Learning for careers: The career pathways movement in the United States

by Nancy Hoffman, Senior Advisor, Jobs for the Future
Bob Schwartz, Senior Research Fellow, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Over the last generation, it has become clear that something has gone awry in how the United States prepares its young people for life. In spite of millions of young people pursuing university education, fewer than one in three young Americans successfully attain a bachelor’s degree, while millions of good middle-skills jobs go begging because of our failure to build programs to equip young people with the skills and credentials to fill them. In a climate of “university for all” only 20% of young Americans enrol in career and technical education programs, the US version of Vocational Education and Training. This struck us as both a problem and an opportunity crying out for a public policy response.

So when the opportunity arose to come to the OECD for three months in 2010 to participate in the last phase of the landmark Learning for Jobs study, we took leave from our respective jobs (Nancy, at Jobs for the Future, a national NGO; Bob, at Harvard Graduate School of Education) and headed to Paris. We had already had the privilege of working as experts on country reviews for OECD, and knew this would give us the opportunity to go deeper into how school-based VET operated around the world and in particular in northern European countries like Germany, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Learning for Jobs highlighted the essential characteristics of school-based VET. Little did we know, however, that our decision to get involved would lead two years later to the creation of a national network of U.S. states and regions committed to reshaping vocational education and training in the US. We have chronicled the first five years of the Pathways to Prosperity Network in our book, Learning for Careers, published in October 2017 by the Harvard Education Press.

Back at Harvard, in 2011 Bob fed the big lessons from Learning for Jobs into a new report, Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century. The Pathways report generated such strong interest among states that we invited a handful of states to come together in a mostly self-funded network based at JFF to act on the findings and recommendations in the report. Fast forward to 2017. The JFF Pathways team of 12 now works with 14 states and about 60 economic regions within those states to build pathways systems. A major initiative funded by JP Morgan Chase and led by the organization of chief school officers (state ministers) entitled, “New Skills for Youth,” is also strengthening states’ capacity to build career pathways, and myriad promising regional initiatives are underway to infuse greater career information and experience into the high school experience. Examples of Delaware and Tennessee’s pathways development and progress to date can be found here and here as well as in our book.

Most of the new initiatives, while inspired especially by the German and Swiss dual systems, do not now resemble these – and most likely never will. Nonetheless, some lessons from the best systems do influence the strategies states are implementing. Learning for Careers identifies three characteristics of strong European VET that can be translated into the US educational, economic, and cultural context:

• youth in VET take on adult responsibility in workplaces and demonstrate both maturity and technical skill - active learning outside of classrooms meets the developmental needs of adolescents to take “safe” risks, to be challenged, and to test out behaviour in an intergenerational setting; 

• employers act willingly in their self-interest and as partners to the state in building a pipeline of young professionals - employers willingly mentor young people as a social responsibility and as a contribution to social cohesion; and, 

• VET has a secret glue in the employer associations and chambers that aggregate employer need and train for a sector, not for a specific company - such sector organizations can play this role because of a common qualifications system which specifies competencies, behaviours, and knowledge required. (Non-governmental groups in the U.S. are haltingly attempting to build a qualifications system.)

If a European VET aficionado were to visit Delaware, Minnesota, Ohio, or Tennessee, she would see high schools and their tertiary partners building pathways in such fields as tech, advanced manufacturing, and healthcare and NGOs urging employers to open their doors to 16 and 17-year-old apprentices and interns. And perhaps most important, she would hear a difficult conversation about inequality and economic mobility. Our argument is that if through our Network we can enable many more low-income youth to enter the labor market equipped with the technical expertise, professional behaviors, and social networks now enjoyed primarily by children of privilege, we can put them on a path to economic mobility – a benefit for them, their families, and society at large.

Links
OECD Policy Reviews of Vocational Education and Training (VET) - Learning for Jobs
Learning for Careers - The Pathways to Prosperity Network

Join our OECD Teacher Community on Edmodo

Photo credit: @Shutterstock 

Why it matters if you can't read this

by Tanja Bastianic
Statistician, Directorate for Education and Skills 

Adults who lack basic skills – literacy and numeracy – are penalised both in professional and private life. They are more likely to be unemployed or in precarious jobs, earn lower wages, have more health issues, trust others less, and engage less often in community life and democratic processes.

Basic skills are not complicated. What we measure in the OECD Survey of Adult Skills is the ability to process the information needed to perform everyday tasks – to read the instructions on a bottle of aspirin or to know how many litres of petrol are needed to fill the tank.

In Australia, around three million working-age adults – one in five – currently have low basic skills and are living with the consequences. And if Australia doesn’t tackle this problem, it risks being left behind by countries investing more successfully in the skills of their people, especially in a world where work is undergoing a rapid technology-driven change and people have to adapt to new circumstances (See figure).

Many Australians with low levels of education have low skills – this comes as no surprise, as they often quit education at an early stage. Perhaps more surprising is that a higher level qualification doesn’t guarantee advanced basic skills. The OECD study published today, Building Skills for All in Australia: Policy Insights from the Survey of Adult Skills shows that 17% of Australians with a vocational Certificate IV, Advanced Diploma or Associate Degree still have low levels of basic skills. 

