in the re-construction of a system;

2. the logic of implementation in aparticular cultural and structural con-text provides a context much beyondthe simple conceptualisation of thetools.

One great advantage of the approachesto ‘competence’ in Britain is that it canbring into alignment the qualification,certification and assessment mechanismsfor both initial skill training and adulttraining as well as penetrating both VETand Higher Education (Gordon 1993).

Burke (1991) makes a distinction betweendirect intervention by specific policy ini-tiatives and by osmosis, particularly in thecase of Higher Education.

“Osmosis refers to changes which seepinto HE and may be seen as the rising ofa response to internally recognised needs.I see osmotic changes incurring in HigherEducation as a result of features of com-petency-based approaches being ab-sorbed into HE, largely as a result of whatis happening in terms of NVQs and par-allel developments in the national curricu-lum”.

tence relates to personal competence. Theadvantages of such an approach aremanifold, not least simply because it un-derlines the centrality of people. The di-versity of opinion about competence in it-self can be viewed as indicative of the needfor a much fuller programme of staff de-velopment - not to impose a single under-standing of the nature of competence,rather to get broad agreement on the over-all direction the curriculum should take”.(Haffenden and Brown, 1981).

Structurally, we can refer back to the de-central ised character of the Brit ishsystem(s). Since there are no central stand-ards then, in many cases there is, in fact,no existing agreement on, and familiaritywith, the standards and performance cri-teria produced by Lead Bodies for an in-dustry.

“Supervisors, managers and trainers willhave to learn and internalise these beforelocalised assessment is likely to produceanything other than widely varying stand-ards.” (Ibid.).

The cultural context

The competence-led approach is part ofa broader context where pedagogic andcurriculum issues should determine, ratherthan follow, resourcing and structural is-sues; at least, that is the question. Writingon the implications for Further Educationof the 1988 Education Reform Act, BerylPratley (1988) comments :

“We may break the tradition whereby re-sources in FE follows successful curricu-lum implementation and establish systemswhereby resources are provided to ensureeffective curriculum design, implementa-tion and evaluation.”

However, a major dilemma is posed by agroup of practitioners reviewing fourCommunity countries from four differentoccupational sectors (Gordon and Parkes,1992). They ask :

“Given superior processes, to what factormust poor UK outcomes be attributed?”

Their answer lay in participation rates, inthe coherence and comprehensibility of

What is the processfor certification?

❏ Lead Bodies representingoccupational sectors draw up

and present requiredcompetences, with an

assessment process whichhas normally been designed

with the help of awardingbodies;

❏ the awarding bodiessubmit their qualifications,

including an assessmentprocess, to NCVQ for

accreditation;

❏ NCVQ accredits thequalifications submitted, for

five years if they meet NCVQcriteria; the award must be

based on “standards re-quired for performance in

employment”;

❏ accreditation allows thebodies to call their qualifica-tions a “National VocationalQualification” (NVQ). Theypay a fee per award issued;

❏ awards and certificatescan be given for full qualifi-

cation or for individual units,each of which comprises

several elements of compe-tence;

❏ it is not necessary tofollow a particular curricu-

lum or course in order toobtain an NVQ. Theoreti-cally, assessment can be

made in a recognisedassessment centre whichmight be the workplace.


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This at least implies a coherence acrosseducational sectors and provides a posi-tive glow for a future and cohesive Brit-ish scenario.

Another organisational feature of the com-petence-led approach is its unit/creditbase. It reinforces the increasinglymodular character of British provi-sion.

At the simplest level, a module is thebreaking down of a syllabus or syllabusesinto short sections that can be built up invarious ways and in variously connectedsequences, leading to a certification. Thebenefits of a modular system -or what-ever kind- are felt by its protagonists tobe :

❏ the more efficient use of resources;❏ the enhancement of choice for studentsand flexibility in provision;❏ the facility to vary the pace, timing anddelivery of training;❏ the capacity to be innovative;❏ increased participation rates and bet-ter utilisation of facilities.

The development of a modular approachhas a direct impact on curriculum man-agement and development. The organi-sational elements affected are :

❏ financial management;❏ organisational structure;❏ the way in which teaching/learning areorganised and then resourced;❏ human resources and the way they aredeployed.

But ‘modules’ are as widely interpretableas ‘competences’. At a recent PETRA con-ference in Lisbon (1992) the conclusionscould be roughly translated as “We nolonger know what a module is and we nolonger care”. This is a ‘flip way’ of ana-lysing differentiation of definition andimplementation.

For the German system, particularly,modularisation may be resisted as the thinedge of the European wedge into a DualSystem providing, in initial skill training,maturation processes together with socialesteem and a broad orientation towardsquality.

The political context

There is no such entity as an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ world but there is a perceived dif-ference between educational systemswhich can be labelled as ‘managed’(largely from the English-speaking world)and those labelled as ‘administered’. Insay, German or French systems, we wouldexpect to see skilled professionals work-ing within an ‘administered’ system. An‘administered’ system is where the keydecisions of resourcing, personnel andcurricula are taking outside the institution.A ‘managed’ system is where the loca-tion for decision-making is the institu-tion and the Principal is a ‘manager’(using the metaphor in the enterprisesense). Worldwide, at the level of theeducation or training institution, pressurehas been towards autonomy, corporatism,‘management’ and global budgets. Suchpressure is accepted or resisted depend-ing on the culture and the structure inwhich it is received.

The ‘enterprise’ metaphor, as applied tothe British situation, has meant the ex-pectation that colleges of further educa-tion be ‘corporate’ with bottom-line budg-ets and indeed managed competitivelybetween and amongst each other.

At the same time, key decision-makingand ‘steering’ locations are largely occu-pied by employers - in the Training andEnterprise Councils (TECs); in the col-leges, with employers playing a predomi-nant role in governing bodies and in theLead Bodies for occupational sectors de-termining standards. The German ‘social-partner’ structure with the trade unionsplaying a substantial role alongside em-ployers is much diminished.

The Training and Enterprise Councils,which exist at local level, are controllednot by elected representatives of centraland local government but by businesspeople nominated by the government.(Schemes for the young and long-termunemployed, previously administered bythe local or regional arms of the old De-partment of Employment, are handledlocally by the TECs. The national figurefor these schemes adds up to over £1.5billion. The government’s rationale is thatthey are locally based and can identifyclearly with the local area they serve).

“The competence-led ap-proach is part of abroader context wherepedagogic and curriculumissues should determine,rather than follow,resourcing and structuralissues; at least, that is thequestion.”

“... there is a perceiveddifference between educa-tional systems which canbe labelled as ‘managed’(largely from the English-speaking world) andthose labelled as ‘adminis-tered’.

... Worldwide, at the levelof the education or train-ing institution, pressurehas been towards auton-omy, corporatism, ‘man-agement’ and globalbudgets.”

“One great advantage ofthe approaches to ‘compe-tence’ in Britain is that itcan bring into alignmentthe qualification, certifi-cation and assessmentmechanisms for both ini-tial skill training andadult training...”


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The role of employers in determining the‘standards’ from which competences arederived has to be seen in the larger po-litical context. Hence, the uneasiness bycommentators at needs and standardsbeing expressed by an employer sectorwithout a long tradition of investmentin, and commitment to, training. Amongstthe wealth of literature confirming thispoint is included the famous MSC/NEDO(1984) report “Competence and Compe-tition” which revealed that employers inWest Germany spent nearly three timesas much on initial and continuing voca-tional education and training as did em-ployers in the UK.

The British government has tended tofollow (not necessarily successful) Ameri-can examples of innovation in industry-training relationships. As Unwin (1991)points out :“the Boston Compact encouraged the

Thatcher government in 1986 to fund, viathe then Manpower Services Commission,a series of similar partnerships in urbancentres in Britain, despite the warningsigns from Boston that all was not well”.

The TECs themselves were inspired by theAmerican PICs (Private Industry Councils).One has occasion to wonder whether theemulation of relatively unsuccessful NorthAmerican experiments is simply a prod-uct of ministerial incapacity to cope withlanguages other than English/American.

It is true that many of the trends aboveare worldwide rather than specificallyBritish (even the French speak in schoolsof ‘le marketing’) but the British exampleis seen as end-of-spectrum and often un-representative of the different traditionsin medium-sized European states. Ofcourse, this may again be due to beingahead of the game!.

Messick Samuel (1982) Abilities & Knowledgein Educational Achievement Testing (Princeton,New Jersey).

Pratley Beryl (1988), Who’s Driving the CurriculumNow? in Planning the FE curriculum, Implica-tions of the 1988 Education Reform Act, (eds.Kedney & Parkes) F.E.U. London.

Raggatt Peter (1991) Quality Assurance and NVQsin Change and Intervention - VocationalEducation and Training (Raggatt P & Unwin L.(eds), The Falmer Press, London.

Sanderson Michael (1993) Vocational Educationand Training : a historian’ view in EuropeanJournal of Education, Volume 28 N° 2, Ibid..

Standaert Roger, Technical Rationality in EducationManagement: a survey covering England, France andGermany in European Journal of Education,Volume 28 N° 2, Ibid..

Udace (1989) Understanding Competence - Unitfor the Development of Adult Continuing Education,Leicester.

Unwin Laura (1991) Meeting the Needs of a “GlobalSociety” : Vocational Training in the U.S.A. inChange and Intervention - Vocational Educationand Training (Raggatt P. & Unwin L. (eds) Ibid..

Wolf Alison : Some Final Thoughts : VocationalEducat ion Policy in a European Context inEuropean Journal of Education, Volume 28 N°2, Ibid..

Wolf Alison (1990) Unwrapping Knowledge andUnderstanding from Standards of Competence inKnowledge & Competence : Current issues inTraining and Education (eds Black & Wolf) COICDepartment of Employment, London

Bengsston Jarl (1993) Labour Markets of the Future: the challenge to education policy makers inEuropean Journal of Education, Volume 28, N°2 (ed. Parkes) The European Cultural Foundation,Amsterdam.

Burke John (1991) Competence and HigherEducation : implications for institutions andprofessional bodies in Change and Intervention- Vocational Education and Training (Raggat P.& Unwin L. (eds) The Falmer Press, London.

Further Education Unit (1984) Towards aCompetence-based System, London.

Gordon Jean, forthcoming 1993, ComparativeAnalysis of the systems and procedures ofcertification of qualifications in the EuropeanCommunity, CEDEFOP, Berlin.

Gordon Jean & Parkes David (1992) Strategies forVET in Europe, AVCI London.

Haffenden and Brown (1989), Towards theImplementation of Competence-based curricula inColleges of Further Education, in Burke J. (ed)Competency-based Education and TrainingFalmer Press, Lewes.

Jessup Gilbert (1991), Outcomes : NVQs and theEmerging Model of Education and Training,Ibid..

Levy Margaret, Matthews David & Oates Tim(1989) A Guide to Work-based learning Terms,FE Staff College, Bristol.

Mansfield Bob (1989), Competence and Standards,in Burke J. (ed) Competency-based Educationand Training, Ibid..

Mansfield Bob and Mathews David (1985) JobCompetence : a description for use in Vocation-al Education and Training, FESC, Bristol.

References


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“A competency perspec-tive can be an invaluableaid to the trainer oreducator, because it forcesthe system to focus onwhat it wishes to achieve.Tying measurement andaccreditation to the notionof competency, however,quickly throws up seriousproblems.

... Certainly, at Europeanlevel, competency-basedmeasurement is no wayeither to paper overdisagreements, or createcommon understandingswhere none already exist.”

Alison WolfReader in Educationand Co-Director ofthe InternationalCentre for Researchin Assessment. Shehas worked on

education policy in both theUnited States and the UK

1Adapted from G. Grant et al OnCompetence: A critical Analysis ofCompetence-Based Reforms inHigher Education (Jossey-Bass, SanFrancisco, 1979) p5

This article is primarily concerned withrecent experience in the UK, where a veryparticular approach to defining andmeasuring competences has been acornerstone of government policy onvocational training. The lessons are,however, more general. If competencesare to have any major policy relevance atnational or European level, the meaningone person ascribes to a competence mustbe recognisably the same as anothers. Thismeans that issues of definition andmeasurement are fundamental.

The United Kingdom has gone furtherthan any other country to incorporatecompetence-based approaches intomainstream education and training. Itsexperience has underlined a number ofmajor theoretical and operational prob-lems with the approach. Thinking in termsof competences can be a useful approachto the design of training programmes andhuman resource development. However,UK developments show that substitutingthis new language for that of moretraditional qualifications will do nothingin itself to help establish mutual recog-nition mechanisms for individuals skillsand learning.

The ideas behind competence-basedassessment, and competence-basededucation, as practised and preached inthe UK, are essentially American in origin.(This is especially true of the Englishvariant. As readers may be aware, Englandand Scotland have quite distinct educationsystems: and the English have adopted amore purist version of competence-basededucation and training than the Scots.)The literature on competence-basedassessment, which appeared in Britain inthe 1980s, is packed with direct echoesof US literature of ten years before. Whatare dramatically different are the insti-tutional structures, which have producedvery different patterns of implementationand growth in competency-based pro-grammes. In essence, government policy

in the UK ensured the general adoptionof competence-based approaches, bytying them to central government funding.In the US, localised experimental workhad little or no long-term effects: - so thatAmerican advocates of the approach arenow rediscovering it, in part through theBritish programme.

The following definition is an Americanone. Yet it summarises all the majorfeatures of competence-based assessmentas currently advocated in the UK:

Competence-based assessment is a form ofassessment that is derived from a specifi-cation of a set of outcomes; that so clearlystates both the outcomes- general andspecific - that assessors, students andinterested third parties can all makereasonably objective judgments withrespect to student achievement or non-achievement of these outcomes; and thatcertifies student progress on the basis ofdemonstrated achievement of these out-comes. Assessments are not tied to timeserved in formal educational settings.1

The three components of competence-based assessment which are especiallyimportant, and which the definition aboveencapsulates are:

❏ The emphasis on outcomes - specifi-cally, multiple outcomes, each distinctiveand separately considered❏ The belief that these can and shouldbe specified to the point where they areclear and transparent - that assessors,assessees and third parties should be ableto understand what is being assessed, andwhat should be achieved❏ The decoupling of assessment fromparticular institutions or learning pro-grammes.

These characteristics define the practiceof competence-based assessment. How-ever, the emphasis on outcomes andtransparency is not peculiar to thecompetence-based context. It is also a

Measuring competence:the experience of the UnitedKingdom


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defining characteristic of a rather broadertheory of measurement, that of criterion-referencing. Criterion-referencing issimilarly concerned with clearly specifiedoutcomes, and with assessments thataddress these outcomes separately ratherthan dealing with pass marks or norms.It too has been a very influential approachin recent years (for example within theEnglish National Curriculum): and it toohails conceptually from the United States.Nonetheless, competence-based andcriterion-referenced assessment are notsynonymous. The former involves an ideaof competence which is essentially non-academic. In practice, as noted by thesame American text from which our firstdefinition was derived,

It tends... to derive from an analysis of aprospective or actual role in modernsociety and...attempts to certify studentprogress on the basis of demonstratedperformance in some or all aspects of thatrole. (ibid p.6)

In other words, it is vocational in thebroadest sense, and bound up with theidea of real-life performance. Indeed, inits early days in the US, performance-based assessment (and education) werethe terms used more often than com-petence.

Competence-based assessment becameimportant in England following the 1986governmental Review of VocationalQualifications. This led directly to thecreation of the National Council forVocational Qualifications, with a remit toestablish an National Vocational Qualifi-cat ions (NVQ) system of approvedvocational awards. The review argued that“assessments carried out by many bodiesdo not adequately test or record thecompetences required in employment”,that “assessment methods tend to bebiased towards the testing either ofknowledge or of skill rather than ofcompetence”, and that there are “manybarriers to access arising from attendanceand entry requirements”. The educationsector, at this stage, was seen as essentiallyin opposition to needed reforms, and theirobjections to the proposed reforms weregenerally discounted.

National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs)have now been developed to cover most

sectors of employment. They derive fromthe activities of “lead industry bodies”which represent a given sector of industryor employment. Each such body isresponsible for drawing up detailedstandards of occupational competence.These, in turn, are used as the basis forvocational awards. No qualification willbe recognised as an “NVQ” unless it isbased on the standards issued by the leadindustry body concerned: and governmentfunding is tied to NVQ provision. Theprocess of NVQ accreditation does notinvolve any formal discussion of curri-culum (except insofar as it is implicit inthe standards) or approval of learningprogrammes. The assumption is thatuse of the standards will ensure thelatter’s quality.

As national qualifications, NVQs eachcover a particular area of work, at aspecific level of achievement. They arebased on the fundamental assumptionthat, for each industry, there exists a singleidentifiable model of what “competent”performance entails. The idea that, foreach role, there exists such an agreednotion of competence, which can beelicited and command consensus, isfundamental to any assessment system ofthis type. It is also, as we shall bediscussing later, an heroic - and aquestionable - assumption.

The structure of an NVQ is modular or“unit-based”. These units are defined asgroups of “elements of competence andassociated performance criteria whichform a discrete activity or sub-area ofcompetence which has meaning andindependent value in the area of employ-ment to which the NVQ relates.”(NCVQ1991) An element of competence is adescription of something which a personwho works in a given occupational areashould be able to do. It reflects action,behaviour or outcome which has “realmeaning” in the occupational sector towhich it relates. For example:

❏ create, maintain and enhance effectiveworking relationships is an example of amanagement competence❏ inform customers about products andservices on request is taken from a list offinancial services competences

Both share two compulsory qualities.They involve an active verb and an object

Competence - based as-sessment led to the devel-opment of National Voca-

tional Qualifications(NVQs) based on stand-

ards of occupational com-petence.

(NVQs)“.. are based on thefundamental assumption

that, for each industry,there exists a single iden-

tifiable model of what“competent” performance

entails. ... It is ... an heroic- and a questionable - as-

sumption.”


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- i.e. they are performance-based - andthey are not tied in any way to particulartraining programmes.

As expressed, both these examples areobviously very general statements indeed.Each could apply to a huge number ofcontexts - and to performance of veryvariable quality. Assessment of suchcompetences is made concrete, in theBritish system, through highly specifiedperformance criteria. These are thestatements by which an assessor judgeswhether an individual can perform theworkplace act iv i ty at the s tandardrequired. In effect, the performancecriteria state explicit measures of out-comes. Figure 1 provides an example ofan element of competence with itsperformance criteria.

To be accredited with a competence, acandidate must demonstrate successfullythat he or she has met every one of thesecriteria. This is because competence-basedassessment, as interpreted by the NationalCouncil for Vocational Qualifications,requires one-to-one correspondence withoutcome-based standards. This must becomprehensive: evidence must be collec-ted of a candidate’s having met everysingle performance criterion. Failure to dothis, it is argued, removes an essentialcharacteristic of the system - the fact thatwe know exactly what someone who hasbeen assessed can do.

It is important to emphasise this objective,because it lies at the heart of recentadvocacy of competency testing. Acompetency-based system will, it is

expected, be far superior to traditionalforms because it is so transparent, andbecause it delivers exactly what isdescribed. And it can be deliveredbecause performance criteria are soclearly defined that the assessor candescribe a candidate as having unambig-uously achieved (or not yet achieved)them. The requirement is thus for a one-to-one relationship between criteria andcompetence: and between assessment andcriteria.

We have noted the assumption thatassessment will be unproblematic becauseit simply involves comparing behaviourwith the transparent “benchmark” of theperformance criteria. The reality, unfort-unately, is somewhat different. As a result,the short history of NVQs has also beenone in which the quest for clarity hasproduced an ever more complex andcomplicated “methodology”.

The second part of the paper discussesthe technical reasons for this. Here wesimply illustrate it by an example. Thecriteria in figure 2 are intended to applyto a playgroup assistant or registeredchildminder. Yet, as they stand, they couldequally well apply to a child psychiatristor specialised speech therapist. How doesthe assessor know what the standardactually is?

This lack of clarity become noticeablefairly early on - well before large numbersof NVQs were actually assessed ordelivered. The response was to institutea new notion, that of the “range state-ment”. These quickly became a compul-

“... competence-based as-sessment, as interpretedby the National Councilfor Vocational Qualifi-cations, requires one-to-one correspondence withoutcome-based stand-ards.”

“... We have noted the as-sumption that assessmentwill be unproblematic be-cause it simply involvescomparing behaviour withthe transparent “bench-mark” of the performancecriteria. The reality,unfortunately, is some-what different. As a result,the short history of NVQshas also been one inwhich the quest for clarityhas produced an evermore complex and compli-cated “methodology”.”

Figure 1: Element of competence from level II NVQ

Identify and retrieve documents from within an established filing system

Performance criteria

a. Specified documents are promptly located, extracted and passed to correctperson or location

b. Delays in the supply of files and/or documents are notified and reasons fordelay politely explained (sic)

c. All file and document movements are correctly recorded, up to date and legible.


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sory addition to all standards. Rangestatements officially “describe the limitswithin which performance to the identi-fied standards is expected, if the indivi-dual is to be deemed competent.” In otherwords, they contextualise the performancecriteria, and hopefully make clear whetherit is a psychiatrist or a childminder whois in question. They impose furtherassessment requirements: because com-petence must be fully assessed “across therange”. They also greatly increase thelength of the documentation - sometimestaking up as much space as the perfor-mance criteria themselves.

What they failed to do, however, was tomake everything clear and unambiguous.Interpretation - and measurement practice- continued to differ.

In consequence, they were rapidlyfollowed by another compulsory additionto standards: “specifications of under-pinning knowledge and understanding”.The original architects of NVQs assumedthat knowledge requirements would beclearly understood by trainers andteachers on the basis of the criteria forcompetence. This proved optimistic.Workshops which tried to “extract” or

“induce” knowledge requirements fromstandards demonstrated quite quickly thatthe knowledge extracted was not, in fact,at all standard, but subject to very differentinterpretations. Formal “knowledge lists”followed. Finally, the transparency ofassessment requirements came intoquestion in its turn. Just as range andknowledge statements have been addedto standards, so too have assessmentrequirements. Industry bodies are nowexpected to add lists of assessmentspecifications to the standards whichexamining and awarding bodies use.

Yet another level of detail and centrali-sation is thus added. The resultingstandards and qualification have becomehuge and unwieldy documents Theapparently economical notion of com-petence has become exhaustively definedand constrained. In the process it becomesincreasingly undeliverable and increas-ingly unattractive to employers as a basisfor either their own training programmesor as a way of certifying employees. Italso becomes increasingly questionable asa suitable approach for a world of rapidtechnological change and fluid jobboundaries.

Figure 2: Performance criteria from an element ofcompetence for a worker with young children

Identify the language and communication abilities of an individual child

1. Observations of the child’s interaction with other children and adults provideobjective information about his/her spontaneous speech and communicationskills

2. Activities and methods of communication are selected which encourage thechild to communicate and are adapted to suit the child’s interests and abilities

3. Information about the child’s ability to communicate in the home setting ob-tained from discussion with parents is treated as confidential and used only asnecessary to develop a picture of the child’s language and communicationskills

4. The child’s hearing and understanding of stories, instructions and other commu-nication is regularly checked by observing and interacting with the child

5. Identification of the child’s language and communication abilities is based onrelevant sources of information


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which it quite easy to assess in theworkplace.) It is from this that theexample in figure 1 is drawn. The rangestatement for this competence informs onethat

The Competence includes paper-basedfiling systems covering the retrieval ofinformation from alphabetical andnumerical f i l ing systems, involvingindexing systems and lateral and verticalfiling methods. It requires competence inbooking in and out procedures and thetracing of missing or overdue files.

The assessment guidance adds that, ifassessed outside work,

students must demonstrate competence bydealing consecutively with a minimum of20 items to be extracted, on a minimumof three separate occasions...A completelydif fer ent set of documents must beprovided for each simulated assessment.

Yet all these additional requirementssimply occasion new queries. Supposethere was a slight overlap in the docu-ments used for assessment: - does thatinvalidate the assessment? Does it matterif the documents are extracted from asystem containing 20 files rather than2000? How many of them have to comefrom files for which document movementsare actually recorded? What sort ofindexing system counts? And so on...

However precise one becomes, whenone goes down this route. there isalways a call for yet more definition.This is exactly the UK experience withNVQs. Performance criteria might meanall sorts of things - so we added range.Range can be interpreted in all sorts ofways - we add more lists. At the end ofthis process, and in all good faith, peoplecan still be ascribing competence to verydifferent behaviour.

The original claim was that individualperformance...is judged against explicitstandards.... and (therefore) individualsknow exactly what they are aiming toachieve...2. Assessment requires far lessin the way of complex judgement thanwith the opaque criteria employed bytradi t ional school-based or highereducation.

