The Governments Influence on Training and Development - Case Study Example

Running Head: The Governments influence on training and development The Governments influence on training and development and critical comparisons [Name of writer] [Name of institution] The Governments influence on training and development and critical comparisons A common conclusion drawn in international comparisons of vocational education and training (VET) programmes is that the British system falls some way short of the models operating in Germany, France, Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe (Skilbeck et al., 1994; Avis et al., 1996). Central to such unfavourable comparisons is the particular route of VET reform taken in this country following the establishment of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) in 1986 (Marks, 1996; Gokulsing et al., 1996). As long ago as 1989, Jarvis and Prais's comparison of training and qualifications in France and Britain accused the NCVQ approach of being far too 'narrowly job-specific' and warned that the 'exclusion of externally marked written tests of technical knowledge and of general educational subjects' would lead to a 'section of the workforce inhibited in job flexibility, and inhibited in the possibilities of progression' (Jarvis & Prais, 1989, p. 70). Smithers (1993) and Green (1995) have outlined similar critiques based on international comparisons and, more recently, Prais (1995) has pointed to the inadequacy of reforms in the National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) system arguing that external testing of the individual candidate to ensure reliability and marketability of the qualification, breadth of vocational field to promote flexibility, written components of examinations to encourage mastery of general principles--are all now less adequate in Britain following NCVQ reforms than they used to be, and are far from accepted Continental procedures. (pp. 105-106). Although the NCVQ is now defunct--having been subsumed under the new overarching Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) in October 1997 (Department for Education and Employment, 1997)--its agenda established through the promotion of NVQs is still very much alive and continues to influence policy and practice. Indeed, at a time when our VET and qualifications system is undergoing radical structural reform following a number of critical reports, NVQs are, incredibly enough, being exported elsewhere (Educa, 1997a; Carvel, 1997). Just as we imported from the USA competence-based education and training (CBET) as a model for NVQs (Hyland, 1994a, b) in the 1980s and the idea of private industry councils as a blueprint for Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) in the 1990s (Evans, 1992) at a time when they were failing and being abandoned in their country of origin, so Britain is currently trying to sell a failed and discredited NVQ system to unsuspecting overseas countries. It is important that such activities are challenged and criticised both in the interests of professional ethics in VET practice and, perhaps more significantly, in accordance with the spirit of the United Nations quest for harmony in international relations. At an international conference held in London in November 1997 the British Council--through its agency British Training International and with Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) approval--was openly and unashamedly seeking to sell the NVQ system to countries from all over the world. Speaking in support of this project, the Education and Employment Secretary, David Blunkett, referred to NVQs as 'one of Britain's best kept secrets' (Carvel, 1997, p. 13). This was a rather unfortunate and ironic choice of words by Mr Blunkett since the actual position is that the 'best kept secret' about NVQs--at least until relatively recently--has been the fact that they have failed, comprehensively and spectacularly, to achieve any of the objectives set for them. As a way of challenging the idea of NVQ exports, it is worth highlighting some of the main weaknesses and shortcomings of the system. The chief critical studies can be usefully characterised under the following headings: (a) NVQ weaknesses; (b) industry/employer involvement; and (c) assessment anomalies NVQ Weaknesses As mentioned earlier, the failings of CBET as a model for developing vocational training and qualifications have been apparent since the late 1980s (Hyland, 1994a, b) though--largely because of a generous NCVQ marketing budget, a captive market guaranteed by tax concessions and state-controlled funding mechanisms (Field, 1995; Hyland, 1996), and a public relations machine supported by carefully selected research consultants (Smithers, 1993, 1996)--it is only in the last 5 years or so that the full extent of NVQ shortcomings and anomalies has been revealed by independent researchers (Marks, 1996). The CBET functional analysis system which forms a basis for NVQs is conceptually confused, epistemologically ambiguous and based on largely discredited behaviourist learning principles (Hyland, 1994a, b; Barnett, 1994). Not only have NVQs failed to achieve any of the objectives originally set for them in terms of the needs of employers, students, trainees, and VET programmes and staff, they