Technical education and professional training in Latin America: Challenges and opportunities

• In Event: Mission possible! Understanding and overcoming barriers to technical education in Latin America and the Caribbean

Proposal

This paper presents a regional analysis of the role of technical education in promoting skills development in Latin America and the Caribbean, examines the main challenges facing technical education and other workforce development programs and offers recommendations for overcoming them.

Despite the striking increase in school enrollment in Latin American countries, particularly in secondary and post-secondary education, there is compelling evidence that students are not acquiring adequate cognitive, technical and socio-emotional skills. Moreover, there is evidence of a major disconnect between the skills that education systems provide and those the labor market demands, a gap that represents a bottleneck to productivity, growth and the ability of Latin American workers to obtain gainful employment.

In recent years, Latin American governments have increased their investments in technical education as a way to provide students with practical, market-relevant education and training; encourage closer collaboration between education providers and employers; ensure employment in high-demand sectors and support enrollment in post-secondary education among a wider number of students by providing less expensive, shorter-duration options.

The paper analyzes some of the challenges facing technical and vocational education programs throughout the region and identifies how some countries have taken steps to address them. One critical bottleneck is a lack of data to inform supply and demand decisions regarding technical education, which creates “information asymmetries” between students, providers and employers. Here, opportunities include developing better data collection systems to capture future skill needs in the labor force, the quality of different education institutions and job market results associated with different degrees. Another overarching challenge is the lack of coordination between the education sector and the private sector. To address this gap, inter-sectoral networks and alliances can have a significant impact in increasing curricular relevance, facilitating school-to-work transitions and designing internships and apprenticeships. Other challenges include poor quality-assurance mechanisms in post-secondary education – particularly for technical education– weak coordination between education levels and limited access for low-income youth.

This paper explains how countries have sought to address these issues through different policies and programs, the lessons derived from these experiences and priority areas going forward.

Authors

• Maria Oviedo, Inter-American Dialogue

• Ariel Fiszbein, Inter-American Dialogue