The early American experiments on whichthe English programme drew similarlyended with huge volumes of unmana-geable paperwork and over-detailedprescription. The contrast between theapparent simplicity and broadness ofcompetence as a concept, and therestrictive and rigid reality is remarkable.Yet the tendency is inherent in the ideaof completely transparent, unambiguousoutcomes as an operational idea. Itbecomes inevitable if one attempts tomeasure competence precisely and use itas a basis for national (or international)certification and accreditation.

The limitations of specifiedoutcomes

There are general theoretical reasons whyattempts to specify outcomes so clearlythat anyone can assess them reliably aredoomed to failure. Suppose, for example,that one was interested in somethinghighly specific and abstract - far lesscontext-dependent than the averageworkplace competency, and so, pre-sumably, easier to define. A very specificmathematics skill is a good example: -saythe ability to multiply whole numbers.

In the United States, where criterion-referenced tests have been most devel-oped, the definitions of items to be usedto test such skills have become extremelyprecise - there must be so many items, ofsuch and such difficulty, with so manyquestions involving one digit (e.g. 3 x 2),so many two-digit (e.g. 12 x 20), and soon. And yet, having constructed such atest, can one really say, with absoluteconfidence, that these students canmultiply double-digit numbers?. Howmany errors are they allowed? Would theyhave done as well on a different set ofquestions? Does 11 x 11 count as the sameas 99 x 99?

Many of the performance criteria incompetence-based qualifications arealmost as narrow as the examplesfurnished by academic criterion-refer-enced tests. A level II NVQ in BusinessAdministration is one of the largest NVQsin terms of entries, since it is very wellsuited to training and accrediting specificoffice skills (and one of the few NVQs

2 Fletcher, S. (1991) NVQs, Standards& Competence London: KoganPage, p.66.


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In fact, nothing could be further from thetruth. The inherent variability of thecontexts in which competence is testedand displayed means that assessors haveto make constant, major decisions abouthow to take account of that context whenjudging whether an observed piece ofevidence “fits” a defined criterion. In otherwords, they operate with a complex,internalised, and holistic model - not asimple set of descriptors lifted from aprinted set of performance indicators.3

The limitations of assessorjudgement

If written definitions cannot provide therequired clarity, the alternative is to relyon a pre-existing consensus and under-standing on the part of the assessors. Thewhole of competence-based assessmentstarts from an assumption: - that thereexist standards of competence for anindustry or role, and that these can bearticulated through written documents.The documents do not create the stan-dards: they articulate and clarify them toprofessionals. The latter understand thembecause of their prior knowledge andimplicit understanding of what com-petence in their own context means. Thusthe developers of standards of com-petence will explain that one goes ondefining as long as it is necessary. Youstop when everyone understands.

We have argued that standards cannotbegin to provide item specifications sotight that anyone could use them toconstruct reliable and consistent assess-ments. But does this, in fact, matter? Orcan a shared occupational culture makethe requirements unambiguous: so thatthe endless spiral of specification which,we argued, was always attendant oncriterion-referencing is broken by theexistence of shared expertise?

It must be said that there has been verylittle independent evaluation of whetherUK standards are implemented in anycomparable or consistent way - and,indeed, that it would be rather difficultto do this at all clearly. By nature, thoseusing them in workplaces will be dealingwith very different contexts, so it is notclear how one would measure sameness

precisely. Nonetheless, one must seriouslyquestion whether it is likely even inprinciple that a combination of definitionsand prior consensus will produce any veryuniform behaviour: and also whether theassumption of pre-existing standards andshared understanding is reasonable at all.One of the examples offered by NCVQ inits guidance comes from publishing, andstates that:

Costs are minimised through forwardpurchase of optimum quantities andtiming in relation to schedule require-ments.

Is it really likely that, industry-wide, therewill be consensus on whether this hasbeen achieved, what would be involved,or how one would recognise it?

Certainly, such evidence as exists is notterribly encouraging. Harry Black and hiscolleagues at the Scottish Council forResearch in Education (SCRE) studied indetail the way in which a number ofcolleges were delivering apparently quitespecific Stock Control modules within theScottish National Certificate, which, alsoembodies competence-based approaches.All the departments were experienced andhad close ties with local industry: and thecolleges themselves assumed that theStock Control modules would be quiteeasy to deliver to a common standard. Infact, however, both content and standardsdeviated greatly within the group.4

Compared to the National Certificatemodules , NVQ developments haveinvolved greater specification, greaterrestrictions on format, longer lists, tighterdefinitions. In research at the Institute ofEducation5 we asked experienced collegetutors and workplace supervisors todevise exercises based on very detailedspecifications. In spite of the sharedoccupational culture of the individualsconcerned, the assessment items theyproduced, following these specifications,proved to be very different in content.We also looked at the level of difficultyat which the assessors ascribed mastery,by asking them to administer and makejudgements using a more standardised“anchor test” at the same time as they usedtheir own. The standard at which theyascribed “competence” on this commonexercise turned out to be markedly

“The inherent variabilityof the contexts in which

competence is tested anddisplayed means that as-

sessors have to make con-stant, major decisions

about how to take accountof that context when judg-

ing whether an observedpiece of evidence “fits” a

defined criterion.”

3 See e.g. Christie and Forrest 1981Defining Public Examination

Standards London: Macmillan;Cresswell 1987 Describing Exami-

nation Performance EducationalStudies 13.3 ; Brehmer 1989 Grading

as a quasi-rational judgementprocess in Lowyck, J & Clark, C eds.

Teacher Thinking & ProfessionalAction Leuven: Leuven University

Press)

4 Black et al 1989 The Quality ofAssessments Edinburgh: Scottish

Council for Research in Education

5 Wolf A and Silver R 1986 Work-based Learning Sheffield: Employ-

ment Department

6 Wolf A. “Authentic Assessment in acompetitive sector”, in Torrance,

H.ed. Evaluating AuthenticAssessment (Buckingham: Open

University Press 1994)


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different implying that the underlyingstandard being applied to the different,and therefore not directly comparable,exercises of their own was also highlyvar iable . Comparable resul ts wereobtained with tourist guide examinersoperating out of different regional offices,even though they had mostly done theirown training together, and operated anexternal examiner system which createdsome cross-region links.6

Discussions of competence-based assess-ment often imply that assessor judgementis only a minor issue because theassessment criteria are so minutely andclearly specified that one is well downtowards the more mechanistic end of thespectrum. Nothing could be further fromthe truth. Workplaces vary hugely: thusany assessment process is complex,incremental, and, above all, judgmental.It has to be because the actual per-formance which one observes direct-ly, or in the form of artefacts isintrinsically variable: one person’splaying of a piano piece, one person’soperations plan, is by definition notexactly the same as another’s, and cannotbe fitted mechanistically to either a writtenlist of criteria, or to an example.

This point also underlines one of theproblematic assumptions of UK com-petency measurement - an assumptionwhich is likely to be doubly or triplyproblematic at European level. I notedabove the assumption that standards ofcompetence exist in some form already,and that the job of the industry bodies isto elicit and define them. This is some-thing of a myth. In many cases, thestandards are being created - and whilethis may, in some contexts, provide awelcome mechanism for improvingindustry practice, it also means that manyindividual firms simply do not recogniseand accept what is being offered as anindustry standard of competence. Thefurther one moves from lower-level, massoccupations (retail assistants, junior chefs)the more acute the problem becomes.

A competency perspective can be aninvaluable aid to the trainer or educator,because it forces the system to focus onwhat it wishes to achieve. Tying measure-ment and accreditation to the notion ofcompetency, however, quickly throws up

serious problems. I have argued that theseare not transitional or superficial, butinherent in the over-ambitious claimsmade for this approach. Certainly, atEuropean level , competency-basedmeasurement is no way either to paperover disagreements,. or create commonunderstandings where none already exist.

The International Centre for Researchon Assessment, London


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Many industrialised countries face asituation where, in a number of industrialand commercial sectors, firms need tomove rapidly from the low skills/lowquality equilibrium appropriate to the eraof mechanisation to a new equilibriumappropriate to the era of flexible speciali-sation. In this process of transition,analysis of recent experience of advancedindustrialised countries indicates thatinstitutions play a key role in creating theconditions which will encourage firms andindividuals to invest in training for skills.These institutional arrangements willfrequently be (but not exclusively) withpublicly elected or appointed authoritiesat local, regional or national level - orsometimes all three. Public policy which‘oils the wheels’ or substitutes for privatetraining activity is usually concerned withthree aspects of occupational skills -legislation and financial instruments,provis ion of t raining faci l i t ies andpersonnel, and assessment and certifi-cation. The extent to which governmentshould seek to maintain a monopolyposition in assessment and certificationis raised later in this paper.

The extent to which any society can meetthe expectations of personal and careerdevelopment of young people and adultsis not independent of how well that samesociety enables its workforce to adapt tochanges. Countries which adapt rapidlyand successfully to the demands of newtechnology are not only able to offer theirmembers higher living standards but havemore resources from which to financefurther development and upgrading ofskills. Those countries suffering to anydegree from a ‘low skills/low quality’equilibrium will initially have fewerresources to devote to enabling indivi-duals to develop their skills and improvetheir career prospects. For countries

suffering to any extent from this viciouscircle of skills and quality the requirementof cost-effective management of trainingprovision will act as a major constraintupon the extent to which certification andassessment of occupational competencecan cater for a wide variety of individualneeds.

Implications of differentapproaches to assessmentand certification

In most countries, a well-establishedtradition of liberal education having as itsaim the development of the individual andintroduction to their own culture andsociety will be already in place. Whereastraditionally a certain distance wasmaintained between the demands of thelabour market and the work of teachersin schools and colleges, the increaseddemand for employees with good generalskills and greater flexibility means that thecontent of educational courses for youngpeople and their traditional modes ofassessment - the written examination - arecoming under greater direct scrutiny fromemployers, from parents concerned thatschool is not preparing students fortoday’s labour-market, and from govern-ments concerned with national efficiency.

The written examination, externally setand marked, requiring candidates todemonstrate ability to convey under-standing by means of well-constructedwritten answers is still the dominant modeof assessment of mainstream ‘academic’schooling and served the purpose ofidentifying those qualified to proceed tothe next stage of education in a fairlysatisfactory way. In addition, it is claimedthat employers used school examination

Assessment, Certifi-cation and Recognitionof Occupational Skillsand Competences1

HilarySteedman

Secretary and SeniorResearch Fellow at

the National Instituteof Economic andSocial Research,

London

“... On the supply side wehave an active labourforce with degrees ofadaptation to new de-

mands, and successivecohorts of young entrants

to adult life more or lessprepared to meet the newflexible requirements for

skill. On the demand side,we have the firms them-selves whose short-terminterests in remaining at

existing skill levels areprobably in conflict with

their long-term interest inmoving to a high qualityequilibrium. Experience

shows, that without publicintervention, neither

individuals nor firms arelikely to be able to takethe measures needed to

move to a new ‘high skills/high quality’ equilibrium.

... The interaction ofpublic institutions and

private or firm behaviourdetermines the success or

failure of efforts to im-prove economic growth

through skill develop-ment.”

1 Source: Assessing, Certifying andRecognising occupational Skills and

competences, OECD, Paris, 1994.This article is based on a paper

presented at a Seminar co-organisedby the Portuguese Ministry on

Education and the OECD, 27 - 30October 1992 (Porto, Portugal). The

seminar was part of the OECDprogramme on “The Changing Role

of Vocational and TechnicalEducation and Training (VOTEC)”.

We are grateful to the OECD forgiving permission to publish this

paper.


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“... the content of educa-tional courses for youngpeople and their tradi-tional modes of assess-ment - the written exami-nation - are coming undergreater direct scrutinyfrom employers, from par-ents ... and from govern-ments ...”

“A variety of responses ...have been developed inOECD countries, ...”

results to pick out potential employeeswith high general ability without beingconcerned with the exact nature of thespecific skills that might be certified bythe examination (screening). However,schools and colleges are increasinglycalled upon to teach a variety of relatedand specific vocational competences and,from the start of this process, it has beenrecognised that the formal wri t tenexamination cannot adequately (validly)assess such skills. A variety of responsesto this problem have been developed inOECD countries, some responses insist onstudents taking and passing a formalwritten test together with assessment ofpractical performance in a set piece ofwork by external assessors (eg. Germany).Other countries also insist on the twocomponents of assessment of vocationalskill - the written test of knowledge andthe practical test of performance - butallow partial certification of the practicalperformance element on the grounds thatan individual may be adequately skilledin their own occupational area withoutbeing able to complete the written test(eg. France). Whatever its value inconveying information about what thecandidate can do (and many experts inassessment criticise all time-restrictedwritten examinations because they revealvery little about what candidates can dooutside the examination room) very fewcountries dispense entirely with writtentests for vocational certificates. Recently,however, an innovative new system ofoccupational competence assessment inBri tain has been introduced whichassesses candidates entirely on perfor-mance and requires no written tests. Theclaim, which will be readily understoodby those who have wrestled with theseproblems is that this form of assessmentis more valid i.e. it tells the consumer whatthe person can do more effectively thana certificate based on an examination.

Many countries are experiencing the trendfor a majority of young people to stay onfor general or general and vocationaleducation post-16. Their expectations areincreasingly of a system which offers bothchoice, opportunity for progression andpar i ty of provis ion. Clear ly , theseobjectives become more problematic onceit has been accepted that practical testsof performance need to form a part ofvocational assessment. In many countries,

the authorities would like to offer allyoung people aged 18/19 the samecertificate or a separate certification ofequal status.

With assessment of vocational com-petence dependent on tests of practicalperformance, the traditional ‘academic’assessment by examination begins to lookvery different from the newer perform-ance related criterion-based testing. Thecase for according equal status to the twotypes of qualification becomes moredifficult to sustain. Different countrieshave sought and implemented differentsolutions to the problem of parity ofesteem for vocational and academic post-secondary qualifications. At the oneextreme - as suggested above - formalexaminations are insisted upon for bothvocational and general academic certi-fication. At the other - as in Britain - theform assessment takes diverges radically.Other countries have tried to blur the so-called dividing line between the academicand vocational, perhaps by introducingmodular courses where students can ‘pickn mix’.

General academic courses have beenfollowed mainly by young people, andhave been offered often only on a fulltime basis several years of continuousstudy. Courses leading to vocationalcertificates need to be made available toa much wider public, including adultsreturning to work and with heavydomestic responsibilities, full time matureemployees and persons with very littleprior formal education. This means that,if the same form of vocational certificationis to be offered to all these differentgroups in addition to being offered toyoung people, assessment needs to bemore flexible than that traditionallyprovided at the end of full-time secondaryschooling. Again, small modular units maybe the best vehicle for teaching andlearning of vocational competence andskill and the classroom may not be thebest location - the college workshop orthe workplace may provide the bestteaching and learning environment. Infact, the requirements of this very diverseclientele and the practical work-relatedsubject matter may strongly imply thatassessment should take place outside theschool/college setting altogether and mayalso call into question whether full-time


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teachers with an academic training shouldundertake the examining and certificationat all. In a number of countries, theassessment of vocational competence -whether of young people or of adults,takes place outside the educational settingaltogether, and is carried out - in the caseof Britain - by the trainee’s supervisor.The further assessment moves from theeducational setting, the more difficult itbecomes to provide for transfer from onetrack to another or for progression basedupon a number of units, some vocationaland some academic.

The introduction of the assessment ofoccupational competence purely on thebasis of performance in the workplace,raises the important question of whethera collection of competences ‘adds up’ towhat is understood as ‘skill’. What do weunderstand a skilled individual to be ableto do? Do we expect the skilled individualto have at his/her disposal a body oftheoretical knowledge underpinning skilland do we expect the skilled individualto be able to demonstrate that knowledgeby expounding and explaining coherentlyto an audience either orally or in writingor both? Many would argue that the skilledcraftsman can be a master of his/her tradewithout being able to construct a coherentsentence. On the other hand, otherswould maintain that, in a world of rapidlychanging occupational demands, theability to master a body of abstractknowledge and to communicate it toothers is a vital skill in itself which allshould be encouraged to master. Theargument for requiring the individualseeking vocational certification to undergoformal examination in general subjectsmay rest more upon the view that suchskills promote flexibility and are boundto be required in the future. The author-ities in some OECD countries are ob-viously clearly of this view, whereasothers are less convinced.

The role of assessment andcertification in the func-tioning of training and la-bour-markets

The ideal system of vocational certificationis one which identifies for the employerthe individual who fits the employer’s job

requirements. If the college or worked-based training has already provided theskills needed to do a particular job, theemployer saves valuable resources whichwould otherwise be spent on providingthis training, the new employee is moreproductive and the employer recognisesthis by paying a premium (wage differen-tial). The premium acts as a signal topotential trainees to show that investmentof time and resources in this form oftraining pays off and they come forwardfor training. This, of course, is an idealisedvirtuous circle of certification, product-ivity, increased earnings and increasedtraining effort that it is very difficult toachieve in practice. Nevertheless, recog-nition of the fact that certification shouldattest to skills that the employer needsand values underlies much of the effortthat colleges, examining bodies andgoverning authorities invest in certifi-cation.

Some countries, whether, as a consciouspolicy decision, or because of the waytheir systems have evolved, do notprovide for large-scale certification ofspecific occupational competences withinthe framework of the full-time educationsystem. This is a view that can be justifiedon the grounds of the increasing relevanceto modern industry and commerce offlexibility and adaptability of employeesbased on a high level of general educa-tion. Other countries continue to offercertification in specific occupational areasbut, increasingly, the requirements offlexibility and adaptability are being builtin to the design and assessment of suchqualifications. It is possible that the formerarrangement may be more suitable forcountries with internal labour marketswhere firms expect to carry out trainingand updating of adult employees (notableexamples are Japan and France), countrieswith more active external labour marketstend to be associated with more occu-pationally specific certification. However,the rapidly changing labour-marketrequirements of firms raise the importantquestion of whether training for specificoccupations is appropriate preparation foremployment in advanced industrialisedeconomies? Inevitably, certification isformulated on the basis of alreadyestablished occupational patterns. By thetime these have been institutionalised inlarge-scale certification arrangements the

“The further assessmentmoves from the educa-tional setting, the more

difficult it becomes to pro-vide for transfer from one

track to another ...”


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occupations certified may no longer beneeded. It may even be dysfunctional foran economy if the skills certified aremodelled too closely on employers’requirements - employers themselves maybe basing production on outmoded andinefficient patterns of division of labourand the output of the certification processmay merely help to perpetuate theseinefficiencies. All countries must thereforefind ways of resolving the problem offorward planning of certification ofvocational competence so as not merelyto respond to industry’s immediate needsbut to ensure the provision of futurerequirements - which, by their nature,cannot be predicted with any accuracy.

OECD countries have developed a varietyof s t rategies for confront ing theseproblems. On one hand, we have theapproach based almost exclusively onlaying a good foundation of general skills(Japan) and on the other, an approachwhich closely involves employer andemployee organisations in drawing uptraining programmes and supplementingthem with on the job training whichensures that requirements are close to thelatest needs (Germany). In between, otherinteresting combinations of work-basedand college-based certification have beendeveloped (eg. Netherlands, Denmark).

It has already been mentioned that,ideally, employers signal their recognitionof certification by paying a premium forcertificated skills. A necessary conditionis that certification should be transparentand perceived to be reliable. In a numberof countries, notably those with nationalstate-validated systems of certification,employee organisations have pressed forand obtained recognition in wage gradingsystems of widely-recognised vocationalcertification. The advantages of this are,briefly, greater incentives to individualsto invest in skills and a good supply ofwell-qualified individuals. Disadvantagesinclude rigidities both in labour marketsand in training systems where innovationor new certification may have to benegotiated with both employer andemployee representatives.

What are the factors leading to employersvaluing occupational certification ? It isargued above that recognition by em-ployers of vocational competences is

easier to achieve if the certification isperceived as reliable ie. standard bothover time and over the national or regionalterritory; if it is simple and easy tounderstand yet conveys the type ofinformation that the employer seeks. It isa great virtue of many systems of nationaloccupational certification that standardsof competence cert i f ied have beenmaintained over time - mainly by the useof external examinations and control ofsyllabuses - and that employers have builtup a ‘picture’ of what the certificate attestsby familiarity with the work of those whohold it. Inevitably, the need for reliabilityand simplicity conflicts with the need toadapt certification to dynamic labourmarkets.

It is not only on entry to working life thatindividuals need to be persuaded to investin training. Individuals are more likely toinvest in initial training if they can seeopportunities for progression beyond theinitial certificate. Again, these mustcorrespond to employers’ needs and offerrealistic prospects of advancement. Thisagain means that the most successfulsystems of employee certification will berecognised in collective agreements whilestill allowing the employer discretion overwhether or not to promote an employeewho holds an appropriate qualification.

One important aspect of transferability iswhether, in national systems of certi-fication, vocational certification shouldcount equally with other general educa-tional qualifications towards a Certificategranting entry to Higher Education(University, Polytechnic). While, tradi-tionally, the two tracks (academic andvocational) were kept separate, manycountries now wish to award a singlecertificate giving access to jobs or HigherEducation to all candidates. This meansaccording equal weight to vocational andgeneral academic studies. Such systemsare seen as offering greater choice andflexibility to young people and conse-quently greater incentives to study. It isvitally important for the credibility oftraining institutions that the certificatesthey award command widespread recog-nition in the labour market. Certificatesawarded by new and unknown awardingbodies may take many years to becomeestablished and recognised even thoughthey certify a useful skill level. One way

“... recognition by em-ployers of vocational

competences is easier toachieve if the certificationis perceived as reliable ie.

standard both over timeand over the national or

regional territory ...”


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of ensuring recognition across the wholeof a national or regional territory is forthe State to ‘underwrite’ the certificate byproviding quality assurance in the shapeof a state validated certificate. If, at thesame time, whether by explicitly prohib-iting other bodies from certificating skillsor by some other use of monopolisticpower, the State is effectively the onlybody validating vocational certificates,these will tend to gain wide acceptancein industry and commerce - sometimes forwant of anything better. The disadvantageof a single monopolistic provider is thatthere is little incentive to provide forrelevance to industry’s needs. An alter-native pattern is for trade and industrybodies to set up and validate their owncertificates for their own particular sector.This has the advantage of relevance butthe disadvantage of being not easilytransferable from one occupational sectorto another. Ideally, it is in the interests ofboth employees and employers forcertificates to be widely recognised acrosssectors and occupations as well as withinthem. A general education elementcommon to all certificates can greatlyassist transferability between sectors.

Progression within an occupation requiresan extra dimension of a ladder ofoccupational qualifications and adequateopportunities for employees to pursuethem. We should not forget the difficultyreferred to above that employers are oftenreluctant to meet the cost of trainingemployees to obtain certificates whichwould make it easier for them to move toanother firm. One solution suggested inthe U.K. is for employees to be requiredto pay back the cost of their training ifthey move jobs.

Even within one country, it may be usefulfor those awarding, gaining or trying torecognise different qualifications for anofficial classification system to provideequivalencies of a variety of differentcertificates. An example of this is thesimple NVQ framework of four levels inthe U.K.

Whereas countries of immigration haveoften developed highly effective methodsof evaluating the skills of newcomers andconverting their certificates to a formwhich will be recognised in their newhomeland, European countries formingthe EU have been slow to take any

concrete action to promote the ‘portability’of vocational qualifications. At higherprofessional levels, some painful lynegotiated agreements are now in placethat allow workers (dentists, engineers)to compete on an equal with nationals ofa country. Yet progress has been slowerwith certificates of vocational com-petences. It is interesting to reflect on whythis should be. Almost certainly, onereason is the very different types ofcertification awarded in the different ECcountries at the vocational (craft) level asopposed to the higher professional level.

This very great diversity in certificationhas been a major cause of the difficultiesin reaching agreement on equivalenciesin the EC. Various solutions have beenproposed, first the proposal to set up anew system of ‘European’ vocationalqualifications - but the cost and thedifficulty of obtaining agreement (espec-ially from those who feel they alreadyhave a good system) has been a majordeterrent. Second, negotiating agreementon multilateral recognition by nationalgovernments has been proposed, andsteps towards this end have been takenby the European Centre for the Develop-ment of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP).Their approach has been to identifyoccupations or trades in the different ECcountries and to bring together employerand employee representatives togetherwith other experts to list out the certifi-cates which attest to competence in thattrade in each EC country. Undoubtedly,this could be of use to employers, butthey would need a considerable amountof expertise in comparative vocationalcertification to make full use of it.