have also managed to devalue vocational studies and qualifications by seeking to popularise an approach to learning outcomes which is 'normally inappropriate to the description of human action or to the facilitation of the training of human beings' (Ashworth, 1992, p. 16). The replacement of traditional VET programmes with NVQs has led to widespread deskilling, a loss of significant theoretical content and a systematic narrowing and delimiting of vocational focus in fields such as construction (Callender, 1992), plumbing and electrical installation (Smithers, 1993), and in hairdressing, catering and business studies (Hyland & Weller, 1994). Raggatt's (1994) survey of a wide range of NVQs offered in further education (FE) colleges concluded that staff considered the approach to be far too 'minimalist' with a content which was 'too narrow, concerned only with the performance of simple tasks' (p. 66). Concerns over standards of NVQs in the FE sector have been a cause for concern since the introduction of regular monitoring of institutions by the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC, 1994). A recent FEFC report on vocational qualifications standards--in addition to observing that vocational students in England spend an average of 19 hours a week on programmes as opposed to 30 or 40 hours for their Continental counterparts--noted continuing concerns 'over the effectiveness of quality assurance procedures, with particular concerns about the clarity of the standards on which NVQs are based' (Educa, 1997b, p. 2). The major Beaumont review (1996) of NVQs--in spite of the fact that it was accused by one of its more critical members, Alan Smithers, of spin-doctoring and soft-pedalling in order to hide fundamental problems and inconsistencies (Smithers, 1996)--still could not disguise the fact that 'there was a lack of clarity about who [NVQs] are aimed at or what they relate to' and that the 'existence of concerns about consistency is enough in itself to threaten the credibility of NVQs' (Beaumont, 1996, 2, pp. 36, 38). More importantly, the many problems and anomalies subsumed under the innocuous and superficial label of 'language' problems in Beaumont, were for the most part not superficial but quite serious defects and difficulties inherent in the CBET model of functional analysis and its behaviourist learning foundation (Hyland, 1996, 1997). The failure of the NCVQ system to bridge the so-called 'skills gap' (Ward, 1996, p. 17) or to supply urgent skill needs and shortages at intermediate craft and technician level is well illustrated in the two major VET innovations of recent years--Training Credits and Modem Apprenticeships--which have both suffered as a result of being linked via funding mechanisms to NVQ outputs. As Hodkinson et al. (1996) report, although Training Credits can be used to good effect in the interests of trainees and employers, the demands of specific occupational NVQs to which training regimes are rigidly tied do not generally match trainee/employer requirements, and often serve to distort and frustrate individual training plans. The Ernst & Young (1995) evaluation of the first year of Modern Apprenticeships revealed similar NVQ shortcomings. One of the main problems of convincing employers of the benefits of being involved in the schemes, noted the researchers, was the difficulty of having to 'convince them of the benefits of NVQs' (p. 11). Moreover, a recent FEFC survey (Further Education Funding Council, 1997) which reported that students on FEFC-funded courses were studying for 5.5 million qualifications indicated that, though it is estimated that 50% of all NVQs are awarded in FEFC institutions, the current take-up of NVQs was a derisory 7%. Industry/Employer Involvement A large number of surveys have indicated that employers--who are supposed to be the key players in the NCVQ system--are largely indifferent to, or ignorant about, the nature and purpose of NVQs (Hyland, 1994a; Gokulsing et al., 1996). In spite of all the publicity campaigns and generous increases in the marketing and publicity budget over the years (Targett, 1995), it appears that very little progress has been made in this area. The national survey of NVQs by the FEFC in 1994 revealed a 'widespread lack of knowledge about NVQs--particularly in small firms--and an unwillingness on the part of many of them to become involved in workplace training and assessment' (Further Education Funding Council, 1994, p. 22). More damning still was the study by the Institute of Employment Studies (IES, 1995) which indicated that, even though awareness of NVQs had increased over recent years, employers were still not convinced of their value to the workforce. As Smithers (1996) commented, the 'more employers know about NVQs the less they like them' (p. 2). There is, in fact, little evidence to support the NCVQ/DfEE rhetoric about the 'employer-led' nature of NVQs. The occupational standards tend to be devised by NCVQ-selected private consultancies (Stewart & Sambrook, 1995), and the so-called employer representatives on Industry Lead Bodies for NVQs tend to be made up of training and personnel managers and a 'wide sprinkling of consultants, some of whom have a long history of involvement in the Employment Dept and its quangos' (Field, 1995, p. 37). The