Australia’s post-secondary VET (Vocational Education and Training) system is inclusive and caters to adults with different needs, including those with poor basic skills.  This is a real asset to the Australian education sector. But the OECD argues that providers of post-secondary VET could do more to help those students with poor basic skills.

The study also highlights specific weaknesses in the numeric skills of young women in Australia, indicating that far greater attention should be devoted to ensuring that young women participate fully within Australia’s wider efforts to strengthen mathematics within secondary education. Opportunity exists, moreover, to better support young people who are Not in Education, Employment or Training (the NEETs) to reengage in learning whether through the development of pre-apprenticeship provision or access to better childcare for young mothers.

The OECD Australia review follows a number of similar studies on low basic skills conducted in the United States, England, and Finland. The OECD’s work on adult learning and skills is designed to help countries identify where skills-related challenges arise among adults, and then offer them an opportunity to redirect their skills policies and investments. The review of Australia is part of this work.  

Helping adults to improve their basic skills remains a challenge nearly everywhere and there are no easy answers. But the alternative – of doing nothing – is even worse. So each of these studies help us all understand the challenges better and offer a menu of interventions to help countries tackle the issue. 

Links

To read the report, visit Building Skills for All in Australia: Policy Insights from the Survey of Adult Skills

To read a literature review about the problem of low basic skills, visit Adults with Low Literacy and Numeracy Skills: A Literature Review on Policy Intervention

Figure: Share of adults with low basic skills (literacy and/or numeracy level at or below 2)

Photo credit: @Shutterstock 

How education can spur progress towards inclusive growth

by Andreas Schleicher
Director, Directorate for Education and Skills

Costa Rica is recognised across Latin America as a leader in education. The country was among the first in the region to enrol all children in primary school and combat adult illiteracy. Today, one in two young adults has completed secondary education, up from one in three among their parents’ generation. But, the demands placed on the skills of people have evolved as well. The overall context has become more challenging too: Economic growth has slowed, inequality is rising and productivity is weak in a labour market that shows a growing divide between a well-paid, high-skilled sector and a precarious informal economy. The OECD report, Education in Costa Rica, looks at how education can help Costa Rica turn these negative trends around.

The first step is to build strong foundations. Pre-primary education has become nearly universal in most OECD countries; but in Costa Rica, only 63% of children benefit from two years of preschool, and very few children under three have access to any form of early care and education. Strong, sustained support to promising initiatives, such as the new policy framework for early childhood and the preschool curriculum, will ensure that more children start school with the socio-emotional and cognitive skills that they need to learn. More flexible community-based services can accelerate the expansion of early education into rural areas.

The quality of education can never exceed the quality of teachers. Costa Rica is working towards ensuring minimum standards in the teaching profession by requiring private universities to accredit initial teaching degrees. The challenge  now is to advance from recruiting those candidates with the greatest potential for effective teaching towards promoting continuous professional development through regular feedback and more opportunities for peer learning within and across schools.

If all students are to complete at least secondary school, then the content, structure and certification of learning at this level need to respond to an increasingly diverse student population. Nearly one in three 15-year-olds is not in school, and among those who are, another one in three lacks core competencies in science, reading and mathematics. The programme Yo me Apunto, which allocates more resources to disadvantaged schools to prevent students from dropping out, should be supported and combined with an expansion of vocational courses and alternative forms of certification to help more students make a smooth transition from school to employment.

Costa Rica’s tertiary sector also has an important role to play  in fostering inclusive growth. Just one in ten students from a disadvantaged background makes it to university, and only 12% of tertiary programmes have been accredited. It is time for Costa Rica to embrace comprehensive reform of the governance, funding and quality-assurance systems of both private and public universities to respond to changing social and economic needs. This, in turn, requires much better data on tertiary performance so that students can make informed choices about their future, and institutions can be held accountable for meeting their own and their country’s objectives.

Costa Rica is rightly admired for making education the cornerstone of its development. It invests 7.6% of its GDP in education – a larger share than that of any OECD country. But those resources need to be invested strategically. If it does so, Costa Rica will be able to spur more inclusive growth and build on its remarkable achievements in human development and well-being.

Links
Reviews of National Policies for Education: Education in Costa Rica
Brochure: Education in Costa Rica, Highlights 2017 (English) and (Spanish)
Press release: Costa Rica should ensure that all children have access to quality education (English) and (Spanish)
Slides: Avances y desafíos de la educación en Costa Rica: una perspectiva internacional (Spanish)

Photo credit: MEP (Ministerio de Educación Pública)

Discover your talent!

by Deborah Roseveare
Head of the Skills Beyond School Division, Directorate for Education and Skills

Last night I got a taxi home and as often happens, the driver and I got chatting. Then he asked me a rather strange question – “Do you like the smell in my car?” Well, I have to say the smell was a very subtle one but it led to a fascinating conversation. 