In practice recent research carried out bythe Task Force of the EC among Europeanemployers has suggested that manyemployers of other EU nationals do notwish for more information or legislationon the harmonization of vocationalqualifications. Some employers had theirown ways of assessing the competenceof new employees from other EU states(‘We give them a 3 day trial period ifthey’re no good we let them go’). Overall,the view is that language differences stillconstitute a greater barrier to the mobilityof workers in the EU than the lack of aharmonised system of vocational qualifi-cations.

“The disadvantage of asingle monopolistic pro-

vider is that there is littleincentive to provide forrelevance to industry’s

needs.”


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Implementing assessment,certification and validation

In schools, colleges, work places andworkshops many di f ferent ‘actors ’contribute to the complex tasks ofassessment leading to certification. Muchdebate revolves around who should dothe assessing. Clearly, teachers andtrainers are those who best know whatstudents can do and should thereforemake an important contribution to theassessment process. In some countriesteachers set examination papers and markexaminations (not their own). In othercountries, teachers devise their own formsof assessment and mark their studentswork themselves. Difficult problems ofestablishing reliable standards from oneschool or college to another arise fromthis pract ice and ‘moderators ’ arefrequently used to help iron out incon-sistencies. Students often learn betterwhen assessment is adjusted by theteacher to their individual aptitudes andthis advantage should not be lost fromview. Employer and employee represen-tatives also participate in the assessmentprocess in some countries and this hasthe valuable effect of helping to ensurethat assessment is reasonably relevant andin informing those in industry andcommerce of what is being taught andassessed in colleges.

In some countries workplace supervisorsalso play a role. This can give rise tomisgivings when these supervisors havethemselves not been properly trained anddo not fully understand their role. Withproper training, as in Germany forexample, this can also be a valid andmotivating form of assessment. Whetherthe assessors are drawn from schools orindustry or both, the need for consistentvalidation of standards is paramount.Students need to be given confidence thatthe certificate for which they have workedis of value and a responsible validationbody is one which uses the best pro-fessional practice to ensure that properassessment procedures are observed at alltimes and that the standards certifiedremain as comparable as possible overtime and over the different occupationalsectors. Often, the State is the bestguarantor of standards over time but thereare examples of employer and employee

representatives taking responsibility insome OECD countries and of independentbodies also fulfilling this function. Oneidea, which does not seem to functionwell is that of a ‘market in qualifications’- competing bodies strive to maximise thenumbers of candidates paying to enter forcertificates and tend to progressivelylower standards!

Dif ferent sorts of learning requireappropriate assessment and practical skillswill require practical tasks to be observedand assessed. Many countries haveconsiderable experience in assessing thissort of learning in a professional manner(Netherlands, Switzerland to name but afew). Such practical assessment can bemore costly than the traditional shortwritten test but is essential to underpinany worthwhile system of certification ofvocational competence.

The problem of assessing the priorlearning of experienced employees recallsthe need to assess skills already acquiredrather than potential skills, to avoidimposing irrelevant requirements ofacademic education if that is going toprevent the employee receiving anycert i f icat ion. Prior learning can beassessed in a wide variety of ways, byproject work, by self-assessment as wellas by more conventional methods.

Colleges and other institutions providingassessment of vocational competences areoften faced with formidable logisticalproblems as a result of administeringmany different modes of assessment fordifferent types of students - full-time, part-time, part work-based, adults receivingaccreditation of prior learning, adults onupdating and retraining courses. There isa need to consider the cost in time andresources of systems of assessment whichare too fragmented and individualised.There are many advantages to establishingone framework for the assessment of allthese different groups in order to benefitfrom economies of scale.

The advantages and disadvantages ofassessment of modular units and of ‘pick’n mix’ systems are spelt out above. Whilethese can greatly benefit the learner, bybeing more flexible and allowing greaterfreedom of choice, employers have amore difficult task trying to understand

“One idea, which does notseem to function well isthat of a ‘market in quali-fications’ - competing bod-ies strive to maximise thenumbers of candidatespaying to enter for certifi-cates and tend to progres-sively lower standards!”


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such qualifications in terms of what thestudent can do. It was pointed out earlierthat employers generally favour a simplecertificate outlining the level and type ofoccupational skill acquired. If moduleshave to be listed in exhaustive detail,information overload can result and thequalification may not receive the recog-nition from employers that it deserves.

The advantages and disadvantages of asystem of ‘competence-based’ assessmentare spelt out. It can be recalled here thatassessing competence on the basis ofobservation of an individual performinga task relies heavily on the assessorinterpreting the criteria laid down forperformance correctly. Great variabilitycan result from different interpretationsof the criteria. The competences assesseddo not necessarily add up to a skill - whichmay be assessed by more informalmethods - oral interview, continuousassessment over time. The competencesmay be backward-looking - to occu-pations as they were when the list ofcompetences was drawn up rather thanas they are evolving. Competence-basedsystems of assessment can be veryeffective ways of certificating skillsacquired by adult employees on the jobbut can limit young people to mechanicaltasks and fail to develop all-roundpotential.

Market failure and the roleof public authorities

We can summarise the situation in manyindustrialised countries as follows. On thesupply side we have an active labour forcewith degrees of adaptation to newdemands, and successive cohorts of youngentrants to adult life more or less preparedto meet the new flexible requirements forskill. On the demand side, we have thefirms themselves whose short- terminterests in remaining at existing skilllevels are probably in conflict with theirlong-term interest in moving to a highquality equilibrium. Experience shows,that without public intervention, neitherindividuals nor firms are likely to be ableto take the measures needed to move toa new ‘high skills/high quality’ equili-brium. Public intervention cannot berandom and spontaneous; it must operate

on the basis of a def ined strategysystematically implemented and open topublic scrutiny. The interaction of publicinstitutions and private or firm behaviourdetermines the success or failure of effortsto improve economic growth through skilldevelopment.

Relevance and qualityassurance

Certificates should attest to relevant skillsif employers are to recognise them. Asingle, usually a publicly-controlled bodyis an efficient way of ensuring a simplestable and reliable system of certification.However, because, by its nature, a publicbody attempts to provide for the wholeof a national or regional territory, andbecause of the inertia built in to otherassociated arrangements of teaching andassessing, such bodies may find it hardto determine relevant occupational skillsand equally hard to adjust assessment andcertification rapidly enough. Furthermore,public bodies may effectively be in theposition of a monopoly provider. In somesystems, and particularly in those whereoccupational skill certificates are acquiredlargely through full-time college basedcourses, public authorities appear to havetacitly recognised this dilemma and tohave decided that the costs of continuallyupdating outweigh the benefits. Theyhave instead concentrated on providingtransferable general skills at the expenseof workplace specific training. This allowsthe certificate to compensate for lack ofrelevance by increased reliability andtransparency. In addition, where assess-ment is based on skills and knowledgeacquired in college, quality assurance andthe maintenance of standards over timeis easier to manage. Where some or allassessment and certification is based onlearning which takes place on the job,relevance is easier to achieve but there isinevitably some loss of reliability andquality assurance is more difficult andcostly. A major issue then is to attempt todetermine what is a realistic balancebetween relevant work place skills on theone hand and reliability and adequatequality assurance of assessment andcertification on the other hand.

“A major issue ... is to at-tempt to determine what is

a realistic balance be-tween relevant work placeskills on the one hand and

reliability and adequatequality assurance of as-

sessment and certificationon the other hand.”

“Competence-based sys-tems of assessment can bevery effective ways of cer-

tificating skills acquiredby adult employees on the

job but can limit youngpeople to mechanical

tasks and fail to developall-round potential.”


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Does competencemobilize the worker?

more global, competition also becomesstiffer. It no longer operates on protectedand expanding markets but on stagnant,even restrained markets and, at the sametime, on increasingly competitive markets.Finally, with the integration of new tech-nologies into productions, tools arechanging considerably, even changing thevery nature of work. Work, in turn, isbecoming increasingly complex and di-versified and employment more flexible.Consequently this leads to increased de-mand for new competences. Thus com-petition, complexity and competenceseem to go hand in hand.

The context in which this cal l forcompetences is made is, of course, thatof crisis. But at the same time this is anenvironment which is characterised by amajor increase in the level of school at-tendance. Consequently employers haveaccess to more “human resources”, re-sources who are better educated than everbefore. Hence, companies are able toorient their human resource managementto the competences of staff. On the onehand, external labour management pro-cedures will develop aiming to recruityoung people better in tune with the newcircumstances to the detriment of otherswho, thus, will be pushed on to thefringes. All this will make jobs less se-cure. On the other hand, companies willthus be able to fall back on internal man-agement procedures, to develop forwardforms of labour management enablingthem to anticipate and adapt compet-ences.

Al l this s t resses the need for newcompetences and the site for the acquisi-tion of these competences is becomingmore clear, too. This mainly concernspractical training which acts as a comple-ment or supplement to school instruction.Whereas education is still criticised forbeing out of line with the needs of com-panies, alternance training is especiallydesigned to meet this crisis. Thus, themeasures advocated within the frameworkof employment policies and those aiming

Research activity is based on modelswhich enable it to communicate withother activities. This leads to questionswhich direct the work of research staffand enable various kinds of scientific,ideological or political activity to meet andsometimes even to merge (Tripier, 1991:9).

The systematic use of a new concept, ableto replace those used before, should beunderstood against the same background.This usage directs empirical research, fu-els representation and justifies politicalmeasures. Thus, the concept of compe-tence, already full of ambiguity, takes ona new significance and encourages curi-osity. It is vested with multiple functionsand is gaining ground in various environ-ments. It is gaining a hold both in re-search undertaken in the field of workand education and in the discussions ofthose concerned, and it is promptingaction in the fields of employment andtraining.

Matrix of an analysis

Since the 1980s, as if they sensed theneed, research staff, heads of companies,trade unionists, instructors and trainershave shown pronounced interest in theconcept of competence.

When studying the significance attachedto the concept of competence it is strik-ing to find the systematic ingredientswhich create a true analytical matrixwithin the framework of the colloquia ontraining and employment for example,(amongst others, Levesque, Fernandezand Chaput 1993).

Why is it necessary to promote and ex-ploit competences in an unprecedentedmanner? Firstly because we are witness-ing changes in the market. Consumersare becoming more demanding and con-sequently products must be more diver-sified and of better quality. By becoming

Teachers and Researchers atthe Université Libre deBruxelles

MarcelleStroobants

Mateo Alaluf

“The terminologicalinventions are certainlynumerous. Training on-the-job becomes skill-generating training, multi-skilling, skill-generatingorganization and skills arehenceforth called compet-ences. However, researchseems to suffer fromamnesia even from theor-etical regression.”


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to reform schools make major provisionfor alternance education. Vocational train-ing, on-the-job or supplemented by shortperiods of training in training centres,seems to be the intermediary body whichcan confirm the competences of theworkforce in line with the processes ofproduction modernization.This appeal for competence can be re-duced to a simple matrix with four di-mensions, the interpretation of which is,however, debatable.

1) The conditions on the market truly leadto changes in the production processes,products and work. These changes aretaking place on a large scale although itis not possible to directly identify eithertheir nature or their scope.

2) The available competences are impor-tant given the increase in the level ofeducation of staff. Characteristically thisdevelopment, which shapes the two fol-lowing dimensions, is not mentioned inthe call for competences.

3) The importance of work provision ena-bles companies to develop strategies forthe internal and external management oftheir workforces based on the level ofcompetence. This “pressure for compe-tence” maintains a varied landscape be-tween companies in which human re-sources are intensively exploited and alabour market on which they are intenselywasted.

4) This combination of opportunities andconstraints leads to increased use of on-the-job vocational training or alternancetraining as a way of promoting the nec-essary competences. Companies are en-couraged to invest in training not only byway of statutory or collective bargainingprovisions, but by the tension on the la-bour market. In fact, this tension encour-ages staff to place their bets on trainingwhilst, at the same time, discouragingthem from taking the risk of leaving thecompany which has invested in their train-ing.

In this context competence is defined asthe use and adjustment of individual train-ing achievements, mainly school achieve-ments, by companies depending on theirneeds. Henceforth, for a worker beingcompetent means establishing his direc-

tion, getting a job, assuming responsibil-ity and carving out his niche, i.e. beingcapable of meeting the needs of the com-pany.

In a context in which work activities aredefined in military terms (economic war,corporate strategy, struggle to conquer tomarkets, etc.) the “mobilization” ofcompetences seems to be an operationfor survival and this takes on, at the same,an essential status. From case to casemobilization becomes a challenge for thecompany, the region, for the country orfor Europe and in this way, an impera-tive of a higher order, the attribute of anew civic order.

The “new” requirements

What are the “new requirements in com-panies” which are behind this call forcompetences? Put in this way, the ques-tion invites us to identify the contents oftasks in order to then define the contentof training required by work tasks. Thisapproach, which attempts to begin withthe contents of work in order to definethe skills of workers, is by no means new.

In France, after the war, with the firstFrench plan, Jean Monnet raised the prob-lem of sectors in terms of adapting em-ployment to the restructuring needs. Thesecond plan (1952-1957) identified theshortcomings of the skilled workforce asan obstacle to growth. However, finallythe plans envisaged the regulation ofschool flow in line with the prospects ofdevelopment for the various sectors ofactivity. The school flows are supposedto correspond to labour forecasts for eachsector, region and occupation. Matchingup the flow of certificate holders withemployment forecasts was to lead to abalance, guaranteeing a balance betweenthe jobs on offer and training given. TheOECD, by developing the concept of edu-cational planning, played a very impor-tant role in stimulating this kind of workin all industrialized countries.

Gradually, however, these attempts tobalance education and employment be-came more widespread and the idea ofadapting training flow to labour forecasts


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companies to forecast their future staffneeds, the OECD is, nevertheless, suggest-ing new goals for higher education.

According to the OECD, “economic de-mand” today postulates “new require-ments”. What are they? “They lead to anincreased demand for new competences:wider, more flexible competences ena-bling individuals to develop in situationswhich are themselves flexible and fluid”(OECD, 1992a). Hence, it would be amatter of developing by way of training“fundamental aptitudes” independent ofthe actual content of training. Thesewould then promote communication skillsenabling individuals to cope with com-plex, difficult and fluid situations and in-crease critical appraisal and corporatespirit.

At first glance the recent work of OECDseems to be repeating the formula of linksbetween the training system and employ-ment after having challenged the conceptswhich were very much advocated in thepast. First the crisis of 1968, then themajor increase in unemployment since themid-1970s and its continuance on a veryhigh level had mainly contributed to shak-ing the concepts based on the “balancingmechanism”.

As far as higher education is concerned,the OECD has currently made three ob-servations. First of all, the groups under-going higher education have becomewider: it has now become a kind of edu-cation for the masses. More and morestudents are combining school and work-ing life, many of them returning to studyafter a more or less long interruption.Furthermore, young women are currentlygoing on to study at university level on alarge scale and are even in the majority.Furthermore, there is an extension in thelength of studies and a high drop-out rate.Thus, higher education has become masseducation for a diversified group. It isno longer oriented solely towards a so-cially homogeneous group in terms of sex,age and origin, i.e. young men from theprivileged middle classes.

The second observation has to do withthe quantitative importance of the hu-manities in higher education. Given theeffects of austerity policies in the major

became controversial. It was shown thatmodels are not capable of taking accountof the phenomena of occupational mo-bility, that the employment nomenclaturewhich serves as the basis for forecasts isfragile and that the employment structuresdo not have the expected homogeneityand that sectoral forecasts largely ignorethe concrete conditions for transforma-tion of employment structures.

Furthermore, this effort to understandemployment structures is rather economicin character since it completely neglectsthe social and institutional factors ofchange. Are not the developments ob-served in employment structures, in fact,the result of profitability constraints andalso of aspirations and dissatisfaction ofthe parties involved, i.e. employers andworkers? Thus, analysis cannot neglectthe claims and strategies of employersorganizations and trade unions nor theemployment policies pursued by the pub-lic authorities.

Setting forecasts against observed trendshas also revealed not only the technicalshortcomings of forecasts but also the lackof consistency in the theoretical founda-tions upon which they are based. Forthat reason they have been increasinglyabandoned. Even OECD, who was themajor advocate of these approaches, hasnow grasped that the world of work is“incapable of forecasting future employ-ment trends. The 1980s have seen emerg-ing awareness of the futility of this ap-proach. It is certainly the case thatworkforce planning has been challengedand attention drawn to the lack of bal-ance between the fields of education andemployment” (OECD 1992a: 10).

Did the abandoning of the problem of thebalancing mechanism mean that accountwould be taken of the distance betweenthe acquisition of knowledge and its usein economic activities or in multiple me-diation and the complex links which sepa-rate the possession of a school certificateand the pursuit of an occupation?

It would seem that we never learn fromthe past. Despite the fact that the futilityof the balancing mechanism approach hasbeen recognized, as indeed has the dan-ger of envisaging training contents in re-lation to job profiles and the inability of

“Are not the developmentsobserved in employmentstructures, in fact, the re-sult of profitability con-straints and also of aspi-rations and dissatisfac-tion of the parties in-volved, i.e. employers andworkers?”

“Setting forecasts againstobserved trends has alsorevealed not only the tech-nical shortcomings offorecasts but also the lackof consistency in the theo-retical foundations uponwhich they are based.”


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industrialized countries, the public sec-tor is offering fewer and fewer openingsfor certificate holders, and hence they arelooking towards the private sector. Nowthe OECD estimates that “the competencedeveloped by the study of social sciencesand the humanities will become increas-ingly important in working life”. Thesestudies develop a major communicationpotential and an “ability to deal with com-plex dossiers, to cope with ambiguity andcomplexity” (OECD, 1992b). It is the gen-eral character of these training pro-grammes which is important and not theirprecise contents.

A third observation finally: given the largenumbers, higher education is in a weakposition vis à vis companies and employ-ment. From this angle, the humanitiesoccupy an extreme position. Whereas thecompetences which they generate areparticularly sought after by employersand, although they attract large numbersof students, they are nevertheless the“weak option” in higher education.Hence, the OECD report stresses the con-cept of “differentiated filtering”. “As longas a university has relatively low num-bers, the report states, each degree tendsto give elevated status and the promiseof good employability on the labour mar-ket almost independent of the subjectsstudied and where they were studied. Assoon as, however, we see a mushroom-ing of higher education bodies and de-grees, and a large increase in the numberof students, employers and others tendto consider that only the most prestigiousuniversities, the most selective and mostdemanding programmes act as filters”.Consequently, the report goes on “Em-ployers are very reserved vis à vis gradu-ates who have selected a channel whichthey do not consider to be selectiveenough” (OECD, 1992b).

We have gone full circle: its success interms of numbers, the relevance of itscourses and its performance have the ef-fect of devaluing the status of higher edu-cation in general and the humanities inparticular. But, above all, we ask our-selves on what basis the OECD founds itsdemands for these “new requirements”and why it is seeking to so do since it hasrecognized the incapacity of companiesto define and forecast them.

For its part the Task Force “Human re-sources, education, training, youth”, setup within the Commission of the Euro-pean Communities, has instigated a vastresearch programme entitled “The lack ofskills, future needs and their implicationsfor education and training”. The promot-ers of the programme do not seem todoubt the ability of companies to defineand forecast their needs in terms of skilledstaff. They no longer examine large-scaleunemployment, particularly of graduates,which characterises the overall commu-nity. From the outset they admit that “sev-eral studies have enabled us to identifyskill deficits which may even get worsein the next few years”. Hence the TaskForce has set itself the goal of identify-ing “quantitative and qualitative invest-ment in education and vocational train-ing” in line with the needs of theeconomy (E.C. Commission, 1992).

After a long detour, this brings us back togoals of the French plans after the warand to the attempts to plan education bythe OECD in the 1960s. In fact, bit bybit, it is the same scenario for balancingtraining and employment which is gradu-ally emerging.

The major changes in the production andmanagement of jobs is bound to affectthe content of occupational activities andthe sense of training. First of all it is amatter of manipulating information andmachines such as the materials, tools andinstruments. In some cases, tasks arebrought together again, in others func-tions are redistributed. The hunt for deadtime is spreading to all phases of produc-tion and is forward looking. It is no longera question of merely solving problems butof anticipating them. It is no longer aproblem of attending to breakdowns andinterruptions but of forecasting them. Theformal instructions which follow the tra-ditional hierarchical path are becomingless visible and are now incorporated intoEDP programmes or transformed into col-lective objectives. At the same time theinformal resources of those in charge areexplicitly desired and are clearly on anupward trend. “The tapping of staff crea-tivity” which was used in the past with-out stressing it or their knowledge is nowbeing actively exploited. This is leadingto a transformation in the status of knowl-edge, all human resources can be tapped.


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Against this background, the “literarycompetence” of staff can be transformedat the same time into occupational com-petence.

There is one very clear and constant fac-tor in all these developments and detours:the desire to contribute to the transpar-ency of the labour market by establish-ing comparability between the nationaltraining systems. Here it is a matter ofdefining job profiles and then establish-ing skill comparability in line with theneeds of the economy. To the extent thatgreater importance is given, on the onehand, to general training and, on theother, to the evolutionary nature of taskrequirements and job mobility, the con-cept of competence is gaining ground interminology to the detriment of skill andthe “competence portfolio” is beginningto compete with school certificates.

Homo competens

Labour sociologists have not been im-mune to the craze for competences andhave even made an active contribution.Hence, since the mid-1980s the conceptsof skills and of competence have beenvery popular in research. From the out-set this vocabulary led to spectacular dif-ferences in the descriptions of cases ob-served. Before, and more particularly inthe 1970s, there was little discussion ofknowledge or work aptitudes. It wasrather by accident that they appeared atthe time where people were still talkingof Taylorism as a “war machine” capableof “stripping” workers of their skills. Wehave to go back to the beginning of thecentury, to the birth of American indus-trial sociology in the 1920s, to remind our-selves that it was Elton Mayo and his staffwho had already detected unexpectedsigns of independence and organizationon the part of the people carrying out theorders. The message of “human relations”has made its way in the management ofthese informal practices which Tayloristnorms do not fully exploit. In the mean-time research staff, seemingly captivatedby the Ford variation on Taylorism, seemto have lost sight of the fact that pre-scribed work and actual work are merelythe two faces of rationalization. Hence-forth the revelation of the 1980s seems

simply to be a rediscovery. And if thatrediscovery leads to a change in course itis because the ingredients in the matrixdescribed above help to provide supportfor the opinions of research staff andthose of the people who dominate thelabour scene.

By stretching this even further we couldcaricaturize this kind of omnipresence inthe definition of jobs in a new figure ofthe worker. With Taylorism it was theportrait of the homo œconomicus, that isto say a rational worker guided by hisinterest - to maximize his pay - which wasthe dominant factor. With human rela-tions it is a kind of homo sociabilis guidedby a “logic of feeling” who emerges.Today it is the homo competens who isemerging, whose behaviour is motivatedby enriching his competence “portfolio”.

Analysis of publications in the 1980sstresses the great diversity in aptitudes andknowledge examined by the authors(Stroobants, 1993). The most frequentsolution adopted to describe them in-volves coupling the word “ability” withall kinds of action, for example, “abilityto transform”, “ability to act”, “ability tocommunicate”, “ability to acquire exper-tise”, “ability to manage”, etc. At the endof that period competence itself was gen-erally defined as an “ability to functioneffectively” ... “knowledge, practical skillsand social skills”. Beyond that very nebu-lous formula, unanimity amongst the ap-proaches stopped with the message“competences are more important”. Wecan identify various ways of adding to thiscomparative which corresponds to thedifferent interpretations of the matrixwhich shapes them.

In line with an initial reasoning, compet-ences are more important than before.They are one of the signs of the break, ofa change in the production system.

A second reasoning postulates thatcompetences are not necessarily moreimportant than before but are more im-portant than we thought1. What is thisperiod: a thing of the past for some orpoorly interpreted for others? The refer-ence which, here and there, serves as thebackdrop is the “model” of earlier years.This “Taylorism/Fordism” is envisaged asan instrument for downgrading work and

“There is one very clearand constant factor in allthese developments anddetours: the desire to con-tribute to the transpar-ency of the labour marketby establishing compara-bility between the nationaltraining systems.”

“Hence, since the mid-1980s the concepts ofskills and of competencehave been very popular inresearch.”

“Today it is the homocompetens who is emerg-ing, whose behaviour ismotivated by enriching hiscompetence ‘portfolio’.”

1 A third orientation aims, beyondwork, at overall sociology. Itexamines various methodologicalarguments in favour of more“comprehensive” sociology. Herewe find microscopic approachescentred both on interaction between“actors” and their representation.The competence of these actors(often individuals) occupies a primeposition therein since they can bethe source of sociological or “social”constructs. The contribution byTrépos constitutes an alternativeinspired by the theory of collectivebargaining (Trépos, 1992).


