Thematic review of the transition from initial education to working life

by Marianne Durand-Drouhin

 

OECD

The transition to work is "a key stage in laying the basis for continuing progression in learning and work throughout adult life" and "remains a key policy issue" among OECD members. For one thing, training and education—while presenting youth with diverse pathways—often fail to motivate youth, leaving them unsure of how to benefit from such opportunities. Those at greatest risk against the labour market must be taking seriously into account, but the same has to be done with those who have chosen to follow a tertiary education pathway. The transition process is tending to become longer. It is also complex, involving the interaction of different kinds of policies: those of education, the labour market, social and social welfare.

The OECD is drawing conclusions on the situation of youth school-to-work transition, on a relatively global basis as well as looking at the particularity of certain themes within six countries reviewed in 1997, which are: Australia, Austria, Canada (Nova Scotia & Quebec), the Czech Republic, Norway and Portugal. The diversity of their social and economic contexts as well as their policy approaches was the reason for selecting this set of countries, though it is acknowledged that the generalizations which can be made on this initial basis are going to be limited, and will have to be carefully contrasted against the full group of 14 countries participating in the review when it concludes in 1999.

The thematic review—launched in November 1996 at the Educational Committee meeting—is being conducted in the following manner:

• with OECD support, and that of Steering Committees in many cases.
• Background Reports were made (by ministries or higher education / research organizations) on the different countries, guided by a common set of questions.
• Country visits are made by review teams (OECD Secretariat members and external experts). They make Country Notes.
• Expert papers are commissioned.

Typologies ("ideal types" of countries) have been found to be convenient to learn from the situations of different countries and the measures they adopt. In this report, two ideal types are proposed (which none of the countries matches precisely) which can be summed up in this manner:

Type I

• relatively open labour markets, valuing generic employability attributes;
• flexibility at the point of labour market entry;
• widely available opportunities for adult training (modules, courses—often short, etc.);
• flexible educational institutions that facilitate adult learning;
• varied opportunities for repeated returns to education and training, in response to particular market opportunities and requirements;
• decentralized, informal linkages between education and work; such connectivity relies largely on individual choice and initiative (emphasis on individual responsibility);
• frequent reforms in education, employment and training arrangements;
• transition policies placing priority on at-risk groups involving less direct government intervention.

Type II

• strongly occupationally organized, with profiles matched or designed to corresponding criteria of skill requirements in close cooperation with industries and occupational associations;
• close linkages ("bridges") between education and employment;
• institutionalized, "holistic" vocational education pathways are common frameworks;
• tightly woven safety nets to encourage a quick reinsertion;
• more mixed equity outcomes due to divergent, parallel hierarchical pathways;
• youth-friendly labour markets and a number of relatively predetermined, linear education/training pathways at the post-secondary stage;
• high shares of manufacturing (esp. high-technology) employment;
• active government intervention, with systematic consultation and negotiation with relevant actors.

Those different types are said to both have their advantages and disadvantages, and as ideal types they serve fairly well for the purpose of comparison.

Countries coming closer to Type II are Austria, the Czech Republic, and Norway. In these kinds of countries, "particular regional or occupational mismatches between supply and demand loom large in policy maker's minds." As a response, emphasis is increasingly on career education and guidance.

In freer markets like Australia and Canada, where the generic concept of employability is more focused upon, emphasis is on the development and provision of "core skills" (a.k.a. "key competencies"), together with the encouragement of personal skill profile development.

When addressing the issue of the later age at which the school-to-work transition occurs, the report states, "There is an extended participation in education, partially to gain higher qualifications for employment, but also at times because the interaction of student financing systems and labour market incentives and disincentives make education the more attractive option. It is also the result of young people combining their education with employment at an earlier age...".

A general situation of insecure employment is described, including "spells of unemployment".

"A key objective has been to allow young people to keep their options open for as long as possible, and to make vocational pathways more attractive by enabling them to provide access to tertiary study as well as to the labour market (double qualifying pathways)".

Another comment of the report, which is given much importance, is that "both sides of equation—education and the labour market" must be paid adequate attention. That means that in addition to curricula, arrangements must be made with the labour market, in areas such as youth wages, training wages, and employment cost structures.

"Double qualifying pathways" are a strategy to make the general education pathway more relevant to employment. Their success is somewhat related to their selectivity in favor of the most successful students, however, or so it would appear. Another pair of strategies escape that disadvantage, but are described as "far more uncertain"; they are: greater emphasis on the acquisition of "key" or "core" skills and competencies, and wider use of the community and workplaces to make clear the relevance of general education.

In addition to those observations, conclusions are made on "pathway engineering" that show favorably on: a range of diversified pathways, which are broad and have multiple exit points and crossover possibilities, and that involve strong links to employers.

When dealing with the problem of early leavers' disadvantage in the labour market, policy emphasis should be on prevention.

As far as labour market programs for young people, they have often produced disappointing results, but one should be careful against drawing generalizations in that sense. One of the important things is to see such programs as part of an integrated approach to transition, alongside other types of policies. The fact is, they have tended to evolve from "a concentration on short-term employment with little or no training in the public sector towards more comprehensive, individually tailored and integrated packages of assistance...". The Nordic approach to the concept of a "youth guarantee" is reviewed due to a combination of factors that help it to keep the number of youth at risk to a minimum.

Guidance and counseling services should, the report states, be careful to address underlying problems and to carefully provide such services in a realistic manner. For them to improve, their links to employers, community and labour market services must be improved. Also they must be integrated within the wider educational purposes of school instead of remaining a marginal activity.

To achieve "policy harmonization", cooperation is increasingly needed between diverse sectors and government and between governments as well. Coherent frameworks for education/labour coordination and for individuals, too, is the end goal. Cooperation and partnerships are said to be more difficult where employers and trade unions have weak central organization, and yet with creative policy instruments, those principles can take hold (for instance, through stronger roles of employers and community in the management of programs, appropriate resourcing of quality control by schools, and ensuring that firms receive real benefits in return for their contributions). A general tendency observed is that of increasingly complex and fragmented transition environment.

Information on transition outcomes is not wide enough. The available data continues to be traditional (un)employment rates. In that sense, indicators of transition processes need to be developed. Furthermore, there tends to be information on education and on labour, seen separately, but the transition concept implies looking at the interaction of both.

Although further testing should be conducted, some meaningful statements can be made—recognizing the complementarity of education, labour market, and social welfare polices—in terms of the features that contribute to successful transitions. Those that are outlined involve the coherent, open and well-organized nature of some pathways, their perspective of lifelong learning; opportunities to participate in real work settings; the combination of ample vocational/technical skills with general education and personal skills; safety nets for those at greatest risk; information and counseling; institutional frameworks, and monitoring tools. The Thematic Review explicitly sets out to assess key policy ingredients behind successful transitions.

A final challenge which is mentioned is that of better understanding "the complex mix of changes in young people's attitudes and public policy settings that is, in many Member countries, causing the transition to work to become more extended".

 

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