mismatch between standards prescribed by Lead Bodies and industrial/vocational needs can be traced to this lack of representation--on the part of industrialists as well as VET tutors and trainers, employees and trainees (Stewart & Sambrook, 1995)--and is now finally being remedied with the replacement of the 180 lead bodies by 60-70 National Training Organisations (Twining, 1998). As mentioned earlier, comparisons between different occupational groups in terms of skill requirements in Britain, France and Germany (Prais, 1995; Green, 1995) have shown that NVQs are too narrow in scope and too concerned with low-level, task-based activities to raise the general level of workforce skills. Of all the NVQ certificates awarded up to the end of 1996, over 80% were at Levels 1 and 2 (Skills & Enterprise Network, 1997) and mainly in areas such as business studies, hairdressing and catering, where there has been an adequate labour supply for years. In fact, as Field (1995) has noted, most NVQs relate to skill areas with 'little or no connection with the manufacturing industry' and, thus, 'NVQs' contribution towards the identified shortages of intermediate skills, especially in technician and engineering occupations, is negligible' (pp. 34-35). Not only are NVQs failing to meet employment and industrial needs in terms of remedying skill shortages, they have been shown to be constitutionally incapable of enhancing VET in leading occupational sectors. Studies indicating employers' rejection of the NCVQ model as a training strategy (Ward, 1995a; Robinson, 1996) are reinforced by the growing number of companies who were initially tempted by the superficial attractions of NVQs--British Home Stores, Burtons (Merrick, 1994) and the Conran catering group (Ward, 1995b)--but have now abandoned this approach and devised their own training schemes. In the small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) sector the failure of national training strategies has been well documented (Storey, 1994) and is reflected in the relatively modest goals for firms in this sector in the revised National Targets for Education and Training (National Advisory Council for Education and Training Targets, 1995). SMEs account for around 90% of all firms in Britain and 35% of the total workforce (Dyson, 1990), so it is not surprising that successive governments have actively sought to involve SMEs in national VET campaigns (Corney, 1997). The recently launched University for Industry (UfI) blueprint, for example, is informed and guided by the recognition that the failure of successive governments to convince small employers of the need to ensure continuing education and training for their workforce has been the biggest obstacle to efforts to keep Britain internationally competitive. (Nash, 1997a, p. 29). Similarly, Hillman (1997), author of the UfI template document, complains about the fact that, after two decades of schemes and initiatives costing billions of pounds, it remains the case that 'in general, small firms are much less likely either to provide training or to have a training plan' (p. 10). Our research at Warwick on SMEs in the West Midlands region (Hyland & Matlay, 1997; Matlay & Hyland, 1997) between 1995 and 1997 confirmed these pessimistic observations. The study--involving a telephone survey of almost 2000 SME owner/managers followed by 74 in-depth interviews--revealed a 'paradox of training', in that there was a radical mismatch between the (generally positive and favourable) attitudes to managers and their corresponding lack of effort in providing training for their employees. Significant factors influencing this take-up of training included the cost of training, the quality of owner-managers 'incubator' experience of VET and the perceived links between training schemes available (overwhelmingly NVQ schemes) and the specific SME skill requirements. In all of these areas, the dominance of NVQ schemes has been negative and retrogressive. A 1996 survey by the Association of Colleges (TES, 1996) indicated that the cost of work-based NVQs is already far higher than college-based routes, and it is highly unlikely that SMEs could bear any increased costs arising from strategies designed to address the weaknesses and anomalies revealed in the critical surveys. Moreover, whereas Beaumont (1996,p. 37) reported that 90% of firms would give credence only to NVQs awarded by other employers (rather than by colleges or private trainers), only around 25% of NVQs have been awarded via this route (Department for Education and Employment, 1995). In terms of owner/managers' perceptions of VET and training schemes, this negative combination of high cost and failure to supply specific skills needs has been magnified in recent years by the increasing evidence of assessment anomalies, fraud and corruption endemic in the NVQ system (discussed in (c) below). Taken together, these factors may account for the appallingly low take-up of NVQs by the SMEs surveyed in our study, findings which served to reinforce those of other studies in the field (Further Education Funding Council, 1994; Institute of Employment Studies, 1995; Robinson, 1996). Especially worrying for those in the DfEE and the QCA concerned with vocational programmes were the figures for NVQ take-up in the large group of