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1 Una tercera orientación contem-pla, más allá del trabajo, la

sociología en su conjunto. Recuperaargumentos metodológicos

dispersos en favor de una sociolo-gía más “comprensiva”. Volvemos a

encontrar los procedimientosmicroscópicos centrados tanto enlas interacciones entre “agentes”

como en sus representaciones. Lacompetencia de los agentes (a

menudo individuos) ocupa un lugarpreferente, dado que pueden ser

fuente de “construcciones sociales”o sociológicas. La contribución de

Trépos constituye una varianteinspirada en la teoría de las

convenciones (Trépos, 1992).

even for deskilling. Let us see what hap-pens to the matrix of interpretation in theone or the other case.

Change as the objective

This first reasoning is based on a revela-tion, a change in the facts. “Things” haveradically changed: the production systemhas broken for ever with the logics ofseries production, competition is hence-forth based on quality. The organizationof work shifts to more flexible organiza-tion of production. The vertical division,the Taylorist separation between planningand implementation, is no longer given.Horizontal fragmentation, characteristic ofthe Ford chain, is just as antiquated. Postsand functions are restructured and com-bined in different ways. Henceforth workwill be more abstract, more intellectual,more independent, more collective, morecomplex. The workshop will be “up-graded” as will the competences of itsstaff. Henceforth, the view will be thatthe theory of deskilling, which was validbefore, is no longer valid today. Compa-nies have learnt from the past, they willwork towards “skill generating” trainingprogrammes and organizational forms.

In fact, against this new background, thecompetences “which are mobilized” willnot be those which workers have acquiredduring training but the competences theyhave acquired on the job. And these areevaluated with respect to technical andorganizational change. Thus, demandsare determined by assimilation, mod-elled on the principles for the function-ing of machinery and its adjustment.Seemingly, technologies which treat andpass on information call on intellectualskills, an ability for abstract thought, com-munication skills. Furthermore, decen-tralized but strictly articulated productionsunits will call for more initiative and moreteam spirit. This interpretation will, there-fore, contribute to putting flesh on theskeleton of “knowledge” and “socialskills”. These very general categories willhenceforth help to update job profiles andrecommendations for vocational training.This brings us back, yet again, to the rea-soning based on the balancing mechanismand its inherent contradictions.

Refutation

According to this second reasoning, ob-servers have been misled by the externalsigns of Taylorism. The skilled worker isnot really treated as an ignorant robot.The most routine tasks call for elaborateskills. In order to grasp this point wehave to look beyond appearances.Thanks to ergonomics and to cognitivepsycho-sociology we are now more awaretoday than we were before of the impor-tance of cognitive strategies. By challeng-ing the restrictive definition of theTaylorist past, this second reasoning isbased on signs of continuity, coming outin favour of neo-Taylorism-Fordism. Thetheory of deskilling here is not shakenby actuality but by awareness of workwhich was indeed poorly known: theunderlying competences behind obviousperformance.

Against this background the competencesof workers are no longer defined bymeans of assimilation but by means ofcomplementarity with the technicalcharacteristics. The insufficiencies of themachines reveal the scale of essentialskills. The non-automatable characteris-tics, the limits of robotics, reveal the fullcomplexity of very down-to-earth cogni-tive acts. If they have not been noticedso far that is because, for us, they are“child’s play”.

The applications of artificial intelligenceand the cognitive sciences have broughtthese little known competences to thesurface. They can shake the traditionaldistinctions based on school knowledgeand vocational training. They can fill ina “audit of competences”, fill out a cur-riculum vitae or any other list of capaci-ties to be developed. However, they donot affect the conditions for their imple-mentation. The labour market gives valuein fact to rarity to the detriment of whatis generally available. How can the at-tributes shared by all individuals, as op-posed to machines, help to justify distinc-tions between staff? Qualifications are notexpected to recognize all competences;rather they contribute to keeping in thetacit register those competences whichhave no future on the labour market.

The contradictions between the two rea-sonings demonstrate that reality is not


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transparent and the way in which it isinterpreted depends on the definition of“Taylorism-Fordism”. All the same, thesetwo reasonings come closer togetherwhen it is a matter of identifying the “dis-creet training” linked to learning associ-ated with work organization. This is dif-ficult both to identify and to quantify butis to be found at the heart of “skill-gener-ating organizations”. These differ fromtraditional on-the-job training by meansof the “cognitative achievements” whichare characteristic for them. Given thelower costs, these discreet forms of train-ing are on the increase and could enterinto competition with the old systems ofcertification. This could also lead to anew concept of careers set against thetraditional hierarchical formalization. Theweight of seniority and remunerationwould lose in importance whereas com-petence would be upgraded within theframework of organization in which ver-tical mobility would be replaced by hori-zontal mobility made possible by multi-skilling.

Finally, and above all, if we can continuethe analysis of these two reasonings fromthe angle of skills we discover one com-mon element which is also shared by thetheory of deskilling from which they wishto set themselves apart. From this angle,we face three and not two variations ofthe same argumentation. In these threecases, in effect, skills are deduced fromthe quality be it judged positive or nega-tive of work:

❏ downgraded work, downgradedworker (theory of deskilling);

❏ upgraded work, competent worker,therefore skilled (change);

❏ skills depend on the tacit competenceactually mobilized in work (refutation).

This common approach is based on theargument that skills automatically evolvefrom all the qualities used at work. Thisis exactly what people are doing whodemonstrate their ability in order to haveit recognized in terms of skills. But it isalso because this value is the subject ofnegotiation that it cannot be deduced from“objective” factors.

Naturalising occupationalhierarchies

The attempt to describe what are, orshould be, the skills of workers by ana-lysing the quality of work is by no meansnew. Not only is it not new but it is be-ing and has been discussed for a long timeby labour sociologists.

In fact skills are a kind of procedure whichlead, starting from work situations, to theregrouping of individuals and to their clas-sification in such a way as to differenti-ate between them by placing them in ahierarchy (Alaluf, 1991). Of course thisconcept brings with it ambiguities andmisunderstandings. For instance, the levelof remuneration will be seen as the con-sequence of the quality of work whereasin the final instance “it is the scale of re-muneration, which they were hoping toexplain, which explains skills” (Rolle,1988: 121).

As with remuneration, the qualificationgrids prepared within companies or sec-tors of activity are discussed, negotiatedor are the object of conflict. When this istantamount to the codification of occu-pational hierarchies, the skills presentedin this way permit a limiting and legitimi-zation of the arbitrary nature of work or-ganization. The people concerned, work-ers and companies, each have good rea-sons for regularly correcting the “gap”between the agreements and what, fromtime to time, seems to them to be more“real”. Hence, they will have a tendencyto “naturalise” to a certain extent the re-sults of these procedures. The same goesfor the research staff who are wary ofsalary classifications which are thought toreflect the balance of power between thesocial partners. They will be tempted tolook for more “real”, more “objective”skills which are not disrupted by thebargainings which are behind the sporadictesting of strength.

It is this approach which helps us to un-derstand the shift in the concept of skillsto that of competence as an attempt tolegitimise occupational qualification be-yond social links, i.e. by definitively natu-ralising the resulting hierarchies.

Using the term competence as a synonymis the same as adopting, without an ana-

“... helps us to understandthe shift in the concept ofskills to that of compe-tence as an attempt to le-gitimise occupationalqualification beyond so-cial links, i.e. by defini-tively naturalising the re-sulting hierarchies.”


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lytical intermediary, the rational theoriesof work organization. It is by attributingpositions as a function of competencesthat Taylor designed scientific organiza-tion and that Weber defined the rationallegitimacy which characterises the bureau-cratic model. It suffices, consequently,to justify the position occupied by eachof them.

Competence is thus seen as a means ofevaluating the relevance of skills. We shallsee, for example, the enhancement of themultiplicity or richness of the compet-ences of individuals. Whether we use itas a synonym or a substitute for skills,competence is also used as proof of theskill or as a way of experiencing it. Whenall mediation is left aside, work is quali-fied by means of its content. This bringsus to a situation in which we postulate“that work is a natural reality which nodoubt can be recognized socially but isnot primarily defined by exchange” (Rolle,1988: 121).

It could be expected that this interest inthe competences used leads to studies onhow they are acquired. Now the ques-tion of identifying how the new capaci-ties are transferred, acquired and struc-tured are scarcely addressed. The proc-esses which prepare these discreet formsof on-the-job training fade away in a situ-ation which would be expected to pro-mote them. Failing to understand thetraining of tacit skills or very general “so-cial skills”, competence will be equatedwith a single mechanism. An ability tocommunicate cannot, henceforth, be theresult of ad hoc faculties, of a capacityfor communication, even of “literary com-petence”. Is there now better understand-ing of how they are composed? The con-tent of work only validates competencesto the extent that the job has been iso-lated from a wider process of social-ization. Experience prior to recruitment(family background, schooling) and eve-rything which goes beyond the work en-vironment does not seem here to have aneffect on later acquisition. In the absenceof a primary process of socialization, is itnecessary to consider that everything be-gins and ends in the company? Every-thing is acquired without ever being ac-quired since this one dimensional classi-fication - to be or not to be competent -takes us back to variable and unforesee-able requirements.

This naturalisation of differences basedon competence considerably weakens anapproach which placed skills at the cen-tre of a whole set of social factors. Be-yond the narrow space pegged out by thework situation alone, Pierre Naville sawin skills “a social appreciation of the dif-ferentiation of work” (Naville, 1963: 243).

Exploitation of com-petences and the precari-ous nature of employment

The terminological inventions are cer-tainly numerous. Training on-the-jobbecomes skill-generating training, multi-skilling, skill-generating organization andskills are henceforth called competences.However, research seems to suffer fromamnesia even from theoretical regression.Informal work occupies a central positionin the foundations of American industrialsociology by way of the school of humanrelations. This concept has been devel-oped recently in various studies. Thedefinition of skills based on the contentof work which was characteristic for awhole school of sociology has, however,been strongly challenged.

From the mid 1960s, Pierre Naville madea distinction between the operations un-dertaken by machines on the one handand by the operators on the other. Headvanced the theory that if the automaticmachine systems led to a restructuring ofwhat had been separate operations, thesame could not be said of the operationsundertaken by the operator. The merefact of altering machines does not implythat the worker controls more or feweroperations than before (Naville, 1963)2.Automation is indeed a process for ab-straction in that the worker does this onthe basis of the function which he hasautomatically assumed. However, the usewhich he will make of his own ability forabstraction is not determined.

Even within the same company we cansee two different models being used fornumerically controlled machine tools: onewhich stresses training and experienceacquired mechanically, the other whichstresses electronic knowledge (Stroobants,1993). The growing technicalization ofactivities does not necessarily lead to more

2 During a recent interview Navilledescribed his support for occup-

ational sociology: “by studyingautomation I was able to distinguish

between man time and machinetime” (Naville, 1986: 168).


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abstract work which would imply a stress-ing of formalization of knowledge (Alaluf,1986). Thus, a reduction of skills to thesole dimension of competence leads tosimplistic equations according to whichthe new technologies would lead perforceto new competences which, in turn, leadto new training.

According to Naville “there is no directand open “objective” means of qualifyinga set of posts for purely technical rea-sons” (Naville, 1963: 243). In fact, in nocase do skills aim to fully exploit allcompetences. Furthermore “somethingwhich everyone has such as legs”, to useEric Hobsbawm’s expression, scarcelystands a chance of being identified interms of skills (Hobsbawm, 1990: 76).Run-of-the-mill qualities such as walkingare scarcely validated in terms of qualifi-cation even if they are of major impor-tance for the individual and his work. Ifthe rareness of a quality or the condition- the price - of training make up the valuein terms of skills, it is because the natureof the task does not permit the immedi-ate determination of the value. Quite thecontrary, this derives from an exchange,from a relation which makes it essentialin predetermined social links, for workto be the counterpart of income.

Thus, the selection of competences willbe part of a judgement made of its value.Authors will once again be able to de-plore that the competences used in theservices are little-known or downgradedwhereas these tasks require systematic in-telligence and relational skills in interfacesituations (Perret & Roustang, 1993: 139).Others will confirm, à propos fast-food,symbols of “little jobs” how much realwork is more complex than prescribedwork. “For each order when there is aqueue at the cash desk each assistantmust, so as not to be swamped, memo-rize the orders which he has heard com-ing from the other assistants and usingthis information develop a very subtlestrategy concerning the sequence in whichhe will go and get his products (....) Thereis nothing to be gained from being fasterthan your neighbour because you simplyattract the clients from his queue” (Piotet,

1989). The tasks do not present this trans-parency which would enable us to deter-mine, objectively, a full set of compet-ences or to infer the value of those whoare acquiring them. Depending on theangle, depending on the description, thesame activity may be judged good enoughfor a push-button or worthy of an expertoperator (Stroobants, 1993).

The more the concentration on compe-tence isolates work situations from a widerprocess of socialization, the greater thecontrast between so-called skill-generat-ing organizations and the precarious na-ture of employment. Whereas the com-pany likes to look on the employee assomeone with a task to fulfil, the em-ployee sees his work as employment, i.e.in terms of income, status and social role.“Depending on the point of view, theworker will be in turn a source of ges-tures, or an individual, or a member of agroup” (Rolle, 1988: 78). Thus, Rolle con-tinues, links between individuals andwork posts are not a natural reality àpriori, but “are only confirmed undercertain conditions by remuneration”(Rolle, 1988: 79).

Understanding work links in social rela-tions marked by the tertiarization and theinternationalization of activities, the pre-carious nature of employment and agrowth in unemployment seems to beabsolutely essential. In particular formsof job classification, the still limited pro-cedures for the validation of occupationalachievements, the links between trainingand employment are certainly fruitful sub-jects for research. They have to be pro-tected from disembodied approacheswhich, stripping them of their social char-acter, constitute retreat rather than ad-vance in terms of knowledge. However,these models and concepts are gainingground. Their force of conviction restsboth on the chosen forms of observation,the circumstances which surround them,the measures taken and the representa-tions which structure them. It is also truethat with training and employment we arein a controversial field in which the mod-els are overloaded with ideology.

“Thus, the selection ofcompetences will be partof a judgement made of itsvalue.”

“The more the concentra-tion on competence iso-lates work situations froma wider process ofsocialization, the greaterthe contrast between so-called skill-generating or-ganizations and the pre-carious nature of employ-ment.”

“Understanding worklinks in social relationsmarked by the tertiari-zation and the interna-tionalization of activities,the precarious nature ofemployment and a growthin unemployment seems tobe absolutely essential.

... However, these modelsand concepts are gainingground.”


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Alaluf, M., 1986, Le temps du labeur. Formation,emploi et qualification en sociologie du travail,Brussels, Éd. de l’Université de Bruxelles.

Alaluf; M.., 1991, “La qualification: de quoi parle-t-on?”, Formation Professionnelle, CEDEFOP, 2: 33-36.

EEC, 1992, Éducation Formation, 4.

Hobsbawm, E., 1990, Nations et nationalismesdepuis 1780, Paris, Gallimard.

Levesque, J.-L., Fernandez, J., and Chaput, M.,(éd), 1993, Formation travail - Travail formation,Proceedings of the 5th Symposium of the Inter-national Network for Training and Research in Life-long Education, (2 vols), Sherbrooke, Ed. du CRP

Naville, P., 1963, “Réflexions à propos de la divisiondu travail”, Cahiers d’études des sociétés industrielleset de l’automation, 5: 323-344.

Naville; P., 1986, in Guillaume, M. (ed.), L’état dessciences sociales en France, Paris, La Découverte.

OECD, 1992a, L’enseignement supérieur et l’emploi,Initial report, Conference held 15-17 June, DELSA/ED/WD (92) II, Paris.

OECD, 1992b, L’évolution des rapports entrel’enseignement supérieur et l’emploi. Le cas desLettres et des Sciences Sociales, Synthesis report,Conference held 15-17 June, DELSA/ED/WD/92/7,Paris.

Perret, B., Roustang, G., 1993, L’économie contrela société, Paris, Seuil.

Piotet, F., 1989, “Qualifiés fast-food”, Projet, August:60-67, (quoted by PERRET & ROUSTANG, 1993).

Rolle, P., 1988, Travail et salariat, Bilan de lasociologie du travail, (vol. 1), Grenoble, PressesUniversitaires de Grenoble.

Stroobants, M., 1993, Savoir-faire et compétencesau travail. Une sociologie de la fabrication desaptitudes, Brussels, Éd. de l’Université de Bruxelles.

Trépos, J.-Y., 1992, Sociologie de la compétenceprofessionnelle, Nancy, Presses Universitaires deNancy.

Tripier, P., 1991, Du travail à l’emploi. Paradigmes,idéologies, interactions, Brussels, Éd. de l’Universitéde Bruxelles.

References

The current debate in several Europeancountries about the concept of compe-tence can be interpreted in various ways.

Are changes which some companies areexperiencing, leading to a different atti-tude to human resources: to a qualitativelyand quantitatively different nature of theknow-how and skills used, to more dy-namic ideas? In this case does the emer-gence of the concept of competence sim-ply reflect this development, the expres-sion of tension between the concept ofqualification, characteristic of work or-ganization and work relations over the lastforty years and the emergence of a differ-ent concept?

Is this development linked to a change inworkforce production modes promptedby the education system, recording theincrease in the number of people leavingschool with a higher level of qualifica-

tion and prompting a shift similar to thatin some countries which has led to a moveaway from the term education to the termtraining1 ?

Does this mean, in a context of high un-employment, that we are seeing a newtransformation of company recruitmentpolicies, registering the growth in the flowof certificate holders and enabling newselection principles (the exclusion of theun-qualified or the less-qualified could besocially criticised since it is the function-ing of the school system which is thenchallenged. The exclusion of the “non-competent” is justified all the more easilybecause it takes us back to invidual skills)?

All these interpretations are possible andnot self-excluding. Without directly ad-dressing the question of competence, thisarticle has a more modest objective: tofocus on the first of the three questions

Ph. MéhautResearch Director of

CNRS, Director of theGREE group -

Research Group onEducation and

Employmentaffiliated to CNRSNo. 1167, France

“Are changes which somecompanies are

experiencing, leading to adifferent attitude to

human resources:...does the emergence of

the concept of competencesimply reflect this

development,...The logic of competence,

therefore, only concerneda (minimal) fraction of the

companies and staff ...”

Organizational and politicalchanges in training:

What does this meanfor competence?


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“... five main trends whichaffect, to varying degrees,the direction of skills de-pending on their intensityand combination.”

by examining the shifts in the practicesof mobilization and generation of skillsby companies which have undergonetechnical organizational change on alarge-scale. It also aims to stress the linksbetween explicit and discrete training2

used in the company and their role in thegeneration of skills.

It draws on various studies conductedwithin the framework of CEDEFOP on thesubject of “The role of the company inskill generation: the training impact ofwork organization”3: macro-studies oftrends affecting in nine countries the train-ing system, the labour market, workingrelations; micro-studies on a sample ofcompanies which have experienced ma-jor change with regard to the social andscientific references dominant in the coun-try considered4.

The knowledge required:the competence model

New production and qualificationmodels

One of the initial questions in the study,based on the debate and the numerousresearch activities concerning the impactof new production models on work, in-volved examining by way of the variouscontinuing training practices the mainlines for the structuring of knowledge andpractical skills. The 50 companies stud-ied present a broad spectrum of change:shift from a more or less craft stage toindustrialization along Taylorist lines, re-organization with a slight Taylorist em-phasis (for example, limited introductionof a certain degree of multi-skilling, semi-independent groups), up to a more radi-cal break with organization principles, areduction in the hierarchical levels andwork prescription, and a complete restruc-turing of groups. The diverse nature ofsituations has to do with sectoral linksand to the positioning on the market ofproducts, economies of scale, varying timedimensions and their effect on a path ofchange (e.g. between countries such asDenmark and Portugal) and, on the other,to the socio-characteristics of the trainingsystem, labour market, classification struc-tures. Leaving aside these factors, how-ever, we can nevertheless identify five

main trends which affect, to varying de-grees, the direction of skills dependingon their intensity and combination.

❏ In the direction of “production flexibil-ity”: one of the challenges is that of anability to follow in real time the fluctua-tions in volume and nature affecting ac-tivities (reduction in series, developmentof product, infra-daily adjustments). Thedevelopment in the various forms of op-erational multi-skilling meets this objec-tive. It makes possible a restructuring oftasks, and the allocation of individualsthroughout the production process. Ourobservations indicate the coexistence ofelementary forms, a simple restructuringof tasks which had been segmented andmore complex forms in which staff workon a family of posts (moving from ma-chine to machine in metal processing,moving from the control room to installa-tions in the production process, assum-ing responsibility for a family of productswhich are not very homogeneous. In themore advanced situations what we see isa real extension to the range of technicaland occupational knowledge required, anextension which does not challenge bycontrast the necessary mastering of a fun-damental occupation.

❏ A second challenge in respect ofdesegmentation has to do with functionalborders: integration of maintenance orquality control into production, commer-cial activity and technical processing offiles in the bank. We are, therefore, talk-ing of multi-functionality in order to stressthe extension of knowledge and skills tocontents and specialities related to thebasic occupation or of a different nature(e.g. linking technical banking knowledgewith commercial knowledge).

❏ A third set of phenomena has to dowith the increase in management know-how linked on the one hand to a de-prescription of work and, on the other,to an increase in commercial constraintson production. What is desired are or-ganizational abilities in the choice of ac-tivities, their linking up, time managementand, beyond that, analysis and interpre-tation of complex information which hasan element of business management.

❏ A fourth set has to do with issues ofquality and the knowledge required hav-

1 Thus, in France the term traininghas gradually replaced education inthe debates on the link betweenemployment and training in the1960s and 1970s, cf. Tanguy, 1986,L’introuvable relation formation-emploi, Paris, La DocumentationFrançaise.

2 By explicit training we mean“formalized training” based on adeclared educational project.Discrete training takes in thevarious learning situations in thepursuit of an occupation. Twotrends influence this division. Onthe one hand it seems thatknowledge acquired during discretetraining does not boil down to asimple translation of sleights ofhand and “empirical” knowledge.On the other hand, the borderbetween discrete and explicit formsis changing.

3 We shall restrict ourselves to sometransversal conclusions. The readercan refer to the work of eachnational working group and to thesynthesis report for largerdevelopments. The author wouldlike to thank the national teamswho took part in the study as wellas J. Delcourt, co-author of thefinal report which was theinspiration for this article.

4 47 case studies were undertaken,mainly in the secondary sector (withthe exception of nine banks and acommercial enterprise) and focusedrather on large-scale units.


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duction costs, sometimes more direct linkswith the client. Some of the skills aremoving towards this kind of knowledge:business economics, market and competi-tors, analysis and optimization of produc-tion parameters including costs.

Forms of recognition and their differ-entiation

However, it would be wrong to think thatthe development in skills boils down to asearch for completely new knowledge.Technological innovation is not the primeelement in what would be a “gross” defi-cit amongst staff. We are also familiarwith the classical difference between re-quired work and prescribed work whichreveals knowledge which is not recog-nized by the organization but still used,in a hidden manner, by staff in their dailywork. We also know that in various coun-tries there is no systematic link betweenjob classification and the skills held bythe individual; this often leads to the non-recognition of some of the latter. Exami-nation of “newly” desired knowledge sug-gests the following typology.

❏ Some of the knowledge explicitly re-quired today proceeds from what couldbe termed internal recognition5: knowl-edge already held by some or all of thestaff, this was denied in former organiza-tion but is today explicitly required. Thisis the case, for example, in the skills re-quired to set up machines and knowledgerequired for using numerically controlledtools which staff were not allowed to usebefore but are encouraged to use today.

❏ Another part corresponds to what wehave called recognition: knowledge pre-viously denied in the pursuit of activitiesis today incorporated into the desiredskills. The most evident case is that oflinguistic skills, communication and writ-ing skills: denied to some staff in the dailypursuit of their work these capacitieswere, however, used outside the companyin family and social life. The new formsof organization encourage them morestrongly than before and the companyintegrates them into the assessment of theknowledge required, possibly moving to-wards specific training activit ies tostrengthen and develop them (upgradingschemes).

ing to do with quality control and an abil-ity to undertake the necessary corrections(machine setting, part refining).

❏ Finally, a last set has to do with thedevelopment of the complex coordinationof working groups, contacts betweenthem, subject to the constraints of just-in-time. It is, therefore, a matter of mobiliz-ing and developing communication skillsvia the mastery of linguistic codes usedin the workshop or in the company.

Focusing on the commercial product

On re-examination of the shifts in theknowledge and practical skills used, itcould be said that it is the link to the prod-uct (manufactured by the company orservice rendered in the case of a tertiaryenterprise) in its various dimensionswhich is the common element.

