Report on access to continuing training

1) OBJECTIVE

To summarize the progress made on implementing the Council recommendation of 30 June 1993 on access to continuing training, on the basis of national reports drawn up by the Member States and reports drafted by the organizations representing employers and labour in the Community; to propose new avenues for action.

2) COMMUNITY MEASURE

Commission report of 30 April 1997 on access to continuing training in the Union

3) CONTENTS

On many occasions in the last few years, the Commission has stressed the increasing importance of training in all discussions to do with employment, competitiveness and our model of society. Conscious of the ever-increasing rate of technological and organizational change, the Commission was already advocating the development of lifelong training in 1990.

The implementation of certain Community programmes (Leonardo da Vinci 1995-1999) and the "European Year of Lifelong Learning" (1996) showed there was a significant gap between the aspiration to lifelong training and the actual opportunities afforded Europe's citizens.

The purpose of this report is to take stock of the situation regarding continuing training four years after the Council recommendation on the subject, and to suggest new avenues of Community action in the field.

An examination of the national reports brings out the following points:

• in the 1990s all of the Member States introduced new measures which have a direct or indirect bearing on access to continuing training;
• most of these measures were part of broader action to 'reform' training systems in the Member States;

many promising initiatives escaped the notice of the administrative sources in the strict sense because they were undertaken at company or branch level; however, some of the examples in the report were identified through the support system for the social dialogue on continuing training introduced pursuant to the Council recommendation of 30 June 1993 on access to such training.

A. Access and company policy

It is up to companies to take responsibility for the continuing vocational training of their employees. Certain Member States have compulsory arrangements: France, Belgium, Ireland, Finland, Sweden and some German Länder.

Although there is no true model of an obligation to provide information to be found in any Member State, they have stepped up their efforts to raise awareness through general and targeted campaigns.

There is a growing trend towards greater involvement and assumption of responsibility by management and labour. This is the case, for example, in the Netherlands and in Spain, and particularly in France where the right of information is enshrined in law. Collective agreements are increasingly becoming the forum for consultation on vocational training: Germany and the Scandinavian countries are moving in that direction.

One of the main practical instruments of training at company level is the establishment of training plans (France and Finland in particular). The size of a company often determines whether or not there is a training plan as such.

Some Member States, such as the United Kingdom, for example, have taken steps to promote business sector awareness of a link between workers' skills and company competitiveness. In this connection, it is important that continuing vocational training leads to qualifications which are recognized and relevant in the employment market

It is well known that there are problems of access to continuing training for small businesses and their employees. The Member States have logically enough stepped up programmes of aid for small businesses.

B. Access and the consideration of individual requirements

The matching up of training to individual worker requirements is another crucial factor. It raises three main questions:

• how to stimulate continuing vocational training by companies while at the same time taking account of the specific situation of workers in these companies;
• how to enable workers to assess their training requirements;

what opportunities there are for individuals to organize their training on their own initiative.

Training leave is commonly presented as one of the principal means of access to continuing training. In some Member States (such as France, Belgium, Finland and Sweden) training secondments are a statutory right, while in others they are provided for by collective agreements (Denmark, for instance). There is no uniform acceptance of such schemes in all the Member States, however.

To facilitate regular evaluation of training needs, the trend is emphatically towards the recognition of skills irrespective of how they were acquired.

C. Access and retraining of workers

Several Member States (Finland, Sweden, France and others) have taken steps to provide training programmes for workers under threat of losing their jobs and for the unemployed in the form of retraining programmes, notably those granted Community support as part of the ADAPT initiative.

D. Access to training for specific target groups

Significantly, all the Member States appear to have opted for specific programmes targeting population groups like the least-qualified, women, young people and the long-term unemployed.

With respect to the least qualified, both decision-makers and trade unions feel that preferential access should be given to workers whose employability is low. Several measures are part-financed from the Structural Funds, be they short- or long-term, for the updating of knowledge or for basic qualifications.

Special measures to give women easier access to vocational training (vocational guidance, preparation for working life and the setting up of child-minding facilities) are organized, generally speaking, by the public authorities, social institutions or third-sector organizations. They are publicly funded and/or part-funded by European programmes and initiatives.

With regard to young people, there are three major trends:

• the development of new types of apprenticeship to ease integration into working life;
• increased responsibility devolved to the regions and to local level;
• measures targeting companies which give young people contracts.

Lastly, it is worth stressing that the concept of 'second-chance' schools has started to get off the ground (in Greece, for example).

