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11 Cooperation and Reform in Vocational Education and Training Torgeir Nyen, Anna Hagen Tønder 11 Cooperation and Reform in Vocational Education and Training In recent years national models of skill formation and vocational education and training have attracted attention from a large number of researchers. In the literature on varieties of capitalism (VoC), vocational education and training (VET) is one of the complementary institutions that distinguish liberal market economies (LMEs) from coordinated market economies (CMEs). LMEs, such as the United States, tend to encourage the acquisition of general skills. CMEs, such as Germany, place a stronger emphasis on vocational training as an alternative to or in addition to academic skills and higher education (Hall & Soskice, 2001). There is a broad consensus in the literature that different training regimes and the skills they promote have important economic and distributional effects. One limitation to this literature is that the categories provided are extremely broad and cannot account for variation within the different models. While all the Scandinavian countries can be classified as coordinated market economies, there are, as we will return to, major differences between the VET systems in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. In the comparative literature on national skill formation systems a number of more fine-grained typologies have been developed. The main dimensions that are applied in order to distinguish between different models are the structure and content of training, how the training is regulated, where the training takes place and the degree of involvement of the state and of firms in vocational education and training. One widely used typology distinguishes between market-based, state- based and corporatist training regimes (Greinert, 2004). A liberal market economy model is characterized by weak government regulations. Vocational training takes place mainly in the workplace and is provided by individual companies based on firm-specific skills demands. Britain and the United States often serve as examples. In a state-regulated bureaucratic model, vocational education is primarily governed by the state, whereas the social partners and private firms play a more limited role. The training is mainly school-based or mixed with shorter practice periods in firms. Training tends to focus on general academic and broad vocational subjects, with less emphasis on vocational specialization. More vocation-specific training is to a large extent developed in the workplace but is not part of the formal training. Sweden and France are typical examples of state-based regimes. In a dual corporate model, the social partners play a significant role in vocational education and training. Vocational education is formally regulated by the state and based on a cooperation model in which the social partners as well as educational authorities are involved. Firms play an important role in the provision of training. Apprenticeship training or practical training in the workplace is often combined with school-based training through some 202 Cooperation and Reform in Vocational Education and Training kind of dual system. Germany is the classic example, and Denmark is often mentioned as another country with a dual corporate model. In this chapter we focus on institutional change in Norwegian VET. Norway provides an interesting case for several reasons. With a few exceptions (e.g. Thelen, 2014), Norway is rarely mentioned in the literature. In her influential study of How Institutions Evolve, Kathleen Thelen studied the political economy of skills in Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan (Thelen, 2004). These countries are classic cases that are often related in comparative studies. A recent volume on the political economy of skill formation includes country studies from the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and Denmark in addition to Germany (Busemeyer & Trampusch, 2012). The Norwegian model is an interesting case because it can be characterized as a mixed model with elements from different skills regimes. After Reform 94, the Norwegian model can be classified as a hybrid between a state-based and a corporatist model (Olsen, Høst & Michelsen, 2008). One element from the state- based regime is that initial VET is deeply integrated in the national education system. School-based education and apprenticeship training are both regulated by national written curricula. Formal decision-making power on issues regarding the content and structure of the trades rests with the national education authorities. However, there is an established corporatist infrastructure of tripartite bodies with advisory functions at the national and regional levels. The two initial years of school-based education and training include a considerable share of general academic subjects like Norwegian, English, social science and mathematics. The content of school-based vocational courses is quite broad (with relevance for a number of different trades). The intention is to provide vocational students with broad and general skills in addition to the more vocation-specific skills. Norway has a unitary school system at the upper secondary level, with vocational programmes and general academic programmes offered within the same schools and with opportunities to combine vocational and academic training or to switch from a vocational programme to an academic programme. In these respects there are similarities between the Norwegian and the Swedish models. On the other hand, the role of apprenticeship training constitutes an important difference between the Norwegian and the Swedish models and brings the Norwegian VET model closer to the dual system in the Danish model than the school-based Swedish model. During the last two years of initial vocational education and training, students in the Norwegian model are apprentices employed by a training company. As apprentices, they receive wages that are regulated by collective agreements. The model is dual, both in terms of where the training takes place and in terms of a decision-making structure based on tripartite cooperation at the national and regional levels. Over the last decades VET as an institution has undergone substantial changes. A challenge to the VoC literature and to the different typologies of VET is to explain where the different models and institutions come from and how they change (Thelen, 2004). An analysis of institutional change in VET needs to deal with why institutions Cooperation and Reform in Vocational Education and Training 203 sometimes are “reproduced” and why they sometimes change more profoundly. The history of VET in Norway serves as an example of how substantial changes do not necessarily require external shocks but can be endogenously motivated either by political reform or through more gradual change processes. To understand such changes, a historical-institutionalist analysis needs to study the actors’ interests and power bases, while at the same time acknowledging that existing institutions may influence the choices made by the actors involved (Thelen, 2004, 2010). An institution like a VET system is the result of power struggles, negotiations and compromises between individual employers, between different groups of employers, between employers and labour and between the social partners and the state. The system as such will be inherently unstable as actors seek to change the institutions, especially if changing external conditions also changes the strategic interest or power base of some of the actors. In the analysis that follows, we describe how a long-standing coalition between employers in crafts and manufacturing had a major impact on the development of the current dual model of VET in Norway. Until the 1950s, apprenticeship training constituted the core of vocational training in crafts and industry. State regulation was weak, and the social partners had great autonomy in their regulation of the training. The post-war period was characterized by stronger state involvement and the gradual development of a vocational school system. Still, the social partners had considerable autonomy in the development, implementation and control of apprenticeship training. In this period, Norwegian VET could be defined as a corporatist model. The scope of the model, however, was confined to craft and industry, and the number of new apprenticeship contracts that were signed every year was low. In the 1980s, new legislation expanded the scope of apprenticeship training and provided an institutional framework for tripartite cooperation in VET. The changes contributed to a revival of apprenticeship training in Norway. However, the connections between school-based education and apprenticeship training were weak. In the 1990s, Reform 94 drove the content of VET towards more general skills and broader vocational skills. The dual model was institutionalized as the standard model in all vocational programmes in upper secondary education, including sectors without strong traditions of apprenticeship training. The changes in content and structure of VET can be seen as a compromise solution that served the interests of employers in manufacturing and services more than the interests of employers within traditional crafts and construction. However, a further strengthening of apprenticeship training through policy measures, including increased state funding to training companies, made the employers within crafts and construction accept the reform. In recent years, tensions within the VET system have become more manifest. Changes to the current
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