The products, seen first as a “technicalobject” which registers a set of more ofless rapid developments both in produc-tion technologies and in the technologiesit incorporates: for example micro-elec-tronic components in mechanical produc-tion, systematization of computer-aidedsetting in the publishing, diversificationand sophistication of financial or insur-ance products in the bank.

The product then takes on a social di-mension in a process of division and co-operation at work which is shifting: a ten-dency to form independent groups aroundcertain production phases, moving be-yond the borders of design, manufactureand maintenance, greater continuity be-tween the sub-contractor and person plac-ing an order. Henceforth the questionsof quality, just-in-time or “competitivenessnot based on costs” are becoming moreapparent, cooperation is less prescribedand the division of labour rests less on adivision of elementary tasks, the differ-ent dimensions of the skills mentionedabove become much more decisive.

And then the product with its commer-cial dimension. Here it is a matter of in-corporating into the technical and socialhandling of the product elements whichhave a more direct link with the market:quality and just-in-time have already beenmentioned, but also optimization of pro-

“However, it would bewrong to think that the de-

velopment in skills boilsdown to a search for com-

pletely new knowledge.”

5 By “recognition” we mean the wayin which the organization expresses

in an open manner the need forcertain components of the skill.This recognition does not affect

remuneration or certification of theskill, this being a different issue.

“On re-examination of theshifts in the knowledge

and practical skills used,it could be said that it isthe link to the product ...

in its various dimensionswhich is the common ele-

ment.”


CEDEFOP

55

❏ In a third case there is an extension(by way of additionality) of the range ofoccupational knowledge previouslytapped. Let us take a few examples: inone of the companies studied operatorsare not only multi-skilled they are alsoencouraged to become involved in im-proving procedures. They must master awhole set of related knowledge in respectof mechanical engineering but also in re-spect of electronics and hydraulics. In asecond case l inked to funct ionaldesegmentation they are required to takepart in the diagnosis of breakdowns butalso to exercise quality control directlyunder their own responsibility. There is,therefore, a process whereby knowledgeand practical skil ls in the differentspectrums of the fundamental occupa-tional family are extended. This exten-sion of the range of knowledge is not amere addition. Some people do have theimpression of losing some of their funda-mental professionalism by becoming “ajack of all trades”. Here we can see thelimits of a “downgrading multi-skilling”which would merely be the addition ofelementary tasks. However, when theextension is seen as a source of true learn-ing, this addition also means the emer-gence of new individual and collectiveknowledge: thus in one of our cases, thecollective accumulation of more in-depthknowledge of the various segments of thework process enables staff to handle andparticipate directly in product innovationitself, by dismantling the barriers betweendesign and production and moving to-wards what is called today simultaneousengineering.

❏ Finally, a last case turns the companyand the work activity into a productionsite for truly new knowledge (for the staffbut even perhaps beyond them): case ofa major technological leap forward, of acombination which escapes the academicseparation of the separation of occupa-tions which corresponds to a process ofcreation of radically new knowledge.

All these movements in fact translate, tovarying degrees, into a development inthe logic of construction and encourage-ment of skills. In organizations whichhave undergone major change, the gen-eral level of staff training is on the in-crease. Individual and collective skills aretending to become a central principle for

the construction and flexibility of organi-zation.

Organizational and train-ing paths

If we look at the training policies used,there are two particularly striking ele-ments. First of all the accent placed onthe trainer role in work situations. Then,the various combinations possible be-tween discrete and explicit training.

The role of discrete training

It is not possible within the framework ofthis article to give an exhaustive inven-tory of the various arrangements for thediscrete acquisition of knowledge giventhe diverse nature of national situationsand companies. We will restrict ourselvesto simply assessing some major conclu-sions at the risk of playing down the dif-ferences.

The first is the growing importance givenin the companies studied to processes forthe acquisition of knowledge during workactivities often by means of formalizationand thus of inclusion in what we wouldcall explicit training: recognition of a rightto make mistakes and to use as potentialfor the accumulation of knowledge aboutprocesses of trial and error; developmentof kinds of tutorship and doubling-up withor without the learning specifications;utilization of simulation of work situationseither through creating workshops or ex-perimental groups or by recourse to vari-ous forms of computer-aided education;setting up ad-hoc transversal groupswhich would enable the circulation ofknowledge between individuals or groupssituated at various points in the produc-tion process (in particular design/produc-tion/sales interface, production/mainte-nance interface); importance attributed towhat we call “human resources”, more ex-perienced staff, technicians placed in sup-port positions vis à vis operational staffwho also have a training function.

The second has to do with the nature ofknowledge and practical skills transferredin this way. On the one hand it wouldseem that beyond what we are used to

“In organizations whichhave undergone majorchange, the general levelof staff training is on theincrease. Individual andcollective skills are tend-ing to become a centralprinciple for the construc-tion and flexibility of or-ganization.”

“the growing importancegiven in the companiesstudied to processes forthe acquisition of knowl-edge during work activi-ties ...”


CEDEFOP

56

calling “empirical skills”, we are seeingthe creation and transmission of trulytheoretical representations of work. Thisis was G. Vergnaud calls the “ active theo-rems” and “active concepts”6. Further-more, it cannot be excluded that in dis-crete processes more conceptual generalknowledge can be acquired in the classi-cal sense of the term. In fact some ofthis knowledge is subject to a two-foldprocess: it is both immediately linked tothe product and thus specific to the com-pany. But, at the same time, given its

character of an “active concept” and theeffects of additionality mentioned above,it tends to become transversal even if theforms for its exploitation and certificationcontinue to be very problematic.

Finally, it contributes more strongly in thecountries with a “school-type” model toovercome the gaps between discrete andexplicit forms of training. This gap hasmore to do with both the nature of knowl-edge and the way in which it was trans-mitted.

“...it would seem that be-yond what we are used tocalling “empirical skills”,

we are seeing the creationand transmission of truly

theoretical representa-tions of work.”

3 6

5

2

4

1

New forms of “discrete” continuing training

“Traditional”on-the-joblearning

Limited use of “explicit“continuing training

Extensive use of “explicit”continuingtraining

–

+

+

+

Figure 1

6 See G. Vergnaud, Qu’est-ce que ladidactique? En quoi peut-elle

intéresser la formation des adultespeu qualifiés, Education

Permanente, No. 111, 1992, pp.19-22


CEDEFOP

57

Training paths, indicators of majorgaps

If we take, as the symptomatic indicatorof “work” on skills, the way in which thestudies used some of their explicit train-ing on the one hand and on the otherhand the range of discrete forms of train-ing mentioned above, we can suggest thefollowing pattern.

Set 1 corresponds to the traditional useof on-the-job training of the journeymantype without any link to explicit training.It is still characteristic for some craft en-terprises but they are tending to disap-pear in our sample.

Set 2 could be considered as being sig-nificant for the strictest Taylorist forms:disappearance of on-the-job learning, re-duced to a rapid adaptation to a low-skilled workplace, more or less total ab-sence of formalized training except formiddle management. This formula is stillto be found and is even developing insome units in our sample which are un-dergoing industrialization of the Tayloristkind and this, again, rather in southerncountries.

Step 3 is representative of the develop-ments in the 1980s, for example in France,but also to be found in several cases inSpain, Italy and Portugal: technologicaldevelopment, organizational constraintslinked to a fall in series and quality de-mands which come up against the lowqualification of operational staff. Rela-tively extensive continuing training pro-grammes are set up in order to provideinitial retraining, technological updatingand bring about a change in attitudeswithin the company. However, develop-ments in work organization often dictatedtop-down in a socio-technical manner donot enable us to talk of a radical breakgiving the organization open potential forself-learning7.

Sets 4, 5 and 6 are significant of new or-ganizations in which open space for dis-crete forms of re-emerging learning is afundamental component. Learning atwork enables the acquisition of newknowledge, practical skills which go be-yond simple sleights of hand, knowledgewhich is based on innovative and not rou-tine behaviour. This learning is part of

the redrawing of borders between groups(borders between occupations, bordersbetween hierarchical levels). The proc-esses of discrete training contribute to theconstruction of new standards and ruleswhich support work organization. Thedistinguishing features between the threesets are the scale of discrete forms oflearning and the degree of links with ex-plicit training forms.

In Set 4, for reasons linked with the na-tional continuing training system (weak-ness in training structure or initial train-ing model which gives priority to appren-ticeship) and with problems of cost, ex-plicit continuing training is little devel-oped.

In 5 and 6 the intensity of the joint mobi-lization of discrete and explicit forms ofcontinuing training is very high: the com-pany, by virtue of quality, becomes inte-grated into an “organizational project” andthus becomes a training site. However,in 5 the logic is that of a juxtaposition oftraining forms (which for example do notconcern the same categories, which arenot constructed in an inter-linked man-ner in a learning continuum) whereas in6 the links of the two forms are conceivedin an overall training project8.

Although, in the course of time, most ofthe companies in the sample moved rathertowards 4, 5 or 6 only a small minority isfound in the last category. Two scenariosare therefore possible. According to thefirst, the new production model and itspartner, increased desire for different com-ponents in skills, would be a general fig-ure given the “universal” pressure of themarket. The differences recorded had todo with varying degrees of constraints onthe markets and, more particularly, fromthe time gaps. According to the second,what we are certainly witnessing is theemergence of new principles in some ofthe companies but which will not be ap-plied generally. The logic of competence,therefore, only concerned a (minimal)fraction of the companies and staff andwhat we were seeing were new forms ofsegmentation depending on the kind ofcompany, categories of staff. The size ofour sample and the observation conditionsmake it difficult to decide between thesetwo options. However, various elementspoint in favour of the second scenario on

Under what conditionscan one speak of skill-gen-erating organization?

7 That is to say work and skills areexpected to adapt to technico-organizational choices whichcertainly take them into account butrather as ex-post variables.

8 This is the most obvious case of achallenging of the borders betweenexplicit and discrete training.


CEDEFOP

58

which most of the conclusions of the na-tional reports agree which reflect this sce-nario. They stress the importance of con-ditions to be met, particularly on the in-stitutional level, in order to set up a skill-generating organization.

Some political conse-quences

The synthesis report of the CEDEFOPstudies develops a whole set of challengeshaving to do with the dynamics of learn-ing, the construction of public policies,the problems of restructuring labour mar-kets (mobility, risk of the exclusion ofsome categories), the position of variousindividuals in negotiations on the com-pany level or the national level, problemsraised by the emergence of on-the-jobtraining in respect of certification and rec-ognition/utilization of skills. We will re-strict ourselves here to two questions: thatof the “internal” conditions for dynamiclearning in the company, and that of thelinks between this dynamic and publictraining policies.

The construction of training in thecompany: limits to a “skill-generatingorganization”

In the development of discrete trainingforms and their efficient combination withexplicit training, several conditions haveto be met if we are to talk of a truly skill-generating organization, capable both ofguaranteeing the development of the skillsof staff and of triggering dynamic self-learning and self-retraining processes.

The first condition is that of the link withproduction time and control time: settingup a training environment (discrete andto a lesser degree explicit) implies thatcontrol time makes allowance for this fa-cility. If that condition is met in somecases (functioning in hidden time, accept-ance of non-productive time in the or-ganization of work) it is still, however,the case that forms of direct control existwhich could work against the use of for-malized training (fully removed fromworking hours) and the development ofnew generation discrete forms.

The second factor is the degree of de-prescription of tasks and independencegiven to individuals and groups. Offer-ing an opportunity during work for learn-ing by trial and error in a search for inno-vative and organizational solutions, im-plies relaxing the strict prescription oftasks. Only a commitment to results cou-pled with freedom of choice on how toachieve results will enable this conditionto be met. We could also add to this thenecessary “acceptance of the event”9

which involves turning disfunctioning notinto distancing from the standard, likelyto attract sanctions, but into an opportu-nity for learning and for collective treat-ment of the problem.

The third factor has to do with coopera-tion and tension arising from the sharingof knowledge. We know that much ofthe educational identity of a group or acategory rests on the degree of controlwhich it has of its specific know-howwhich demarcates (and constructs) itssocial position. Now in some of our casessupervisors are very destabilized, with-draw or even impose brakes on theseprocesses as soon as they see themselvesthreatened in their positions by the growthof skills and independence of their work-ers. Inversely, in one Danish case wecould see to what extent a complex gameof negotiation between the unskilled andthe skilled (represented by two differenttrade unions) had facilitated the exchangeof knowledge between the two catego-ries. In the redistribution processesunderway, major tension emerges be-tween groups which are destabilized bythe new organizations. This tension cangive rise to new forms of retention ofknowledge in conflict with the construc-tion of an organization which aims to de-privatize them. But, in return we can seethat in some organizations the adoptionof an overly flat profile, which eliminatesany form of hierarchical tension or thesearch for homogeneity in the workforce(in terms of recruitment, training modes)could lead to a “flat encephalogram”, re-moving any form of dynamics leading tointra-group heterogeneity or tension be-tween the groups.

The last factor is the time factor of learn-ing: the problem here is that of a dynamicarticulation of organizational dynamiclearning. This problem is by no means

9 cf. among others Ph. Zarifian,Acquisition et reconnaissance des

compétences dans une organisationqualifiante, Education Permanente,

No. 112, 1992, pp. 15-22


CEDEFOP

59

foreign to a “learning” model imposedin society or in the company. For thepurposes of discussion we could setagainst this an upstream logic in whichlearning is thought to precede any organi-zational change (at the risk, as was thecase in some of the companies studied,of acquired knowledge being lost as it isnot immediately used and doubt creep-ing in about the usefulness of trainingwhich is not in harmony with changeswhich are dragging their feet) and adownstream logic in which training, de-duced from organization change, is calledon or is used as a kind of ambulance toovercome the disfunctioning which thenappears. Between these two extremes, awhole spectrum of more or less favour-able situations could be identified. In fact,behind this problem there is a dual ques-tion. First of all, under what dynamicconditions of learning and organizationcan they be linked together in order tobring about true production flexibility.Secondly, under what conditions cantraining be fully integrated as a construc-tion principle into the new organizationsand the rules on which they are based.

The link with public (initial and con-tinuing) training policies

A second set of conditions (and variables)which influence the logic of competenceare those which have to do with the gen-eral economics of training systems.

On the one hand, we should stress thatthe construction of “new” learning dynam-ics is inseparable from the fundamentallevel of knowledge of staff. Of course,upgrading training which is often weari-some and costly can be set up success-

“On the one hand, weshould stress that the con-struction of “new” learn-ing dynamics is insepara-ble from the fundamentallevel of knowledge ofstaff.”

“... it seemed to us, ... thatthe existence of struc-tured public intervention,... is the essential precon-dition (but not the onlyprecondition) for the logicof competence.”

fully. In some of our cases, the learningdynamics undertaken with poorly skilledstaff helped to avoid exclusion and pro-moted the setting up of “virtuous circles”of competence development. But this wasall the easier because the initial trainingsystem is of a high standard, particularlybecause the ability to learn through work,and to profit from explicit continuingtraining are encouraged by a sound levelof initial training.

Furthermore, the architecture of this sys-tem is by no means neutral: the prioritygiven or not given to the occupationaldimension, the type of social construc-tion of knowledge (academic separationor not, occupation), the link between thissystem and the internal hierarchies incompanies are other elements which in-fluence the setting up of a training siteand the organizational dynamics whichaccompanies it.

Finally, the influence of public continu-ing training policies is certain. In orderto make rapid progress it seemed to us,after reading our cases, that the existenceof structured public intervention, be it di-rectly for companies or via the interme-diary of a training body which it supportsor moulds, is the essential precondition(but not the only precondition) for thelogic of competence. This is all the moreimportant because in several cases we sawa process of transformation of networkswhich emerge between the company andits local environment (company issuingorders and sub-contractors, company andtraining apparatus): the quality of thesenetworks, the position held by issues ofskills and training therefore become cen-tral variables.


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60

Trends in Worker Re-cruitment Practices inSwedish Companies‘’The increased importance of skills andcompetences – and the higher the cost ofinadequate skills and competences – haveraised the stakes in further education andtraining for firms (as a way of stayingcompetitive), for individuals (as a way ofs taying employable and providingopportunity for wage growth), and forsociety at large (as a way of ensuring thatnational economies stay competitiveinternationally, and that the benefits ofthat competitivness are widely accessibleto all in society).’’ (OECD 1993, p. 8).

‘’A fundamental recommendation is thathigher education institutions should adoptcooperation with industry as part of theirfundamental mission, especially in thecont inuing t ra ining f ie ld, and thatcompanies themselves should have anexplicit education and training strategy aswell as an organized interface with highereducation which will encourage andfacilitate access and dialogue.’’ (EEC,1993, p. iv).

The current policy assumption is that in-dustrial countries need an improved eco-nomic strategy based on skill develop-ment. Skill development and improvedinternal training in workplaces are gen-erally believed necessary to increase pro-ductivity and to ensure a prosperous fu-ture. In most of the world ‘’the third in-dustrial revolution’’ is gradually replac-ing the former ‘’Taylor’’ production organi-zation model with new high performancework organizations. The Tayloristicmethod was well suited for mass produc-tion of relatively simple goods, (Taylor1920). Development today is towardscomplex, high performance and client-oriented systems products that satisfy highdemands on quality, variety, and volatil-ity in consumer tastes.

Even though increased needs of educa-tion and skills are seen, many recent stud-ies (Bishop 1993, EEC 1993, Heckman

1993, OECD 1993) underline the declin-ing quality and educational levels of theworkforce and in particular the lack ofappropriate internal training. Practices andpolicies for correcting this situation dif-fer among the European countries. Mostof the current discussion has focused onhigher education and industry coopera-tion in education and training. Some con-cern was, however, also raised regardingthe unsatisfactory state of vocational train-ing in the European Community in theearly 1990s. Some of this concern aboutthe unsatisfactory state of vocational train-ing is, however, based on assumptionsrather than facts. Since slow growth andemployee performance are assumed tohave been caused by skill deficiencies inthe labour force the blame goes to theeducational institutions. The reason canalso be, for instance, a badly organizedlabour market (see Eliasson 1993). Thismeans that the market has to be preparedto incorporate individual skills and newknowledge. Unless this is possible and iflabour market flexibility is low the bestknowledge and skills may be wasted.Managers must have the proper skills todirect individuals to the right jobs andprovide such jobs. It is further importantto train at all levels. Countries try to solvetheir skill development problems in dif-ferent ways. Countries like Germany,Switzerland and Australia depend onYouth Apprenticeship programs, whereasFrance for example encourages all em-ployers to provide on-the-job training andSweden has a great number of vocationalschools (see Ballot-Taymaz 1993). Thefuture workforce, however, has to be pre-pared for continued ‘’learning’’ on-the-jobalready at the school level.

The article raises the question how schoolshould educate individuals to build theright platform for further development ofskills, at the workplace. The knowledgestudents carry with them from school tothe workplace affects how well they do

EugeniaKazamaki

OtterstenResearch Fellow, atIUI (the Industrial

Institute forEconomic and Social

Research), Stockholm

Industrial countries needan improved economicstrategy based on skill

development and intensi-fied vocational training.This article briefly out-

lines worker recruitmentpractices in Swedish

companies. Swedish firmsemphasize the need of

communicative skills in achanging organizationalenvironment. Interviews

with manufacturing firmsshow that future recruit-

ment requirements forblue-collar workers will be

high school competence(minimum standard),broad education, and

problem-solving ability.Personal qualities are also

important due to teamwork. In reaching the

requirements, morecollaboration betweenschool and industry is

necessary, and school hasto adjust to the changing

needs of the labour marketand employers’ practices.

“... the market has to beprepared to incorporateindividual skills and newknowledge. Unless this is

possible and if labourmarket flexibility is lowthe best knowledge and

skills may be wasted.”


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61

in the labour market, and on a job. There-fore, school cannot live its own independ-ent life but has to adjust to developmentsin the workplace. One responsibility ofschool is to provide the students with aminimum level of communication skills,the necessary platform to continue learn-ing on-the-job. The opinion of firm man-agers is that school performance influ-ences workplace per formance in anumber of different ways.

Trends in recruitment policies in Swed-ish companies will be discussed, and theimmediate and future needs of these com-panies identified. Our study is based ona number of interviews with Swedish firmswithin manufacturing, notably engineer-ing industries. Both large corporations anda number of small and medium-sizedmanufacturing firms are included in thesample of about 50 firms. The sample isrepresentative in terms of localization,including both hitech and low-tech com-panies, and including firms dependent onexports as well as firms with no exports.The interviews were carried out betweenMay and December 1993, and were ad-dressed to the managing director, and/orthe personnel or education manager atthe firm. What we learned from all differ-ent firms was surprisingly similar, a veryinteresting observation considering theheterogenous sample that we interviewed.In particular, both large and small firmshave similar development tendencies andsimilar problems to cope with in the fu-ture. This article is based on the experi-ences of the interviewed firms.

New Challenges for firms

After more than 100 years of continuedsuccessful growth performance Swedishindustry has stumbled, since the early1970s, on a sequence of increasingly se-vere problems. Conditions for industrialproduction have changed for the worsein Sweden, as well as in the rest of Eu-rope (Andersson et al. 1993). Most of theneeded changes to raise productivity lev-els and stay competitive in internationalmarkets are associated with the introduc-tion of sophisticated production tech-niques requiring less labour but more edu-cated labour. Many firms have introducedadvanced automatized production that

requires that workers are able to read andunderstand complicated machine instruc-tions and are prepared for continuouslearning and flexible adjustment to newprocess changes. The appropriate term iseducated rather than skilled labour, sincefirms normally prefer to train the work-ers for particular jobs themselves. Poorlyeducated students are, however, not prof-itable investment objects for such train-ing (Eliasson 1993). This change in de-mands on workers’ quality is clearly vis-ible in the advanced production plants,but we can foresee a transition involvingmost of the worker population over thenext 2-3 years.

Our observations from the interviews in-dicate the following problems: 1) theSwedish workforce is old; the average ageof a skilled blue-collar worker is between45-50 years, (white-collar workers are ingeneral a bit older) and managers worryabout the possibility that the new entrantsare not sufficiently educated to rise to thelevels needed for profitable on-the-jobtraining. 2) the ‘’third industrial revolu-tion’’ requires new methods for manag-ing and for organizing work and produc-tion. 3) Mass production methods willcontinue to be applied for high volumeproduction of simple products, whichconstitutes a significant part of Swedishmanufacturing production (Braunerhjelm1994). 4) There is, however, a develop-ment towards more flexible small-scalequality and client-oriented batch produc-tion. 5) This latter type of production re-quires new incentive systems of the firm.One consequence is that all individualsemployed by the firm have to be treatedas professionals, since most workers areeither engaged in production schedulingor the setting on reprogramming of ma-chines. This is not easy in a labour rela-tions environment based on Tayloristicthinking.

These challenges involve fundamentalcultural changes in the firm as well asorganizational adjustments to accommo-date the introduction of flexible, client-oriented technology, quality improve-ments, and reduced delivery times. Fewerorganizational layers with fewer manag-ers (many decisions are pushed down tothe front line), create more meaningfuljobs for all, and an emphasis on ‘’teamwork’’. The change in work organization

“The appropriate term iseducated rather thanskilled labour, since firmsnormally prefer to trainthe workers for particularjobs themselves. Poorlyeducated students are,however, not profitable in-vestment objects for suchtraining (Eliasson 1993.”


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62

towards more team oriented tasks again,however, raise educational and skill de-mands on the individual, notably in com-municative skills. Another change is thatfew jobs in the future will be life-timepositions. On the contrary, flexibility willbe rewarded and rotation between differ-ent tasks much more frequent than be-fore. Less accurately defined job specifi-cations, and overlapping tasks betweenworkers, will be the consequence and theclear job demarcation lines betweenwhite- and blue-collar workers will gradu-ally disappear. Group-oriented behavior,flexibility, the ability to pay attention tofellow workers, and to instruct juniorworkers, etc. are attributes of the newfactory organizations that are expected toenhance efficiency. This also means thatmore responsibilities will be delegated toworkers. Both the team and each indi-vidual worker will be held responsible fortheir parts of production. Teamwork isalso integrated with a broader frameworkof information as in the Japanese firm.Information processing at high levels inJapanese firms is seldom limited to man-agers, but integrated with local shop floorinformation processing. Despite this gen-eral systems concept of team work, work-ers will act in their own self interests, sala-ries being tied to individual performance.Many firms are working on finding newresult- and quality oriented compensationsystems that will allow for a great deal ofindividual differences.

