Apprenticeships in the education agendas of international organizations: a synthesis of the grey literature

• In Event: Building back or building forward better? Redefining TVET in times of crises: international agendas, policy assumptions and policies in action (Part1)

Proposal

In recent decades, growing attention has been directed towards the development and promotion of robust initial vocational education and training (IVET) systems across the globe. International organisations (IOs) with an interest in education have taken the lead in calling for greater research into the current state of IVET as well as systematic reform in a great variety of contexts. In particular, the ‘global youth unemployment crisis’ combined with skills shortages reported by employers has spurred interest in preventatively upskilling young people and smoothing school-to-work transitions in order to reduce youth unemployment rates and better serve the ‘needs’ of the labour market. Thus, based on evidence of the positive effect of education on labour market outcomes, IVET has increasingly come to be viewed as the solution to issues of high unemployment, low productivity, and low economic growth. Within this trend, a focus on work-based IVET, and more specifically apprenticeships, has become prevalent among IOs. Indeed, as noted by Marope and colleagues (2015), “for the last ten years or more, in both developed and developing economies, the combination of work and learning in the classroom and the workplace has been an attractive, if not seductive, idea for policy-makers concerned with employment, education, vocational training and youth transitions to the world of work” – this despite a lack of clarity about what exactly constitutes work-based learning or work-based IVET.

This paper explores the emergence of what might be termed a ‘global apprenticeship agenda’, offering a systematic synthesis of grey literature on apprenticeships produced by five IOs of global importance in the field of TVET: namely, the UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (UNESCO-UNEVOC); the International Labour Organisation (ILO); the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); the World Bank; and the European Union (EU). The aim of the paper to analyse the rationales and goals of apprenticeships outlined by these five IOs’ in their publications and unpick the theoretical assumptions underlying their promotion. Such analysis offers insights into how and why IOs have individually and collectively promoted apprenticeships as an educational intervention and helps to unpack the politics behind what is often presented as a ‘common sense’ policy solution. In the context of wider academic literature, this research contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the “architecture of arguments” within global education policy discourses and supports a growing critical perspective on the policy transfer of apprenticeships.

Author

• Ellen Vanderhoven, University of Glasgow