micro-firms (Band code A-B) in which only 0.56% and 0.96% of owner/managers had seen any merit in adopting the schemes. If we add these figures to the low NVQ take-up of all firms nationally--no more than 2-3% of the total workforce according to Robinson's (1996) analysis of the Labour Force Survey--the recent announcements about a shake-up and radical restructuring of NVQs under the QCA come not a moment too soon. Critical Comparisons: UK, France and Germany Human Capital is the stock of enterprise accumulated by a worker to enhance future productivity. In order to create this, investment is needed in education and training. A broad interpretation of human capital can be taken by including improvements in nutrition, health and housing as contributing factors in increasing human capital. In economic jargon it is said, spending to increase the stock of human capital should be viewed as investment and not as consumption demand. In terms of analysing the benefits in investing in human capital, the costs of this have to be taken in to consideration through direct costs of paying for tuition fees but also indirect costs of delaying paid employment for extra years in education. Generally, the human capital theory, delivers economic benefits to the individuals through higher wages therefore groups of individuals (the nations) should be also able to see the effects. Young healthy people without higher education can work hard and earn good money but cannot look forward to steadily rising wages. On average by the age of 30, their wages will have peaked. Whereas the higher educated individuals start at wages only slightly above the unqualified but face rising incomes over their life due to experience in the field. Compared to countries such as Japan and Germany, the UK has a poor record with both education and training. For example recent studies have shown the UK in secondary education maths are behind other countries such as a year behind Holland, Belgium and France and 2 years behind Japan. Also recent research has shown an extra two years in school i.e. A levels does not add much to the lifetime earnings as those leaving school at 16. Showing at only 6% higher. These are some of the reasons why government intervention is needed. It also has been identified that drop out rates among poorer students is a lot higher. For example 4 out of 10 at the University of London drop out compared to 1 out of 100 at Oxbridge. (The guardian, 10 Sept 2001). This reinforces that people from less well off backgrounds may have family obligations and less confident in delaying paid employment. It is felt that the UK, due to this a change in attitude towards technical and other work related subjects such as GNVQS Youth Training programmes may need to be valued more. It has been suggested that the remedy for improving the quality and status of such courses lies within the institutions that provide them. The expansion of education is something that has developed over the last 200 years. In the UK, elementary education did not become compulsory until 1870 and very limited free education was available in 1907. Not until 1944 universal free secondary education was available to everyone. Like all governments, the UK has become increasingly fixed on education and is spending more and more money in all areas of education. By 2001, education spending by the public sector reached £50 billion. It is level with the NHS but a lot more than on defence and law and order combined. From Japans economic success, the French government have taken on board the correlation between education and growth their success by observing the Japanese high school graduation rate. Compared to countries such as Japan and Germany, the UK has a poor record with both education and training. For example recent studies have shown the UK in secondary education maths are behind other countries such as a year behind Holland, Belgium and France and 2 years behind Japan. With the UKs technological advances over the years, physical capital cannot be a stand-alone factor but also involve investment from human capital. For example the research carried out by the NIESR by looking at the main differences between Britain and in Continental Europe in industrial machines found no differences in the quality of machinery being used but with the maintenance. The vocationally trained on the continenet was more routine and breakdowns were rare whereas in the UK breakdowns were frequent and accepted part of British industrial life. It would mean that mechanics would need to be called on and flow of work would not make delivery dates creating poor export performance. Education is needed to create higher skilled jobs without are relatively routine jobs which can be mastered quickly decreasing worker productivity. Therefore a highly skilled workforce enables firms to make rapid adjustments to the organistraion of their production so as to produce quality products geared to the needs of the variety of specialised markets. References ASHWORTH, P.D. (1992) Being competent and having 'competencies', Journal of Further & Higher Education, 16(3), pp. 8-17. AVIS, J., BLOOMER, M., ESLAND, G., GLEESON, D. & HODKINSON, P. (1996) Knowledge and Nationhood (London, Cassell). BARNETT, R. 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