The workers need skills to cope with or-ganizational changes in the firm. Further-more; ‘’It is the character of the workers’skills that produces high efficiency on theshop floor, and what appears to be teamwork at a glance is the result of theseskills.’’ (Koike 1991 p.1.). Organizationalchange puts pressure on both managers,employers and employees, requiring sup-porting adjustments in attitudes of work-ers and work practices at the firm, adjust-ments that in turn require educationalsupport from school. In fact, judging fromthe interviews the greatest pressure forchange normally has to do with the cul-ture of the firm, in particular, values, atti-tudes, and the ways people relate to oneanother. According to the firms, the re-strictive Swedish labour legislation, alsoneeds to be accomodated to such ongo-ing organizational change.

Recruitment Requirementsand Practice

Future recruitment requirements will beraised. Today already, Swedish employ-ers impose very demanding recruitmentpractices. It is almost impossible to get afactory job without a high-school diploma,and competition in the labour market ishigh for almost any kind of job given thehigh unemployment level. For skilledworkers the gymnasium diploma, prefer-ably in technical subjects, is normally re-quired. The reason expressed, is that thisgeneral education is needed as a platformfor continued competence developmenton-the-job. Such stiff requirements mayhave something to do with the recession,but also with institutional factors. In ad-dition, the restrictive labour market legis-lation has over the years made employ-ers very careful in selecting applicants toavoid hiring ‘’lemons’’.

Hiring practices are in fact tending to-wards increased demand of skill and edu-cation at all levels. First, there is a needfor general communicative skills in Swed-ish, other languages and mathematics. Inparticular, the importance of foreign lan-guages is growing because most techni-cal instruction manuals are written in aforeign language, mostly in English butalso in German and French. Second, sub-jects like computer science, electronics,control theory, and mechanics are par-ticularly important for skill developmentand the problem solving capacity of work-ers at the shop floor, especially in smallfirms which do not have in-house main-tenance specialists. In addition, due to thenew ways production is being reorgan-ized into team-configurations, particularpersonal characteristics are becoming verymuch in demand. Apart from good workethic, there is a demand for good socialor team behavior. Individual characteris-tics that the employers value highly are;independence, creativity, flexibility, theability to work in a team, problem solv-ing capacity, communicative skills, andsocial competence. Finally, small firmswould also like to see employees pos-sess some entrepreneurial skills.

Grades and school certificates play a rolein the recruitment of young workers justout of school. Firms, however, look at the

“... It is almost impossibleto get a factory job with-

out a high-school diploma... for skilled workers gym-

nasium diploma, prefer-ably in technical subjects,

is normally required.”


CEDEFOP

63

overall grades in communicative subjectsrather than for specific knowledge. Firmslook at grades as a means of selectinggeneral quality, but some firms also seegrades as a signal of potential ability. Ina labour market with high unemploymenthigh school grades increase the probabil-ity of being offered a job. What mattersfor recruitment, however, apart from hav-ing the right education, is ‘’experience,personal chemistry and references’’ asasserted by the recruiters. In particular,what matters is recorded ‘’on-the-job’’quality and performance. References areparticularly important for white-collarworkers although most large firms wantto see the distinction between blue-col-lar and white-collar workers eliminated.

According to firms there are ways inwhich the school and the firm can meetand collaborate. Productive relationshipswith institutions of higher education al-ready make a major contribution to manylarger firms’ competiveness and businessperformance. However, even the smallfirms need this collaboration. The prob-lem has been that the small firms and thehigher educational institutions have notbeen able to find a common meetingground that benefits both. In addition,their communication seems to be afflictedby a significant amount of misunderstand-ing.

Employers of both small, medium-sizedand large companies also have reason tocultivate their relationships with schools,because they know what kind of skillsthey require and thus the kind of skillsschools should provide. Recent researchhas emphasized the importance of primaryeducation (Psacharopoulos 1991, Eliasson& Kazamaki Ottersten 1994). ‘’Make surethat the country has a solid primary edu-cation base before embarking on univer-sity expansion. The expansion of primaryeducation, where attendance is not uni-versal, might offer the highest social ben-efit per dollar or peso spent relative to anyother investment in the country. Expan-sion of primary education is also likely tohave a sizable impact on reducing incomeinequality and poverty, as it is those atthe lowest end of the income spectrum thatare not attending primary schools.’’(Psacharopoulos, 1991, p. 18). This state-ment applies both to developing and de-veloped countries. In addition, it has been

shown in the literature that ‘’the qualityand amount of earlier schooling experi-ence predict the quality and amount ofsubsequent learning experience, whichpredict and interact with job level, earn-ings and life chances more generally’’.(Tuijnman, 1994 p. 17). In Sweden pri-mary school starts at the age of seven(which is late in comparison with otherEuropean countries) and is among themost expensive in the world. There arefurther few private school alternatives,and thus in general small differences be-tween schools.

The basic idea that the better initial for-mal education the more trainable is theworker encourages firms to approach theschool. Many employers have alreadydeveloped and established links withschools through the ‘’practitioner’’ pro-grams that pupils at school take part in.The employers emphasize as importantthat students visit, and get some hands-on shop floor experience. Despite the factthat vocational training is widely providedin Sweden in comparison with many othercountries, the general view among em-ployers is that both pupils and teachershave an old-fashioned conception of in-dustry as a workplace. Therefore theyshould be guided towards the manufac-turing work place to learn.

Organizational change requires new skillsand forms of education at recruitment ofworkers. Also continued maintenance anddevelopment of skills is demanded. Theworkforce needs to be integrated in thechange process. There are different waysin which the employers try to achieve this.

‘’Learning is the product of experience...technological change in general can beascribed to experience, that is the veryactivity of production which gives rise toproblems for which favorable responsesare selected over time.’’ (Arrow 1962 p.155-156). Learning by doing is extremelyimportant and time is needed to learn andget accustomed to a new job (accordingto the firms this takes on average sixmonths). In addition, continuous changesin production and organization requirecontinuous on-the-job training. There arevarious ways in which this training takesplace, first through guidance by moreexperienced colleagues at the firm, sec-ond, through external programs outside

“... most large firms wantto see the distinction be-tween blue-collar andwhite-collar workerseliminated.”

“The basic idea that thebetter initial formal edu-cation the more trainableis the worker encouragesfirms to approach theschool.”


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the firm (which may or may not be heldat the firm), third, through sending work-ers abroad both to training centers and/or to other firms, fourth, through indus-try schools run in cooperation with theschoolsystem or exclusively run by thefirm.

Large firms (and some small ones) are infavor of industry schools within the com-pany, and particularly schools run by thecompany, because the teaching agendain such schools recognizes the needs ofthe firm. Thereby requirements are sethigh both on students and teachers. Theexperience is that industry operatedschools work very well and succeed inproviding firms with the right skills. To-day no real skill shortage is felt other thanwithin a few highly specialized fields. Inthe near future firms are expecting seri-ous skill shortages in a number of differ-ent trades, for example; welding opera-tors, specialized assemblers, operators,computer operators, production techni-cians and managers, mechanical techni-cians and engineers in general.

Most firms strive to make their work en-vironment more attractive than today andto raise both the status and the require-ments on training in industry schools.There is, however, a growing awarenessthat in doing so serious rethinking is nec-essary to exploit new techniques andopportunities to the benefit of both thefirm and its employees.

The future general tendency istowards

❏ low scale production and customisedways to design and produce goods❏ a more open and experimental attitudeto new ways to organize production.

On recruitment requirements by the firmswill be:❏ high-school competence. Jobs with lowskill content will gradually disappear❏ a broad education and analytic prob-lem-solving competence❏ more steering at school towards thelabour market and industry❏ higher work ethics and discipline fromschool.

In order to develop such competences atschool or at the workplace the school hasto monitor the changing needs of the la-bour market and employers’ recruitmentpractices. This openess and flexibility isnot part of the traditional school mental-ity. Even school, however, has to inno-vate and improve its product designs inorder to cope successfully with its futureand an experimental approach is the mostpromising way to be a high achiever inthis respect (Eliasson 1992). Here schoolshave a lot to learn from the experimentalproduct development that firms use. Morecollaboration may also be needed be-tween school and industry especially to-wards the end of school when educationbecomes a transition into the labour mar-ket.

“On recruitment require-ments by the firms will be:

❏ high-school compe-tence. Jobs with low skillcontent will graduallydisappear

❏ a broad education andanalytic problem-solvingcompetence

❏ more steering at schooltowards the labour mar-ket and industry

❏ higher work ethics anddiscipline from school.”

“... the school has to moni-tor the changing needs ofthe labour market and em-ployers’ recruitment prac-tices.”

Macroeconomic Implications of Firms’ Reorganiza-tion’’, i Patterns in a Network Economy, Editeradav B. Johansson, C. Karlsson och L. Westin, Springer-Verlag, forthcoming.

EEC, 1993, European Higher Education-IndustryCooperation: Advanced Training for competitiveadvantage.

Eliasson, G., 1992, The Markets for learning andEducational services – a micro explanation of therole of education and competence development inmacro economic growth, IUI Working Paper No.350b.

Eliasson, G., 1993, The market for vocational train-ing, chapter 5 in Andersson et al (1993) forthcom-ing IUI Working Paper in English.

Eliasson, G. and Kazamaki Ottersten E., 1994,Om förlängd skolgång, (Extended SchoolAttendence), forthcoming Sou 1994: Bilaga II:4.

Heckman, J., 1993, Assessing Clinton’s program onjob training, workfare, and education in theworkplace, NBER, Working Paper No. 4428.

References

Andersson et al., 1993, Den långa vägen, Denekonomiska poli t ikens begränsningar ochmöjligheter att föra Sverige ur 1990-talets kris, (TheLong Road: The limitations and possibilities of eco-nomic policy to preserve Swedish welfare by re-ducing the welfare state to manageable propor-tions). IUI, Almqvist och Wiksell International,Stockholm.

Arrow, K.J., 1962, The Economic Implications ofLearning by Doing, Review of Economic Studies, Vol.29, No. 3 (June), pp. 155-173.

Ballot, G. and Taymaz, E., 1993, Firm SponsoredTraining and Performance – A comparison betweenFrance and Sweden based on firm data, IUI Work-ing Paper No. 387.

Bishop, J.H., 1993, The French Mandate to Spendon Training: A model for the United States?, CAHRS,ILR Cornell University, Ithaka, NY, Working Paper93-05.

Braunerhjelm, P., 1994, ‘’Regional Integration asa Vehicle to Microeconomic Disintegration: Some


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Koike, K., 1991, ‘’Learning and Incentive Systemsin Japanese Industry’’, paper presented at the con-ference, ‘’Japan in a Global Economy: A EuropeanPerspective’’, held in Stockholm School of Econom-ics, Sept 5-6.

OECD, 1993, Industry Training, In Australia, Swe-den and the United States.

Psacharopoulos, G., 1991, The Economic Impactof Education – Lessons for Policy Makers, Interna-tional Center for Economic Growth, ICS press, SanFrancisco.

Taylor, F.W., 1920, Rationell Arbetsledning,Taylorsystemet, (Rational Work Sharing. The TaylorMethod). Sveriges Industriförbund, Almqvist &Wiksells boktryckeri.

Tuijnman, A.C., 1994, On a Path from Pre-school-ing to Lifelong Learning: Capital Conversions Acrossthe Lifespan, Swedish Ministry of Education andScience, Commission of Prolonged School Attend-ance.

Skills versuscompetence:Semantic debate, development inconcepts or political challenge?Interview with Andrew Moore, UNICE1 and Anne-Françoise Theunissen, CES2,undertaken by F. Oliveira Reis, CEDEFOP.

FOR: We have the impression that inthe current debate there is a shiftfrom the term skill to the term com-petence. Is this simply a semantic is-sue or a change in the nature of thedebate or a new political challenge?

AM: For us, to a certain extent, this is apolitical challenge. The concept of com-petence takes us back to the actual abil-ity of an individual to deal with all thetasks which make up a precise workplace.Technological and organizational changeas well as the modernization of workingconditions force us to focus more on thepotential of the individual to mobilize hisabilities and to develop this potential inconcrete and developing work situations.This takes us away from the use of classi-cal descriptions of jobs.

The competence approach is seen byemployers as being particularly relevantbecause this refocusing on the individualand his capacity for development consti-tutes a major source of personal motiva-tion and flexibility. This involves mov-ing from a management philosophy inwhich the individual serves “the system”(classifications based on prescribed tasksand demands) to a philosophy in which“the system” serves the individual by tak-ing into account the way in which hedevelops, mobilizes and increases his

potential for solving concrete problems.Everybody is different and the time takento reach a certain stage differs from oneindividual to the other. What is impor-tant is to fuel individual motivation inorder to develop and provide for flexibil-ity in the overall work and training sys-tems which will enable each person tofind his position and to overcome indi-vidual shortcomings.

The political challenge is, thus, to buildcoherent systems for training, assessmentand classification which are the subjectof mutual faith and which offer sufficientguarantees to individuals and their em-ployers.

AFT: The question which can be raisedtoday is whether this shift in terms doesnot also reveal a shift in the sites of ne-gotiation and negotiation itself: we aremoving from the negotiation sites betweenemployers and workers to directories,nomenclature and classification acceptedby the one side and the other, to discus-sion which is not the same as negotiationbetween employer and employee as theindividual. And, for us workers, this is apolitical challenge.

Furthermore, at a time when we are wit-nessing a situation in several countries andin some professional sectors in which

AndrewMooreDirector of theBritish BusinessOffice in Brusselsand works closelywith UNICE in

education and training

AnneFrançoiseTheunissenRepresentative of theBelgian Confeder-ation of ChristianTrade Unions and

currently Deputy Chairpersonof the CEDEFOP ManagementBoard

1 UNICE The European Trade UnionConfederation (ETUC) unites 36trade union organizations fromEuropean Union and EFTA MemberStates and other countries.

2 The Union of Industrial andEmployers’ Confederations ofEurope (UNICE) was set up in 1958and unites 33 member federationsfrom 22 European countries.

AM: “For us, to a certainextent, this is a politicalchallenge.The political challenge is,thus, to build coherentsystems for training, as-sessment and classifica-tion which are the subjectof mutual faith and whichoffer sufficient guaran-tees to individuals andtheir employers.”


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petitiveness. Today there is a growinginterest in human resources in companiesas there is an awareness that a need fortechnology or information can be imme-diately satisfied and that by contrast askilled and high-performance workforcecannot be “imported” or made availablefrom one day to the next. But the bal-ance of positions and the compromise ofinterests remain fundamental issues.

FOR: At the present time there is agrowing demand for people to beadaptable, to develop and to be inno-vative. With this in mind, how do yousee the division of responsibilitiesbetween schools and companies in theproduction of competences?

AFT: This question touches on, first ofall, the role of the school. The school isa multiple universe, a site for education,the transmission of knowledge and cul-ture. It is a public service distinct fromthe economic and social fields, althoughit is deeply integrated into the overallstructure of society. Thus, it establishesrelations between the various sites of eco-nomic, social, domestic, civil and occu-pational knowledge. However, school issubjected by families, companies, pupilsor political representatives, to contradic-tory pressures which challenge its socialrole.

In the debate and comments on school,if we have to bear in mind the labour di-mension, the difficulties involved in theforward-management of jobs and compet-ences and the move to destroy work, allshow that work and employment cannotdefine the limits to education, training orlife-long education.

Thus, it is a matter of meeting the criteriaof democracy by giving people trainingwhich enables them to act as the produc-ers of goods and/or services and as play-ers in civic society. It is also a questionof promoting collective advancement asone of the goals of equality. These crite-ria can serve as a leitmotif in the threefields of training which are education,vocational training and life-long educa-tion.

The links between schools and compa-nies are conditioned and alternance train-ing becomes an immediate challenge to

there are no longer trade unions to dis-cuss this issue, the danger of a weaken-ing of collective bargaining and a shift toindividual bargaining is very real. This isparticularly the case in small firms wherethe absence of representation within thecompany of protection and of a relaunch-ing of trade unions can lead to a seriouserror in the course we are charting.

FOR: In concrete terms, what are themain problems which arise in nego-tiations on the basis of competences?

AFT: Negotiation within the companyconstitutes the phase during which thereis articulation between what a workerhimself has achieved during his life andwhat he uses in his occupational activi-ties. Now we know that the work situa-tion, the workplace, mobilizes to varyingdegrees competence potential which in-dividuals have and, thus, the non-mobi-lized part runs the risk of not being rec-ognized or validated. Now when we talkabout competence this is something whichis far more open to arbitrary treatment bythe employer since it is a matter not onlyof how he is going to use the various abili-ties of workers but also the way in whichhe intends to reward them. And for us,this question is particularly important ata time when the threat of unemploymentmeans that many individuals, particularlyyoung people, accept jobs for which theyare over-qualified.

AM: Yes indeed, when the individualacquires a qualification which is of ben-efit for his occupational development wecan expect the level and type of that in-dividual’s aspirations to develop. Theemployer will have to recognize theseefforts, otherwise he runs the risk of los-ing that individual. But this need notnecessarily lead, automatically, to an in-crease in pay or a change in job.

This also explains the dilemma which of-ten faces the employer: to provide train-ing and run the risk of losing employeesbecause the company is not able to sat-isfy their demands and the workers, inturn, have more opportunities for exter-nal mobility or not to offer training andto find themselves with human resourceswhich are no longer in tune with techno-logical and organizational change and runthe risk of losing ground in terms of com-

AFT: The question whichcan be raised today is

whether this shift in termsdoes not also reveal a

shift in the sites of nego-tiation and negotiation

itself:...And, for us workers, this

is a political challenge.

AM: “...the dilemma whichoften faces the employer:

to provide training andrun the risk of losing em-ployees ... or not to offer

training ... and run therisk of losing ground in

terms of competitiveness.”

AFT: “Now when we talkabout competence this is

something which is farmore open to arbitrary

treatment by the employersince it is a matter not

only of how he is going touse the various abilitiesof workers but also the

way in which he intends toreward them.”


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the extent that it can open up learningopportunities for young people who areexcluded from the academic system andenable them to acquire knowledge on thebasis of what they are actually doing. Todo this in an actual work situation usemust be made of additional continuingtraining.

AM: For us employers, it is essential tohave the assurance of rapid access to skillswhich will enable individuals to pursueoccupations, to develop and, at the sametime, to carry forward work situations. Inthe field of competences we must distin-guish between general competences andthe competences which make up precisetasks. The State must guarantee the ac-quisition of general competences and wewould like to see a relatively high levelof general training, something which weare seeking to bring about in all MemberStates by means of a dialogue betweenemployers and governments. In theUnited Kingdom, for example, we areasking of schools that they do not overlyspecialize because this specializationshould be acquired at university or in thecompany.

Parallel to this we believe that the worksite constitutes an opportunity for acquir-ing certain competences which cannot beacquired in school and which would actas a complement to school achievements.Consequently, we see a progressive shiftin education towards the work environ-ment and towards individuals who, at oneand the same time, are pursuing an occu-pation and providing training. This takesus away from the concept of “class in-struction”. However, this brings us intocontact with the difficulty of finding peo-ple who, in the work environment, areable to teach competences and evaluatethem in a reliable manner.

It is the role of the State to guarantee thebalance and coherence between generalcompetences and specific competences,between the short-, the medium- and thelong-term.

The political question on the Europeanlevel is to establish the consequences forthe adoption of a new system in the Mem-ber States, the arrangements to be madewith the trade unions and education andtraining bodies. I believe that the Com-

mission, together with CEDEFOP, has arole to play in this field.

FOR: How do you see the question ofthe assessment of competences ac-quired in the working environment?

AM: This is a very important issuewhich has both political and technicalconnotations. On the one hand, assess-ment fully raises the problem of socialrecognition, the results of this assessmentand thus of its reliability. On the otherhand, one cannot disassociate from a two-fold question the aspect of mobility.

From the employers’ point of view, thereare difficulties today in resolving the is-sue of assessment of competences ac-quired at work since this would call forthe presence, in the working environment,of individuals who are able to do this ina reliable manner. Now in many coun-tries middle management has no experi-ence of assessment or validation ofcompetences.

But it would be unacceptable for the in-dividual and the employer to leave as-sessment to employers alone. Assess-ment, recognition and/or validation canonly be undertaken by bodies who haveresponsibilities in this field and, in theUnited Kingdom for example, it is possi-ble to call on a certification body whosends, to the work environment, individu-als who are competent in the field.

The political challenge is to construct thesystem which enables dual recognition bythe company and by training bodies.Otherwise the qualification, even if certi-fied, will not be barterable. This requiresthat a strategy be developed for qualitycontrol and that the State play a majorrole in monitoring, very closely, thesedevelopments.

On the Community level, the Community,together with CEDEFOP, also has a roleto play in this respect: on the one hand,by analyzing the way in which assessment,recognition and/or validation of learninghave been undertaken so far in the vari-ous countries and, on the other, by un-dertaking important work in respect ofterminology in order to create the pre-conditions for debate amongst the socialpartners.

AM: “The political chal-lenge is to construct thesystem which enables dualrecognition by the com-pany and by training bod-ies. Otherwise the qualifi-cation, even if certified,will not be barterable.”


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AFT: If the belief is that assessment mustlead to recognition which enhances theachievements of individuals in the pur-suit of their work, there is, indeed, a veryimportant question which has remainedunanswered so far. This raises severalproblems both regarding the definition ofwork and training contents and also con-cerning the involvement of the variousplayers (employers, trade unions, theState).

Some tasks may exclude intrinsic compet-ences from the individual. Some assess-ments of functions do not place any em-phasis on competences used and this isparticularly obvious in the case of identi-cal functions described in different ways.For example, if you get men and womento talk about the same occupation thenthis is very revealing of the different sys-tems of values used. Often, we note thatwomen carry out work which differs fromwhat is suggested by the title of their func-tion, work involving various responsibili-ties which are not explicitly stated. Thisis far less frequently the case with men.

As social partners it is these issues whichconcern us. The public authorities, fur-thermore, have an important role to playin the recognition of achievements dur-ing working life and the certification oftraining. But this role has to be rede-fined in respect of content and form.

Before answering this question, studiesand research work are necessary.CEDEFOP can provide the fundamentalinformation essential for political debate.

FOR: Could it be said that the com-petence approach brings with it therisk of making null and void theagreements between employers andtrade unions?

AFT: There is a dynamic element in thedetermination of qualifications. The proofis that we are in the process of discuss-ing them. If we look at the various coun-tries we can see that employer organiza-tions and trade unions have felt the needto redefine classifications, one of themajor components being qualifications.Work organization has changed and tech-nological developments bring with thema whole series of new elements whichhave to be taken into account. The prob-

lem is that when you redefine what work-ers have to do, this brings us up againstthe problem of the great diversity in workorganization which coexists today.

Therefore, this work of redefining quali-fications must continue in order to betteradapt them to changes in work and la-bour systems and collective bargaining isthe guarantee for this. In this respect Iwould like to stress some aspects. Onthe one hand, we have to accept that wecan think less and less in terms of a strictadjustment between training and employ-ment and begin grasping that any effortsto mechanically codify qualifications aredoomed to failure. On the other hand,we can see a shift in workers from indus-trial production towards the services sec-tor which forces us to rethink our ap-proaches which are still very much influ-enced by references to the industrial sec-tor. Finally, we have to examine moreclosely the question of social representa-tion of qualifications: why, for example,does a nurse or teacher have less stand-ing than other occupations, for exampleindustr ia l engineers in companies,whereas it could be said that they under-take training of a similar length? Are hu-man activities less valid than technicalactivities? The question of competenceraises this kind of issue and it is indeed apolitical question in relation to whichsocieties structure and organize them-selves.

FOR: What is, for you, the challengelinked with the “competences portfo-lio” which is currently being dis-cussed within the Community?

AM: The creation of a competencesportfolio seems to be a very good idea tohelp to identify what individuals haveundertaken and achieved. This is a tool,the main quality of which will be its“understandability” by various groupsfrom one country to another. To this end,there must be a kind of structure, conceptand language which facilitate understand-ing of competences in different cultures.

This is by no means an easy task and alldiscussions undertaken so far do, indeed,demonstrate that there is a problem ofterminology and concepts. The “portfo-lio” as under discussion at the present timestill requires a great deal of debate. I

AFT: “The public authori-ties, ... have an important

role to play in the recogni-tion of achievements dur-

ing working life and thecertification of training.”


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believe it would be premature on the partof the social partners to abandon the ideabecause of current difficulties. We shouldat least wait until we find another, moreconsistent, work hypothesis.

We need a tool which is able to transfersimple and clear information from oneMember State to another, a tool whichwould be of use both for employers andindividuals.

And, even if the goal is not to change orharmonize qualification systems in thevarious countries, we believe that this toolcould encourage improvements in thequality of the systems to the extent that itwould place in parallel what the qualifi-cations mean in the different MemberStates.