With some pride, he told me that he was trying out a new product for cleaning car interiors developed by a friend of his. His friend already had his own business selling these products and then came the big surprise – this friend is only 17 years old. But isn’t he still in school? I asked. Yes of course, he was doing a professional baccalaureate (a vocational programme here in France).

This talented young man, who was smart enough to have skipped a class in primary school, had a passion for chemistry and had been doing experiments – more or less successfully -- in his mother’s kitchen from a young age. So why had he chosen a professional baccalaureate? Apparently, he wanted hands-on learning, get practical experience and develop the skills that would help him succeed in his business ventures.

It’s not often that a taxi gets me home too quickly, but I ran out of time to ask more questions. It’s always great to hear stories about young people discovering their talent, finding an education pathway that supports them in following their passion and gaining the skills to succeed in life. So I’m looking forward to hearing many more success stories that show young people and adults how you too can “discover your talent!” during European Vocational Skills Week 2016, which runs from 5-9 December 2016. 

Why focus on vocational skills? In a changing and more competitive job market, Vocational Education and Training (VET) delivers specific skills and knowledge for the jobs of today and tomorrow, leading to great careers and good life prospects. Pursuing VET can lead to quality employment, an entrepreneurial mind-set, attractive and challenging careers, and opportunities for continuous upskilling and reskilling.

Sometime in the coming years I expect to hear about a successful young entrepreneur putting innovative cleaning products on supermarket shelves and I’ll remember how vocational education and training helped him discover and develop his talent and gave him the skills to succeed.
   
Links:
European Vocational Skills Week 2016
OECD Policy Reviews of Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Adult Learning 
Twitter hashtags: #EUVocationalSkills #discoveryourtalent
Photo credit: © European Commission

Time, working and learning

by Viktoria Kis
Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills

Seven years is the right length for apprenticeships – thought Queen Elizabeth I of England as she lifted her feather to sign the Statute of Apprentices in 1563. Seven years would ensure that everyone benefits: apprentices would receive good training and masters would gain from their apprentices’ labour – although it must be admitted that back then, many apprentices died before finishing their training or ran away from masters who starved them.

Today policy makers, employer and employee representatives have different considerations in mind, but the dynamics of costs and benefits matter just as much. Those dynamics need to be built into the design of apprenticeships and other work-based learning to make it attractive to both employers and learners. A new OECD study funded by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, entitled Work, train, win: Work-based learning design and management for productivity gains casts a spotlight on these issues.

At the beginning of work-based learning programmes employers make an investment. This pays off later on when, after receiving high quality training, skilled trainees achieve higher productivity and contribute to production. That final period when trainees are more productive than they cost is essential, as it helps employers recoup their initial costs. But if it is too long, then trainees will find it unattractive. Of course, not all occupations are the same. For example an apprentice in retail can quickly become productive so a work-based learning scheme for this occupation should be shorter, while a person training to be an industrial mechanic typically needs more time to become competent at their job and longer duration would be appropriate.

What exactly trainees do while in the workplace also affects the balance of costs and benefits for both parties. A restaurant benefits both when an apprentice cook peels potatoes (unskilled work) and when they bake a soufflé (skilled work), but gains no immediate benefits when the would-be cook is doing practice exercises that are non-productive, even though they are developing their skills. The good news is that there is often room to build learning into productive work, in ways that benefit the firms and are neutral for the trainees. For example, after observing their supervisor a trainee might practice the skill either through simulations or by doing real work. They improve their skills either way, but doing real work also generates benefits for the firm. Indeed research found that German firms with apprentices reduced the share of non-productive activities by half between 2000 and 2007, and increased the share of productive work – and they did that while maintaining training quality.

The scope for learning through productive work does vary across occupations. An apprentice cook can have a go at their first beurre blanc on day one, but a would-be electrician must undertake substantial training before touching the wires. But whenever possible, learning should take place as part of productive activities and rigorous assessments at the end of the scheme can verify that learning has taken place – if an apprentice electrician is able to correctly install a branch circuit in front of an examiner, there will be no doubt about it.

Putting this into practice requires management capacity within firms, so that they can allocate trainees and supervisors to tasks that meet the twin goals of learning and production. In countries and sectors with a tradition of work-based learning firms have much tacit knowledge (as many employers used to be apprentices themselves) and there is a surrounding infrastructure, such as training for trainers and instructional resources. Developing the infrastructure and enhancing firms’ ability to manage work-based learning is a big job, but well worth the effort and not just for those involved in a work-based learning scheme. Keeping a workplace up-to-date means dealing with new machines, materials and software, so firms that know how to support learning while getting on with productive activities will have a competitive edge.

When Queen Elizabeth I put down her feather, the law she signed remained in place for 250 years. Today policy and practice regarding work-based learning changes much more rapidly – but the main challenge of getting the design of work-based learning schemes right remains just as important as it was in her day.

Links:
OECD Education Working Paper: Work, train, win: work-based learning design and management for productivity gains, by Viktoria Kis
Find out more about Work-based learning
Photo credit: Vector freehand linear monochrome drawing of ancient pen and inkwell @Shutterstock