Transcript Ensuring HRD Services Respond to Informal Sector Demand and

Approaches to Developing
Demand-based TVET
Frameworks for the
Informal Sector
Presentation by
Ray Powell
26 August 2010
A premise
• Over-reliance on – foreign remittances,
donors, the development of new capital
intensive (but not employment
generating) industries in the formal
sector can create the conditions in
many developing economies for ‘jobless
growth’
• There are no easy answers but perhaps
one possible solution lies in stimulating
and growing the informal sector
A premise
Stimulating growth in the informal economy
can • result in a growth in the demand for labour;
• be a catalyst to a transition from the
informal to the formal economy; from
subsistence to mixed subsistence (a cash
crop) to simple processing;
• result in a demand for training
Defining the informal sector...
• Own account or family workers
• Low formal education; functional illiteracy
• Irregular work; income and production is
rarely taxed
• Operates in both rural and urban contexts
• Remittances from the formal sector a key
source of financial input to the informal
sector
Defining the informal sector...
• Most participants claim to “just get by”
• Productive output is rarely measured so its
economic contribution is under-valued
• The workforce is not ‘organised’ and often
preyed upon and exploited
• Growth is constrained by inability to access
credit; to upgrade skills; and to organise
• No formal recognition for their skill sets
Key sectoral informants…
• are different from those in the formal
sector;
• generally reside and mix in the same
community but have a capacity to see the
‘bigger picture’;
• could be traditional or elected community
leaders; church leaders; leaders in
sporting clubs, women’s groups, farmers’
groups; teachers; extension officers;
and workers in NGOs etc
Obtaining data on labour
& training demand…
• is a painstaking process that requires
establishing trust
• needs to be structured but not overly
bureaucratic (re language)
• needs to be accompanied by trained
and astute observation
• Needs to be regularised
Informal sector challenges
in governance
At whole of government level:
• No government can ‘take over’ the
informal economy. Overall conditions for
growth must be present for stimulation of
the informal sector to be successful. It can
be as difficult to stimulate as many have
found to close it down.
• In fact, governments have begun to realise
that to stimulate the informal sector,
more can be achieved by doing less.
Challenges in governance
• Why? Because frequently a policy intent
to ‘stimulate’ somehow becomes
transformed into an effort to regulate.
• Or a well-intentioned policy to regulate
– e.g. to protect all consumers – is
framed on the basis that “one size fits
all” inadvertently disenfranchising the
informal sector
Challenges in governance
At the vocational training system level:
• Modern demand-based TVET systems
prescribe a Quality Assurance model
predicated on the premise that graduate
output will be seeking employment in the
formal sector, hence the paramount role
that major employers are required to play
in the quality assurance process
• Its relevance to the informal sector is
questionable
A demand-based framework
for governance
At whole of government level:
• Governments should perhaps be simply
trying to put in place supportive, growth
facilitating policies across the entire
economy, recognising that often the
businesses they now see operating in the
formal economy had their roots in informal
economic activities.
• E.g., policies which emphasise financial
inclusion for the informal sector
A demand-based framework
for governance
At the vocational training system level:
• For training providers at the local level,
compliance with the same QA prescriptions
as those for national institutions offering
national and sometimes international
qualifications would result in them closing
down.
• The answer may lie in a two-tiered system
of training provider registration and
qualifications
Informal sector challenges
in training delivery
• Too often training design for the informal
sector is characterized by the same rigidity
and inflexibility as found in the formal
system.
• It is designed around - the availability of teachers & formal
training facilities
- a ‘schooling model’ of program content,
sequencing, entry requirements, and
delivery.
Challenges in training
delivery
• It fails in its design to recognise trainees as
adults
• It fails to recognise that trainees often bring
with them a set of negative conceptions
learned from past unsuccessful experiences
in institutionalised education and training
• The teachers are rarely trained in adult
learning approaches.
• There is rarely an appropriate means for
recognising attainment
A demand-based framework
for informal sector training
• Participants are adult learners - they come
to training of their own volition, with
special needs, and require a problemsolving approach.
• Training needs to be short-term, intensive,
focused on the ‘problem’ they are trying to
solve, with flexible delivery arrangements,
and equitable, open access
A demand-based framework
for informal sector training
• It is often best delivered in an appropriate
workplace by relevant practitioners and is
focused on the attainment of those
competencies that they consider they want
or need.
• It should be assessed against standards
that are relevant to the workplace in which
they will practise the skills
• Attainment must be recognised
Challenges for financing
training in the informal
sector
• The inflexibility of government financial
regulations (financial delegations, approval
and accountability provisions) result in - difficulty in being able to get money quickly
and efficiently to the point of demand; &
- difficulty and reluctance to countenance
direct cash transfers to the private sector
and NGOs
Challenges for financing
training
• Compounded by the lack of knowledge of
government financial regulations by
potential training providers; and,
• Generally poor levels of ‘financial literacy’
in the informal sector as a whole
• And yet ironically, with the exception of
self-funded trainees, rarely do the
financiers of informal sector training
concern themselves with effectiveness
audits
A demand-based framework
for financing informal sector
training
• Requires the money reach the intended
beneficiaries directly and quickly in
response to clearly identified demand
• Requires effectiveness audits
• Requires thinking ‘outside the box’ with
regard to formal/informal sector
partnerships; payments for employment
outcomes; putting a value on social
cohesion
The challenge for evaluating
and assessing informal
sector training
• Assess it using a genuine practitioner of
the skills being assessed and against
meaningful standards relevant to the level
of performance the trainee requires
• Evaluate its effectiveness against its
contribution to employment outcomes and
its capacity to facilitate transition to the
formal vocational training system
• Recognise and record attainment
A demand-based framework
for evaluating informal
sector training
• Recognises that the majority of trainees
are usually driven by necessity and
ultimately must be the final arbiters
themselves of both the demand for the
skills they wish to acquire and the
effectiveness of their training. This
contrasts starkly to the majority of their
counterparts in formal vocational
training
A demand-based framework
for evaluating informal
sector training
• Their requirement of government is that
a process is in place that can assess
their performance against credible and
relevant standards and can also provide
them with a means for credible
recognition of the skills they have
acquired (at whatever level) within the
broader community
An emerging gender
challenge in the informal
sector
• Rural to urban migration particularly from
within the informal sector poses immense
challenges for government; but it also poses
major challenges for participants and for
women in particular
• A key role they have played in agricultural
production will increasingly disappear
• Large numbers will need to acquire new
skill sets through training
Special needs for female
informal sector trainees
• Increased flexibility in scheduling that
recognises their diverse roles;
• Physical security;
• Strong support and encouragement in
training & the workplace as they take on
non-traditional skills; and
• Strong support and encouragement in the
family and the community
The challenge requires
‘facilitating’ policy
• increased family and women’s support
services in urban areas;
• adequate workplace inspection;
• specific facilities for women in training
facilities and in workplaces;
• broad-based advocacy to increase the
uptake by women of training and jobs in
non-traditional areas;
‘Facilitating’ policy
• special subsidies or bonuses - to women to
encourage them to participate and/or to
training providers to enroll them;
• equal and fair remuneration for equal work;
• improved policing of violent crimes against
women;
• improved procedures for dealing with
female victims of violence; and,
• drafting or strengthening of antidiscrimination legislation