AFT: The “competences portfolio” wasintroduced by the Commission followinga decision of the Council of Ministers onqualifications at a time when the realiza-tion was spreading that the project on thecomparability of qualifications did notmeet the needs of transparency and mo-bility which had been the goals.

Now in order to accept a new instrumenton the negotiating table, we should beclear on what the objective is and whatthe conditions are for the achievement ofthat objective. Of course, the workershave to have a tool which enables themto validate what they are doing and whatthey have achieved. But the major ques-tion mark hangs over the kind of tool andthe conditions for its implementation.

From our point of view, we have to en-visage juggling various replies whichcould help to increase transparency andmobility. A first response would involve

creating fora of the guidance centre kind,with people who have the necessary com-petence which is recognized on a Euro-pean level. This is where workers couldgo voluntarily to put together their own“portfolio”. For us, this is very differentfrom the elaboration of enormous cur-ricula vitae particularly as we know thateach time that people apply for a job vari-ous or different elements are stresseddepending on the requirements to be met.

A second reply could be the elaborationin the Member States of a tool along thelines of an “audit of competences” whichhas been introduced in France. In a jointagreement which has been signed by thesocial partners in France, we see for thefirst time formal use of the term “indi-vidual competence”. A right to a compet-ences audit has been introduced by lay-ing down that each employee is entitledevery 5 years to do an audit of his skillsincluding his competences. This right,which is recognized by law, means thatan employee can go on leave in order tomake an audit of his competences andthat this leave will be paid by the voca-tional training funds which are adminis-tered on a joint basis by the social part-ners. The law also envisages, and thiswas also the subject of negotiation, thatthe employer can make provision in thecompany’s training plan for competenceaudits for its staff.

A last reply would involve giving work-ers information on the sectors in whichthey wish to work in a different country:what tasks are involved in the same oc-cupation in the different country, how canyou gain access to these occupations,what are the object and form of negotia-tions which are undertaken. The role ofCommunity institutions is particularly im-portant here.

AM: “We need a tool whichis able to transfer simpleand clear informationfrom one Member State toanother, a tool whichwould be of use both foremployers and individu-als. ”

AFT: “Of course, theworkers have to have atool which enables them tovalidate what they are do-ing and what they haveachieved. But the majorquestion mark hangs overthe kind of tool and theconditions for its imple-mentation.”


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This section has beenprepared by

Maryse Pescheland the DocumentationService with the help of

members of the nationaldocumentation network

(cf. last page)

This section lists the most im-portant and recent publica-

tions on developments intraining and qualifications

at an international and Eu-ropean level. Giving prefer-

ence to comparative works, italso lists national studies

carried out as part of inter-national and European pro-

grammes, analyses of the im-pact of Community action on

the Member States and na-tional studies seen from an

external perspective. The Sec-tion, “From the Member

States”, lists a selection of im-portant national publica-

tions.

Reading

Rea

din

g Se

lect

ion Europe - International

Information material,studies and comparativeresearch

The vocational training systems in:❏ Denmark (DA)❏ France (FR)❏ United Kingdom (EN, IT, PT, DE)❏ the Netherlands (NL)

European Centre for the Development ofVocational Training (CEDEFOP)Luxembourg, Office for Official Publica-tions of the European Communities, 1993

After describing the administrative, demo-graphic and economic context and look-ing briefly at the history of the systems,the national monographs look at how ini-tial and continuing training operate, theresponsible bodies, the role of the socialpartners and funding. It continues by ex-amining trends and current developments.

Systems and procedures of certifica-tion of qualifications in the EuropeanCommunityEuropean Centre for the Development ofVocational Training (CEDEFOP) Berlin,Panorama no. 17, 1993,103 pages DE, EN, FRAvailable free of charge from CEDEFOP

This synthesis compares twelve nationalstudies on systems and procedures of cer-tification of qualifications. It contains out-lines of the various training systems anddescriptions of the systems and proce-dures of certification classified accordingto qualification level. Charts present visualinformation on the various types of certi-fication together with the means of attain-ing them and the average age at whichthey can be obtained, the levels of insti-tutional responsibility and modes of evalu-ation.

A summary of this work and the chartswere published in CEDEFOP Flash 6/93.The national studies are part of the Pano-rama series and available free of chargefrom CEDEFOP.

L’accès à la formation professionnelledans trois secteurs de l’économieeuropéenneLassibille G.; Paul J.J.European Centre for the Development ofVocational Training (CEDEFOP)Berlin, Panorama no. 14, 1993, 59 pagesFRAvailable free of charge from CEDEFOP

Within the framework of the preparationof a joint paper on modalities likely toallow effective access to training on asbroad as possible a scale, CEDEFOP hasinitiated a study on the theoretical andpractical modalities of access to ongoingvocational training in three vocationalareas: construction/project construction,electricity/electronics, office/administra-tion. This summary, based on six specialreports dealing with individual sectors andcountries, examines ongoing trainingmethods according to sector and suggestsa method to compare them.

Two of the special reports have been pub-lished in the Panorama series and areavailable free of charge from CEDEFOP.

Occupational profiles.The restoration and rehabilitation ofthe architectural heritagePaulet J.L.European Centre for the Development ofVocational Training (CEDEFOP)Berlin, Panorama no. 18, 1993, 29 pagesFR, EN, ES, ITAvailable free of charge from CEDEFOP

Quality management and quality as-surance in European higher educa-tion. Methods and mechanismsCommission of the European Communi-ties - Task Force Human Resources, Edu-cation, Training, YouthLuxembourg, Office for Official Publica-tions of the European Communities, Stud-ies no. 1, 1993, 28 pages + annexesISBN 92-826-6392-2DA, DE, EN, ES, FR, GR, IT, NL, PT

This report offers a summary of mecha-nisms and methods for the evaluation of


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quality in higher education in the Mem-ber States and EFTA countries.

Administrative and Financial Respon-sibilities for Education and Trainingin the European CommunityEURYDICE European unit. Produced forTask Force Human Resources, Education,Training, YouthBrussels, EURYDICE, 1993, 26 pagesDE, EN, FRAvailable from Eurydice

Requirements for Entry to Higher Edu-cation in the European CommunityEURYDICE European unit. Produced forTask Force Human Resources, Education,Training, YouthBrussels, EURYDICE, 1993, 71 pagesDE, EN, FRAvailable from Eurydice

The main systems of financial assist-ance for students in higher educationin the European CommunityEURYDICE European unit. Produced forTask Force Human Resources, Education,Training YouthBrussels, EURYDICE, 1993, 32 pagesDE, EN, FRAvailable from Eurydice

Employment in Europe 1993Commission of the European Communi-ties - Directorate General: Employment,Industrial Relations and Social AffairsLuxembourg, Office for Official Publica-tions of the European Communities,1993, 206 pagesISBN 92-826-6055-9DA, DE, EN, ES, FR, GR, IT, NL, PTAlso published in the “Document” seriesof the EC Commission: COM(93) 314

Vocational Training. InternationalperspectivesLaflamme G.International Labour Office, Laval Univer-sity - Quebec Geneva, BIT(Collection Instruments de Travail),1993, 277 pagesISBN 2-920259-16-4 FR, EN

A collection of texts presented at an in-ternational colloquium held in Quebec inSeptember 1992, the aim of which was to

define the stakes of vocational trainingsystems in various industrialized coun-tries, describe the individual features ofsome of their components and provideinformation on the ways and means ofensuring the greatest possible efficacy ina system of vocational training. These is-sues were discussed by specialists fromGermany, Belgium, Canada, Sweden,United States, France, Switzerland, Japan,United Kingdom, Austria, and representa-tives of various national and internationalorganizations. The various analyses showthe extent to which vocational trainingremains the core of industrial develop-ment, a central element in the search forquality and innovation which provides ameans of responding to the competition.

The changing role of vocational andtechnical education and training. As-sessment, certification and recogni-tion of occupational skills and com-petences. Seminar held from 27 to 30October 1992Organization for Economic Cooperationand Development (OECD)Paris, OECD, 1992, multiple pagination.Restricted distribution, in publication.EN, FR

A collection of contributions used byworking groups at this seminar dedicatedto the evaluation, certification and recog-nition of qualifications and vocationalskills. Topics discussed by the variousgroups included: the consequences ofvarious evaluation and certification ap-proaches for programmes and teaching;the role of evaluation and certification inthe functioning of training and employ-ment markets; the transferability of quali-fications; the European experience andthe lessons drawn from the Quebec ex-perience; the implementation of evalua-tion, certification, validation and ratifica-tion.

Teaching in OECD Countries. A com-pendium of statistical Information /L’enseignement dans les pays del’OCDE. Recueil d’informations statis-tiquesOrganization for Economic Cooperationand Development (OECD)Paris, OECD, 1993, 131 pagesISBN 92-64-03890-6EN, FR


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This compendium presents statistics andinformation on the education systems ofOECD countries and covers the 1988/1989and 1989/1990 school years. The statis-tics refer to numbers of pupils in the vari-ous teaching cycles and streams, numbersof school leavers with or without diplo-mas, teaching personnel and expenditure.The report includes diagrams describingthe education systems of OECD countries,in most cases taking into account the mostrecent changes. It also makes forecastson pupil numbers in the various cyclesbeyond the year 2000.

Education at a glance. OECD indica-tors/Regards sur l’éducation. Les indi-cateurs de L’OCDECentre pour la Recherche et l’Innovationdans l’Enseignement (CERI), Organizationfor Economic Cooperation and Develop-ment (OECD)Paris, OECD, 1993, 259 pagesISBN 92-64-03894-9EN, FR

This second edition covers the 1990/1991school year. It presents a total of 38 indi-cators allowing an examination of vari-ous aspects of educational policies - in-vestment level, financing and recruitingmodes, decision-making centres, schoolattendance rates, pupil selection, resultsachieved and examination success rates -and identifies levels and types of teach-ing likely to reduce the risk of unemploy-ment.

Review of National Policies for Educa-tion - BelgiumOrganization for Economic Cooperationand Development (OECD)Paris, OECD, 1993, 142 pagesISBN 92-64-239898EN, FR

This publication is a first attempt by theOECD to examine educational policies inBelgium. The Belgian context has changedconsiderably in the past 25 years, withmajor modifications being introduced atall levels of the system: school attendancerates have reached peak levels and theconstitutional framework has been re-shaped in the course of an evolution to-wards a federal system adapted to localconditions. The three linguistic commu-nities - Flemish, French and German -

have near autonomy in matters connectedwith teaching. The report stresses theproblems which remain to be solved: re-peated years and dead-end streams, equal-ity of opportunities, human and materialresources. The OECD investigators havealso noted the lack of analyses of futureprospects and of solid data bases to bet-ter steer the systems.

Lifelong education in selected indus-trialized countries. Report of an IIEP/NIER seminar (IIEP, Paris, 7-9 Decem-ber 1992)Atchoarena D.International Institute for EducationalPlanning (IIEP)National Institute for Educational Research(NIER), TokyoParis, IIEP, 1993, 199 pagesENIIEP, 7-9 rue Eugène-Delacroix,F-75116 Paris

This seminar took place within the frame-work of a IIRP/NIER joint research projecton lifelong education in France, Germany,Japan, the Russian Federation, Sweden,the United Kingdom and the USA. Fol-lowing a presentation of NIER surveys onJapan (published separately), the partici-pants were invited to analyse and com-pare national experiences on key aspectsof lifelong education: the trends in provi-sion, including industry and higher edu-cation involvement; the innovations; andthe role of international co-operation. Part1 of this report is made up of a synthesisof the seminar discussion; part 2 containsthe country papers presented at the semi-nar.

L’Europe et l’insertion par l’écono-miqueLejeune R.Paris, ed. Syros, 1993, 231 pagesISBN 2-86738-913-5FR

Proceedings of the European conferenceon Europe and industry’s contribution tointegration organized by the Centre desJeunes Dirigeants de l’économie sociale(CJDES) and the newspaper Le Monde inNovember 1992. The first part discussesthe concept of a contribution by industryto integration in Member States, particu-larly in France, Belgium, Germany, Spain


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and the United Kingdom, attempting todraw conclusions from a European ap-proach. A second section suggests frame-work data for each country of the Euro-pean Community: key data, integrationinitiatives, measures for employment andtraining. The third part describes the in-fluence of the actions of representativesof various French bodies on the Frenchpublic administration in the area of in-dustry’s contribution to integration. An-nexes include a list of various Europeannetworks working in this area and a coun-try list of European participants in theorganization of the conference.

Les entreprises face à l’Europe: le défiformation d’Allevard Aciers. Moderni-sation, développement des ressourceshumaines et partenariat transnationalMorin P.; Riera J-C.Paris, Racine Editions, La Documentationfrançaise, 1993, 94 pagesISBN 2-84108-001-3FR

This monograph describes the implemen-tation of innovative concepts in humanresources management in a medium-sizedindustrial enterprise, the establishment ofa transnational partnership with a similarcompany in Germany and the relation-ship between the two companies. Coop-eration between the two companies hasled to the establishment of a permanent,open and transnational training scheme.

Compétences et AlternancesJedliczka D.; Delahaye G.Paris, Liaisons, 1994, 200 pagesISBN 2-87880-085-0FR

This book demonstrates by means of dia-grams and examples where companies,employees and trainers stand and howthey interact in order to construct, man-age and develop skills capital in alter-nance training schemes developed inFrance. It compares the French situationto Germany and the United Kingdom.

Workforce skills and export competi-tiveness: an Anglo-German compari-sonOulton, N.London, 1993 EN-

Gill Chisham, National Institute of Eco-nomic and Social Research,7 Dean Trench Street, Smith Square,UK-London SW1P 3HE

Examines whether the UK’s exports areof comparative quality, compares the rel-evant skill levels in both countries andinvestigates whether differences in exportperformance are due to differences in skilllevels. Five key export markets were stud-ied in assessing the effects of skill gapson the relative degree of success of thetwo countries’ exports.

Citizenship and vocation in the post-16 curriculum in England and Ger-many: Youth Network Occasional Pa-perEvans K.; Bynner J.London, 1993ENSharon Clarke, Social Statistics ResearchUnit, City University,Northampton Square,UK-London EC1V 0HB

In England, vocational education is seenlargely in terms of equipping young peo-ple with skills demanded by employers.In Germany, vocational education servesthe broader purpose of preparing youngpeople for citizenship. This view is sup-ported by findings from a study of youngpeople in England and Germany. Usingquestionnaires and interviews, 16+ yearolds were matched in terms of their likelyoccupational destinations with their coun-terparts in a comparable town in the othercountry. One of the main findings is thatin buoyant economic conditions, the Eng-lish pre-vocational system provides thewider range of occupational opportuni-ties. The German system provides insti-tutional support over a longer period,enabling young people to withstand eco-nomic and personal difficulties.

Modularisation in initial vocationaltraining: recent developments in sixEuropean countriesRaffe D.Edinburgh, The University of Edinburgh,1993, unpagedENCentre for Educational Sociology, Depart-ment of Sociology,


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The University of Edinburgh, 7 BuccleuchPlace, UK-Edinburgh EH8 9LW

This report reviews the experience ofmodularisation in initial vocational train-ing in six European Community countries.Modularisation has been introduced todiversify vocational education and train-ing (VET) provision. This innovation aimsto make VET more flexible and respon-sive to economic, technological and so-cial change, and to improve its coherenceand efficiency as a system. By lookingclosely at modularisation in six institu-tions, each in a separate country, the re-port examines: how widespread is the useof modules in initial VET in EC countries;when they were introduced; what typesof courses, for what types of students,have been modularised; how are modulesand modular systems designed; what arethe objectives and strategies of modularreforms?

The building labour process: prob-lems of skills, training and employ-ment in the British construction in-dustry in the 1980sClarke L.Berkshire, Chartered Institute of Building,1993, unpagedENChartered Institute of Building, Engle-mere, Kings Ride, Ascot,UK-Berkshire SL5 8BJ

Results from three research projects (car-ried out in the 1980s) looking at construc-tion site organisation and training provi-sion have recently been published. Theycompare site practices in France, Italy,Germany and Britain. The report analy-ses: concepts of skills and training; theapplicability of notions of de-skilling;transferable skills and general/specificskills; changes in the division of labourin the construction industry throughoutthe 1980s.

La formation professionnelle enAllemagne: specificités et dynamiqued’un systèmeLasserre R.; Lattard A.Centre d’Information et de Recherche surl’Allemagne Contemporaine, CIRACParis, 1993ISBN 2-905518-24-3FR

Two French authors analyse the successof the German training system, which isessentially based on a strong participa-tion of enterprises in initial training, andtake stock of “German-style alternancetraining”. After a brief summary of thehistory of the system and a description ofthe institutional framework, the authorsexamine the performance of this systemin view of the quality of training provided,costs and economic feasibility, and finallyefficacy in terms of vocational integration.The last section provides an evaluationand looks at future prospects, pointingout advantages and weaknesses.

Le système dual allemand, fissures etdynamique; quelques enseignementsde comparaison internationalesDrexel I.; Marry C.; Le Tiec C. et al.Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches sur lesQualifications (CEREQ) Paris, in Forma-tion Emploi no. 43, La DocumentationFrançaise, pp. 3-54ISSN 0759-6340FR

The French and the German training sys-tems have evolved according to oppos-ing logics. This article begins with a com-parison between training and access toemployment for master tradesmen (inter-mediate level between workers and engi-neers) in France and Germany, followedby a review of the hypotheses presentedin the article and a response by the au-thor. Lastly, two articles offer a compara-tive approach of education systems andvocational integration in Germany and theUnited States.

Numéro spécial EuropeCentre d’Etudes et de Recherches sur lesQualifications (CEREQ)Paris, 1993, Formation Emploi no. 42, LaDocumentation Française, 108 pagesISSN 0759-6340FR

This issue attempts to take stock of Euro-pean questions regarding employmentand training. Two articles analyze theoverall European employment market andthe functioning of the national markets,and another seeks to elucidate the cur-rent economic integration process in Eu-rope on the basis of a critique of various


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approaches. Also presented are the re-training policies of various countries andthe issues at stake in the matter of com-parability and recognition of qualificationsin Europe. Finally, one text deals withvocational training in a transitional stagein Eastern Europe. An extensive bibliog-raphy is included.

European Union:policies, programmes,participants

Growth, competitiveness, employ-ment. The challenges and ways for-ward into the 21st century. White pa-perCommission of the European Communi-ties Luxembourg, Bulletin of the EuropeanCommunities, Supplement 6/93, Office forOfficial Publications of the EuropeanCommunities, 1993, 160 pagesISBN 92-826-7001-5DA, DE, EN, ES, FR, GR, IT, NL, PT

A second volume presents contributionsfrom Member States in their original lan-guage: Growth, competitiveness, em-ployment. The challenges and waysforward into the 21st century. WhitePaper - part C; ISBN 92-826-7071-6

A response to the request from the Co-penhagen European Council to the Com-mission to prepare a White Paper onmedium-term strategy for growth, com-petitiveness and employment. It is basedon contributions from the Member Statesand takes into consideration the debatecurrently taking place in the various coun-tries between the state authorities and thesocial partners. Written from a basicallyeconomic point of view, the bookpresents broad guidelines for a healthy,open, decentralized, competitive and solideconomy.

Proposal for a Council decision estab-lishing an action programme for theimplementation of a European Com-munity vocational training policyLEONARDO da VinciCommission of the European Communi-ties

COM (93) 686 final, 21 December 1993,61 pagesLuxembourg, Office for Official Publica-tions of the European Communities,ISSN 0254-1491; ISBN 92-77-63077-9DA, DE, EN, ES, FR, GR, IT, NL, PT

This proposal fits into the general con-text established by the White Paper oncompetitiveness, growth and employment.Based on experience gathered by the vari-ous Community programmes for voca-tional training, this programme’s mainobjective is the implementation of a vo-cational training policy supporting andcomplementing the activities of the Mem-ber States and the promotion of coopera-tion between the Member States in orderto gradually realize an open space fortraining and vocational qualifications. Theprogramme creates a joint framework ofobjectives for Community action. It is di-vided into three sections: measures toenhance the quality of the systems, pro-grammes and policies of the MemberStates; measures to support the innova-tive capacity in activities on the vocationaltraining market; network and accompa-nying measures - promotion of the Euro-pean dimension.

Proposal for a European Parliamentand Council decision establishing theCommunity action programme “SOC-RATES”Commission of the European Communi-tiesCOM (93) 708 final, 3 February 1993, 78pagesLuxembourg, Office for Official Publica-tions of the European Communities,ISSN 0254-1491; ISBN 92-77-63808-7DA, DE, EN, ES, FR, GR, IT, NL, PT

With this proposal, the Commission wantsto reinforce, simplify and rationalize ex-isting Community activities in the areasof education, training and youth. Socra-tes will promote activities involvingtransnational cooperation between theMember States. These activities can beclassified under three headings: highereducation; the European dimension ineducation; transversal measures for thepromotion of foreign language skillswithin the Community, of apprenticeshipsand open and distance learning and ofinformation.


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Skills for a competitive and cohesiveEurope. A human resources outlookfor the 1990’sCommission of the European Communi-ties - Task Force Human Resources, Edu-cation, Training, YouthBrussels, 1993, 42 pagesDE, EN, FREC Commission - Task Force Human Re-sources, Education, Training, Youth, ruede la Loi 200, B-1049 Bruxelles

After sketching a general picture of thecentral role played by human resourcesin economic and social development, thisreport takes stock of qualifications: ten-dencies (professions and sectors), weak-nesses, new skills required, prospects,terminology. Possible approaches are sug-gested to respond to the crucial questions:What should be done to improve the qual-ity of human resources and successfullyface change? What reforms are necessaryin education and training systems to pro-duce the new qualifications?

The outlook for higher education inthe European Community. Responsesto the MemorandumCommission of the European Communi-ties - Task Force Human Resources, Edu-cation, Training, YouthLuxembourg, Office for Official Publica-tions of the European Communities, Stud-ies no. 2, 1993, 70 pagesISBN 92-826-6401-5DA, DE, EN, ES, FR, GR, IT, NL, PT

The Memorandum on higher education,published by the Commission in 1991, wasdiscussed extensively in all Member Statesand in the EFTA countries. The responsesdrawn by this debate are analyzed andsummarized in this report. The main ele-ments of the issue are presented in theform of five topics reflecting the mosturgent concerns expressed in the re-sponses: cultural aims; mobility and lan-guages; accessibility to students andadults; quality policies; financing.

Two complementary reports presentingsummaries of the responses as well as thetopic-based reports are available fromTask Force Human Resources in DE, EN,FR: Responses to the Memorandum onHigher Education in the EuropeanCommunity. Summary of national re-

ports and reports from European or-ganizations, 1993, 83 pages Theme re-ports, 1993, special pagination

Vers un marché européen des qualifi-cations. Rapport pour la Task ForceRessources Humaines, Education,JeunesseMerle V.; Bernard Brunhes ConsultantsParis, 1992, 42 pagesFRFor sale atBBC,89, rue du Fg Saint-Antoine,F-75011 Paris

After having specified the various mean-ings of a European market of qualifica-tions and analyzed the major issues atstake in this regard, the author suggestsways and means for Community actionin this area. This analysis, which leads tothe formulation of a number of fundamen-tal principles, should form the basis offuture reflection on the creation of a Eu-ropean market of qualifications.

Green paper. European Social Policy.Options for the UnionDirectorate-General for Employment, In-dustrial Relations and Social Affairs Com-mission of the European CommunitiesLuxembourg, Office for Official Publica-tions of the European Communities,1993, 108 pagesISBN 92-826-6897-5EN, FR, DE, DA, ES, GR, IT, NL, PT

The intention of the Commission’s greenpaper is to stimulate a wide-ranging de-bate within all Member States about thefuture of social policy in the EuropeanUnion. This debate will be followed bythe Commission and used as a basis fordiscussion together with the White Paperon Growth, Competitiveness and Employ-ment. The Green Paper is divided in threeparts. Part one sets out what the Com-mission has already achieved in this field.Part two looks at the social challenge andexamines the risks of declining socialcohesion and the threats to importantcommon goals such as social protectionand high levels of employment. It focuseson rising unemployment and methods ofimproving the Community productionsystem in order to assure its competitive-ness. Opportunities for youth and equal


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opportunities in employment and societyfor women, the disabled, immigrants, therural population and the elderly arestressed. Part three discusses the possi-ble responses of the Union to these chal-lenges, both in terms of what MemberStates want and of what the Communityis trying to achieve. The paper ends witha conclusion and a summary of salientquestions raised. There are also 5 annexesincluding: a summary analysis of exter-nal contributions; a non-exhaustive list oflegislation; the status of initiatives in theaction programme to implement the 1989Social Charter; the European Social dia-logue; a list of programmes, networks andobservatories.

Vocational training in the countries ofCentral and Eastern Europe. Whatcourse of action for the EuropeanCommunity? Symposium proceed-ings, Thessaloniki, 23-24 November1992Commission of the European Communi-ties - Task Force Human Resources, Edu-cation, Training, Youth; The Federationof Greek Industries; the Federation ofIndustry of Northern Greece; The CentralUnion of Chambers of Commerce(Greece); The Assembly of French Cham-bers of Industry and Commerce (ACFCI)Paris, ACFCI, 1993, 79 pagesDE, EN, FR, GR For sale at ACFCI, 45, av.d’Iéna, BP 448, F-75769 Paris Cedex 16

The aim of this symposium was to evalu-ate the assistance in training matters of-fered by the European Community to East-ern European countries in the course ofthe last three years and to identify theconditions for longer-term involvement.The texts of the opening and closingspeeches are published in this report, aswell as a summary of activities involvingthe identification of needs, the evolutionof vocational training systems and theupgrading of human resources within eco-nomic and social development.

PETRA 6. Qualitative aspects of alter-nance based vocational education inPortugal and Denmark.Product report. Second year partner-ship Portugal-Denmark.Houman Sørensen J., Magnussen L.,Novoa A, etc.

Statens Erhvervspædagogiske Lærer-uddannelse; Universidade de Lisboa -Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciencias daeduçãoCopenhagen, 1993,205 pages ENThe Royal Danish School of EducationalStudies for Teachers at Technical andCommercial Colleges (SEL),Rigensgade 13,DK-1316 København K

La formation permanente des travail-leurs: défis et stratégies, le rôle despartenaires sociauxBlanpain R.; Engels C.Instituut voor Arbeidsrecht, KatholiekeUniversiteit Leuven (KUL), Task ForceHuman Resources, FORCEBrugge, Die Keure, 1993, 189 pagesISBN 90-6200-690-6FR

This study on the role of the social part-ners in ongoing vocational training is partof the broader context of analyses car-ried out by the European Community -FORCE programme - on collective wageagreements involving ongoing vocationaltraining in the Member States. This Bel-gian study, based on the overall Europeancontext, examines the extent to whichworker and employer representatives un-dertake joint activities in the area of on-going training for workers; it stresses themore interesting and more innovativeexamples of such activities.

A report on continuing vocationaltraining in Denmark. Force Article11.2Nielsen, S.P.Statens Erhvervspædagogiske Lærerud-dannelse; Commission of the EuropeanCommunities - Task Force Human Re-sources, Education, Training and YouthCopenhagen, 1993, 130 pages; 56 pagesEN (part 1), DA (part 2)The Royal Danish School of EducationalStudies for Teachers at Technical andCommercial Colleges (SEL),Rigensgade 13,DK-1316 København K

In this report prepared by SEL for theCommission as part of the FORCE pro-gramme there is a systematic presentation


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of the Danish system of continuing voca-tional training (CVT). Part one is a na-tional monograph containing a descrip-tion and analysis of the overall system.Part two gives a systematic presentationof new Danish CVT initiatives and activi-ties undertaken during the last couple ofyears. The Danish government has de-cided to double the number of CVT placesavailable between 1994 and 2000. Thenew instruments and measures in DanishCVT policies are discussed in the report.

Comett in Italia. Analisi della parteci-pazione italiana al programma comu-nitarioPitoni I.; Tomassini M.; Scongiaforno C.Istituto per lo sviluppo della formazioneprofessionale dei lavoratori (ISFOL)Milan, Angeli, 1994, 148 pagesISBN 88-204-8108-1IT

This research project provides an evalua-tion of Italian participation in the COMETTCommunity programme, which is dedi-cated to cooperation between universi-ties and industry in terms of technologi-cal training. Experiences gathered fromCOMETT in its seven years of operationconstitute an excellent sample of resultswhich, if analyzed, can provide usefulinformation for new Community direc-tions in the area of training. The text ofthe report aims at showing possibilities,problems and development prospects aris-ing from COMETT activities in the fieldof structures and training products imple-mented. What emerges is a complexframework of the significant results of Ital-ian participation in COMETT.

Esperienze e prospettive di innovazio-ne della formazione professionale.Atti della Conferenza Eurotecnet inItalia (5-6 novembre 1992)Tomassini M.; Nanetti M.; Turrini MIstituto per lo sviluppo della formazioneprofessionale dei lavoratori (ISFOL)Milan, Angeli, 1993, 256 pagesISBN 88-204-8101-4IT

In this work, innovation has the meaninggiven to the term by the conference heldin Rome in the autumn of 1992: not onlya response to the need for change, butabove all the production of new learning

models. The text is divided into two parts:the first consists of the proceedings of theconference, while the second presents alist of monitoring activities for trainingprojects which at the time were part ofthe Italian section of Eurotecnet.

Euroqualification info 1EuroqualificationBrussels, Euroqualification, 1993, 68 pagesDA, DE, EN, ES, FR, GR, IT, NL, PTAvailable free of charge from Euroquali-fication, rue Duquesnoy 38 - Boîte 13,B-1000 Bruxelles

Euroqualification is an initiative of thir-teen national training and vocationalqualification organizations in the twelvecountries of the European Community.The programme was financed jointly forthree years; its objectives are to developthe European dimension of training for6000 trainees in 40 trades and 12 voca-tional areas on the basis of a partnershipbetween enterprises to facilitate workermobility. This document presents the vo-cational areas selected and the partnertraining organizations.

Partenariats européens: les opérateursfrançais dans les programmes com-munautaires de formation profession-nelle. Ouvrage collectifParis, Editions Racine, La Documentationfrançaise, 1993, 158 pagesISBN 2-84108-000-5FR

Transnational projects are an essential toolin the construction of European training.This book analyzes the stakes, the crea-tion, the implementation and the resultsof such partnerships. A second part re-ports on some twenty experiences pre-sented on the basis of the evaluationmatrix developed by Racine (Réseaud’Appui et de capitalisation des innova-tions européennes).

De invloed van het Europees Gemeen-schapsrecht op het onderwijsrecht inde Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Eindrap-port, Deel I: teksten, Deel II: docu-mentenVerbruggen M. Katholieke UniversiteitLeuven (KUL), Faculteit RechtsgeleerdheidLeuven, 1992, 189 pages + annex


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NLKUL - Faculteit Rechtsgeleerdheid,Tiensestraat 41, B-3000 Leuven

This report summarizes the results of anin-depth study on the jurisdiction of theEuropean Community in the field of teach-ing. It then analyzes amendments madeto the Maastricht treaty explicitly givingthe Community areas of jurisdiction con-nected with teaching. Finally it describes:access to education and the place ofteachers within European educationalpolicy. Data on the sources of Europeanlaw and important legislation affectingteaching conclude this report.

Professionalisierung gesundheits- undsozialpflegerischer Berufe - Europa alsImpulse? Zur Qualifikationsentwick-lung in der Human-Dienstleistung.Qualifikationsforschung im Gesund-heits- und SozialwesenBecker W.; Meifort B.Berlin, in: Berichte zur beruflichenBildung (Volume 159) Bundesinstitut fürBerufsbildung (BIBB), 1993, 199 pagesISBN 3-38555-530-1DEBIBB, Fehrbelliner Platz 3,D-10702 Berlin

Two aspects stand out particularly in thechanges affecting professions in healthcare and social work: (1) A change istaking place in the concept of care andin the definition of scientific standards forcare as a science. (2) The Europeanizationof vocational training and vocational de-velopment requires, here as elsewhere,pan-national recognition of vocationalqualifications, which involves freedom ofvocational establishment. This volumedeals with a number of connected issues.From the point of view of a single do-mestic market, it discusses questions ofinitial and ongoing training and its qual-ity, teacher training and qualification re-quirements in health care and social workprofessions.

Leitlinien für die Gemeinschaftsaktionim Bereich allgemeine und beruflicheBildungBonn, in: Drucksache/Deutscher Bundes-tag (12/6437), Deutscher Bundestag, 1993,21 pages

DEDeutscher Bundestag, Bundeshaus -Drucksache, D-53113 Bonn

This report presents the result of a dis-cussion of the guidelines of the EuropeanCommunities Commission for Communityaction in the field of general and voca-tional education in the Committee forEducation and Science of the GermanBundestag. The Committee welcomespan-European development and consid-ers it necessary to evaluate both the posi-tive and negative results of the Europeanaction programme in the educational area.The German Bundestag has thereforeasked that the programme be extendedat least until the end of 1995. The paperincludes the guidelines for Communityaction in the area of general and voca-tional education, a description of actionprogrammes in the area of general andvocational education and the third chap-ter of the European Union Treaty (Educa-tion, vocational training and youth).

Berufliche Weiterbildung in der EG -Impulse und HerausforderungenBundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB)Bielefeld, in: Berufsbildung in Wissen-schaft und Praxis (special publication withVolume 6), W. Bertelsmann Verlag, 1993,24 pagesDEBertelsmann Verlag, Postfach 100633,D-33506 Bielefeld

This special publication of the journal“Berufsbildung in Wissenschaft undPraxis” presents four articles on topicalissues in vocational ongoing training be-fore the backdrop of the political andeconomic tendencies in Europe. Opinionson ongoing training are discussed fromthe point of view of the German states byHamburg’s Senator for School and Voca-tional Education, Rosemarie Raab, andfrom the federal point of view by FritzSchaumann, state secretary in the FederalMinistry for Education and Science. Thecontributions by the General Secretary ofthe Federal Institute for Vocational Edu-cation (BIBB), Hermann Schmidt, and byUwe Grünewald / Edgar Sauter, employ-ees of this institute, present the Europeandimension of ongoing training in the Fed-eral Republic of Germany. These articlesshow that other countries have already


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found accepted solutions to questionswhich are still the subject of heated de-bate in Germany. At the same time, they

describe the systematic difficulties inher-ent to a close comparison of educationalsystems in the European partner countries.

umes, 280 pages + 264 pages + 280 pages+ 495 pagesISBN 2-11-002991-9FR

The new ROME classification reorganizestrades and professions into vocationalfields. It consists of four volumes. Thedictionary of jobs/trades in the servicessector and the dictionary of technical andindustrial jobs/trades include 466 entriesof jobs/trades with details on the contentsof the work, the required competencelevels, the working conditions and theconditions of access to the job/trade. Theaccess key to the ROME directory is thealphabetical index of names, which lists10,000 frequently used names of tradesand jobs. Sections on vocational mobilityoffer guidance and evolution paths.

The National Employment Agency (ANPE)has dedicated number 6 of its journal“Grand Angle” to the genesis, concept andpreparation of this product as well as tothe issues of competence and previsionalmanagement of qualifications. Distrib-uted by ANPE, 4, rue Galilée, F-93198Noisy-le-Grand cedex.

Entreprises et métiers demainOffice national d’information sur lesenseignements et les professions(ONISEP)Conseil national du patronat français(CNPF) Paris, Les dossiers de l’ONISEP,1993, 126 pagesFRONISEP, 50, rue Albert, F-75013 Paris

This document takes stock of the situa-tion and the economic environment ofenterprises, competence levels requiredin the world of employment, the train-ing-employment relationship, prospects ofemployment and training needs at thedawn of the 21st century. Twenty-onevocational sectors, represented by theirprofessional associations, are then dis-

From the Member States

Modernizing without excludingSchwartz B.; Lambrichs L. (Coll.)

Paris, La Découverte, 1994, 245 pagesISBN 2-7071-2301-3FR

On the basis of his long experience, theauthor intends to demonstrate that thereare solutions to the problems of exclu-sion and unemployment. He then analy-ses training programmes against exclusioncarried out in France, such as, for instance,the “Nouvelles Qualif ications” pro-gramme, and reflects on the traps involvedin mechanization.

La bataille de l’apprentissage, uneréponse au chômage des jeunesCambon C.; Butor P.Paris, Descartes, 1993, 194 pagesISBN 2-910301-04-4FR

In spite of the various measures intendedto popularize it, apprenticeship remainslittle known. Through statements from ap-prentices and professionals, the authorsplead for a recognition of the apprentice-ship system as a true training path. Theyrecommend reinforcing and decentraliz-ing the vocational training system in fa-vour of the regions as well as greater in-volvement of local enterprises.

Répertoire Opérationnel des Métierset des Emplois (ROME)Agence Nationale pour l’Emploi (ANPE)La Documentation française, 1993, 4 vol-

F


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cussed, as well as the evolution of tradesand the diplomas giving access to them.

Education and training policies for eco-nomic and social developmentNational Economic and Social Council,NESCDublin, 1993, NESC Report 95ISBN 0-907116-79-5EN

This is a report of some significance foreducation and training policies in Ireland.It analyses the actual and potential roleof education and training, and vocationaleducation in particular, the extent towhich access to education and trainingfor the disadvantaged has widened andequalised over recent decades and therole of higher education. It draws someconclusions on the importance of educa-tion and training for increased productiv-ity and economic performance and makesa brief comparison with Denmark and theNetherlands.

The chemical and alliedproducts industry in Ire-

land, a sectoral study of employmentand training needs to 1997Dublin, the Training and EmploymentAuthority (FAS), 1993, 156 pagesENFAS, 27-33, Upper Baggot Street,IRL-Dublin 4

This study is one of a series of sectoralstudies being undertaken by FAS - TheTraining and Employment Authority. Itspurpose is to gain a deeper understand-ing of the strategic position and futureprospects of Irish industry in the 1990s,particularly in the context of the devel-opment of the Single European Marketand changes in the structures and strate-gies of global industries. An analysis ofthe state of the chemical industry is fol-lowed by identification of likely futuremanpower and training needs and rec-ommendations for the provision or modi-fication of such training by FAS, third leveleducational establishments and other rec-ognised bodies.

Report on the National Education Con-ventionCoolahan J. (ed.) Dublin, National Edu-cation Convention Secretariat, 1994, 244pagesENGovernment Publications, Sun AllianceHouse, Molesworth Street, IRL-Dublin 2

This convention, which was held overnine days in Dublin in October 1993, isthe penultimate stage in a process of con-sultation with all interested parties, whichwill culminate in the publication of aWhite Paper on Education later this year(1994). This will direct the course of Irisheducation into the next century. Amongother recommendations, the Secretariatadvocates that specific targets of reduc-ing inequality should be set as the costsof educational failure in terms of socialwelfare and health costs are so great.There is a need for a rationalisation ofthe accreditation system which takes ac-count of vocational and non-vocationaleducation and of formal and non-formaleducation.

O sistema de aprendiza-gem em Portugal -

Experiéncia de avaliação críticaNeves A. et al. Lisbon, Instituto doEmprego e Formação Profissional (IEFP),1993, 297 pagesISBN 972-732-071-6PT

This study of the Portuguese apprentice-ship system presents: the socio-economicand institutional framework out of whichthe system arose; a brief description ofthe system; its evaluation from the pointof view of its results and objectives; ananalysis of the participatory processesinvolving the enterprises in the pro-gramme; and finally, a number of recom-mendations with the aim of reinforcingthe alternance training system.

Making labour marketswork: Confederation of

British Industry policy reiew of therole of Training and Enterprise Coun-cils and Local Enterprise CompaniesConfederation of British IndustryLondon, 1993EN

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quire local institutional reform and itpresents the case for empowering busi-ness-led local development bodies. De-tailed evaluation is made of each field ofTEC and LEC activity as well as their man-agement, personnel, finance and unitcosts. The book is based on large scaleresearch surveys. It examines TECs andLECs as an attempt to overcome economicsupply-side deficiencies and concludeswith assessments of how gaps in this strat-egy can be overcome, how business linksthrough local “one stop shops” can bedeveloped, and what needs to be doneby government in order to fully empowerbusiness as a local development agent.

The National Curriculum and its As-sessment: Final ReportDearing R.London, Department for Education, 1994ISBN 1-85838-030-8 EN

This influential report, requested by theDepartment for Education, reviews the tennational curriculum subjects in second-ary education and criticises many of theeducational reforms that had been imple-mented over the last few years. It sug-gests what changes need to be made inorder to improve the system and theseinclude the slimming down of the cur-riculum simplifying the testing arrange-ments and improving general administra-tion.

Confederation of British Industry, CentrePoint, 103 New Oxford Street, UK-Lon-don WC1A 1DU

Local empowerment and businessservices: Britain’s experiment withTraining and Enterprise CouncilsBennett R.; Wicks P.; McCoshan A.London, University College, 1993, 352pagesISBN 1-85728-144-6EN

In recent years, training policy in Britainhas been characterized by decentraliza-tion and the development of the TECs(Training and Enterprise Councils) in Eng-land and Wales and LECs (Local Enter-prise Companies) in Scotland. Much hasbeen written on these developments, butthe two publications above are of par-ticular interest.

The CBI report focuses on policy issueswhich the authors think need to be ad-dressed if TECs and LECs are to be giventhe chance to succeed. These includedefining more clearly their mission androle, ensuring their funding, securing theirlocal accountability and reducing their bu-reaucracy. The report makes a number ofrecommendations.

The UCL (University College, London)study is an authoritative account of whythe problems of the British economy re-


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Rev

iew

sOutcomes : NVQs and the EmergingModel of Education and Training.Gilbert JessupLondon, Falmer, 1991

Depending on your point of view, theUnited Kingdom is either the odd manout in Europe or it is leading it into thefuture. Most EU training systems areputting more emphasis on the notion of‘competence’, but the UK is distinctive fori ts whole-hear ted adopt ion of thecompetence-based approach (with thepartial exception of Scotland, where theapproach is similar but less extreme).Gilbert Jessup, now Deputy Director ofthe National Council for VocationalQualifications (NCVQ), is a leadingarchitect and philosopher of this move-ment. I recommend this book to otherEuropeans who want to understand thethinking behind the UK’s approach - andperhaps especially to those who doubt ifthere is any thinking behind it.

As the book’s title suggests, the basic ideais that a training system can be designed,monitored, regulated and funded on thebasis of the outcomes of learning, ratherthat the ‘inputs’ such as the institution,syllabus, duration and mode of learning.Following this principle, one can devisea flexible and coherent system whichbrings together different forms of learningand links education and training. Thereis wide access to learning, certificationand progression. The system is customer-driven rather than provider-driven.

On paper it seems wonderful. But does itwork? In making his case, Jessup makesa number of assumptions.

First, he assumes that we can specify,c lear ly and very precisely , a l l theoutcomes required for competence in anoccupation (or, indeed, for any othereducational purpose). To the extent thatwe cannot, perhaps it is reasonable totrust in ‘inputs’ - for example to rely uponminimum periods of work experience toabsorb the less tangible social skills andknowledge required in a job.

Then there is the assumption that alloutcomes can be perfectly assessed.Jessup has had long debates with his UKcritics over whether assessment under theNCVQ’s system is more accurate than

under traditional systems. But much of thismisses the point: all assessment systemshave weaknesses, but these weaknessesare much more serious in a training systemthat is based upon the accurate specifi-cation and assessment of outcomes.

And there are assumptions about the waythe training system works. For example,Jessup fails to recognise that the credibilityand status of a certificate may be asimportant as the validity of assessment;he takes no account of how certificatesare used in the labour market (often tocompare and select workers, rather thanto indicate competences in detail); andhe ignores the potential for abuse withinan outcomes-led system (for example,when outcome-related funding rewardsassessors for positive assessments, orwhen funders of training use the outcomesapproach as an excuse for under-fundingthe necessary ‘inputs’).

Other critics have focussed on the NCVQsystem as it is implemented, rather thanas presented here in the abstract. Yet themodel has its strengths; could a lessextreme approach, which recognised theimportance of ‘ inputs’ , achieve theadvantages of the outcomes approachwithout its disadvantages? Jessup writeswith clarity as well as enthusiasm. This isa much fuller and more explicit statementthan we usually find of a current policyand the thinking behind it; if we find thephilosophy deficient, we should at leastbe grateful to Jessup for exposing it soclearly.

David RaffeCentr e for Educational Sociology,University of Edinburgh

■ Social competence: the potential forentrepreneurial and personal successWerner G. Faix; Angelika LaierWiesbaden, 1991

The study assumes that currently compa-nies are operating under economic con-ditions which have changed substantially.Success is no longer guaranteed by theuse of modern technology alone; skilledworkers are becoming an increasinglyimportant factor. Against such a back-ground the study attempts to elucidate theconcept of social competence and to show


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interdependencies between individual,labour and the environment. The authorsassume that social skills are closely linkedto the ability to cope with the future. Forthis reason they recommend that greaterattention is paid to such skills through-out life and that these are nurtured bothat school and in working life.

■ On teaching competences in voca-tional trainingGünter PätzoldIn: Rolf Arnold; Antonius Lipsmeier (Ed.):Vocational trainingOpladen, 1994 (in preparation)

■ A Didactic Preliminary Study of aproject-oriented model of basic voca-tional training (in the metal-process-ing sector)Günter Wiemann, et al.2nd edition, Berlin, 1976

This study develops the tools of vocationalcompetences. The three main aspects ofcompetence - specialist competence, so-cial competence and planning compe-tence - have long since been examinedin literature. The study also lays the theo-retical basis for self- and group-control-led learning.

Reinhard Zedler

La formation continueBesnard P.; Liétard B.Paris, PUF (collection Que sais-je?), 1993- 4th edition - 127 pagesISBN 2-13-046015-1FR

L’alternance école-production.Companies and the training of young peo-ple since 1959Monaco A.Paris, PUF (collection L’éducateur), 1993227 pagesISBN 2-13-045737-1FR

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Members of CEDEFOP’s documentarynetwork

BFOREM (Office communautaire et régionalde la formation professionnelle et del’emploi)CIDOC (Centre intercommunautaire dedocumentation pour la formation profe-ssionnelle)M. Jean-Pierre GrandjeanM. Frédéric GeersBd. de l’Empereur 11B-1000 BruxellesTel. 322+5025141

322+5102244Fax 322+5025474

DBIBB (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung)Referat K4Herr Bernd ChristopherHerr Manfred BergmannHerr Klaus-Detlef R. BreuerFehrbelliner Platz 3D-10702 BerlinTel. 4930+86432230

(B. Christopher)4930+86432438(M. Bergmann)4930+86432445(K.-D. Breuer)

Fax 4930+86432607

DKSEL (Sta tens ErhvervspædagogiskeLæreruddannelse)Søren NielsenMerete HeinsRigensgade 13DK-1316 København KTfl. 4533+144114 ext. 317/301Fax 4533+144214

EINEM (Instituto Nacional de Empleo)Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad SocialSra. Carmen Roman RiechmannSra. Maria Luz de las CuevasCondesa de Venadito, 9E-28027 Madridtel. 341+5859582

341+5859580fax 341+3775881

341+3775887

FCentre INFFO (Centre pour le dévelop-pement de l’information sur la formationpermanente)Mme Christine MerllieTour Europe Cedex 07F-92049 Paris la Défensetél. 331+41252222fax 331+47737420

GROEEK (Organizat ion for VocationalEducation and TrainingMs. Catherine GeorgopoulouMs. Evdokia Vardaka-Biniari1, Ilioupoleos Street17236 YmittosGR-AthensTel. 301+9733828Fax 301+9250136

IISFOL (Istituto per lo svilluppo dellaformazione professionale dei lavoratori)Sig. Alfredo TamborliniSig. Colombo ContiVia Morgagni 33I-00161 RomaTel. 396+445901Fax 396+8845883

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UKBACIE (British Association for Commercialand Industrial Education)Mr Basil MurphyMr Simon Rex35, Harbour Exchange SquareUK-London E14 9GETel. 4471+9878989Fax 4471+9879898

IRLFAS - The Training and EmploymentAuthorityMr Roger FoxMs Margaret CareyP.O. Box 45627-33, Upper Baggot StreetIRL-Dublin 4Tel. 3531+6685777Fax 3531+6609093

LChambre des Met iers du G.-D. deLuxembourg2, Circuit de la Foire internationaleM. Ted MathgenB.P. 1604 (Kirchberg)L-1016 Luxembourgtél. 352+4267671fax 352+426787

NLC.I.B.B. (Centrum Innovatie Beroeps-onderwijs Bedrijfsleven)Ms Gerry SpronkPostbus 1585NL-5200 BP ‘s-HertogenboschTel. 3173+124011Fax 3173+123425

PTSICT (Servico de Informação Cientifica eTécnica)Ms Odete Lopes dos Santos, DirectorMs Fatima Hora, documentation Depart-mentPraça de Londres, 2-1_ AndarP-1091 Lisboa Codextel. 3511+8496628fax 3511+806171

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