Encouraging the involvement of young people who have insufficient or inappropriate qualifications remains a major concern for all Member States.

Specific programmes for the long-term unemployed attempt to combine training measures with schemes to equip them with the skills to compete for jobs, more often than not through work placements in companies.

E. Access and the new partnerships

As a result of decentralization, closer cooperation is being established between the local authorities, the training organizations, the teaching and research establishments and companies. This entails adjusting vocational training provision to the specific requirements of the regional and local companies. Vocational training is seen as a factor in regional and local development.

F. Access through new technologies

Efforts are being stepped up to develop self-training methods at the workplace and open and distance learning, making increasing use of new technologies such as computer-assisted teaching or multimedia learning systems.

The conclusions of the ETUC report are as follows:

• Member State governments have taken no specific steps to implement the recommendation, and the recommendation itself has had no direct impact on the nature of Community instruments;
• in most Member States, no real progress seems to have been made despite a greater level of awareness of the issue;
• in some countries important steps towards improving access to training have taken place;
• in certain sectors or at company level, there has been increased take-up of training;
• the arrangements for assessing employee training needs are inadequate in most Member States.

The ETUC report identifies four major points with regard to follow-up:

• the progress achieved relates more to collective objectives of companies than to the individual needs of workers;
• there is a renewed determination to further the European Social Dialogue on access to continuing training;
• in view of the low impact of the Recommendation, the Commission should be asked to submit a proposal for a directive on access;
• Member States should be urged to support the social partners at the national level in establishing arrangements and conditions whereby open access to training may be achieved.

The conclusions of the l'UNICE/CEEP report are as follows:

• considerable progress has been made both at national and European levels within the last decade;
• employers allocate a huge amount of time and financial resources in training throughout the working life of an employee;
• l'UNICE stresses the benefits of cooperation between employers, workers and public authorities;
• the scope of the Council Recommendation was very limited and had no influence on the substantial efforts made by the employers.

In the view of the Commission, there is still much progress to be made in terms of access to continuing training: in 1993, 28% of workers had taken part in some type of training. There are huge disparities between Member States: the rate of participation varies from 13% in Portugal and Greece to 43% in Ireland.

The existence of a corporate policy on continuing training has not yet become a widespread feature: only 58% of companies can be said to be of the "training" type.

Except in Denmark, access to continuous training is directly related to the size of the company: an employee of a company with more than 1000 employees is three times more likely to take part in some type of training than an employee of a company with between 10 and 49 employees.

The ageing of the active population in most European economies increases the importance of continuing training. At present, the probability of having access to training decreases sharply with the age of the person concerned.

Training resources are becoming increasingly diverse, from organized training courses to informal on-the-job training or computer-assisted self-tuition. The changing trend in our societies towards forms of work organization which enhance skills raises the question of the responsibility of the individual in defining needs and choosing routes to take, and the contribution of individuals (in time and money). This question of time - and the breakdown between working time and training time - is more delicate now against the background of the debate on the reduction in working time.

The question of skills validation is vital: the aim is to give individuals the wherewithal for making progress in acquiring knowledge by measuring - in a supple and objective manner - the level they have reached.

From the corporate and macro-economic angles, it is now acknowledged that the quality of human resources, the skills of workers and the continuing development of such skills are recognized as decisive factors in achieving competitiveness.

Studies of the operation of the European labour market also reveal a strong link between the level of qualifications and skills and the risk of unemployment. Hence the concept of flexibility/security, which attempts to combine the flexibility of the labour market and the maximum use of human resources.

Action guideline 1

While there has been real progress on access to continuing training, it is probably insufficient, given the technological, environmental and socio-economic changes taking place. Efforts to reduce inequalities should be continued.

The Commission proposes, in conjunction with employers and labour at Community level, establishing common conditions to facilitate access to training, including at sectoral level.

Action guideline 2

The various interests involved are finding it difficult to formulate and implement any real strategy. They should be provided with a permanent frame of reference to keep them abreast of developments in the field of access to continuing training.

The Commission proposes to:

• make the continuing access reports a regular feature and refine them, while retaining the three-year frequency;
• repeat the Continuing Vocational Training Surveys (CVTS) periodically;
• ask the European Industrial Relations Observatory to supplement the available information on collective agreements at Member State level;
• set up a comparative assessment exercise ("benchmarking") to evaluate progress on access to continuing training, based on a set of common indicators including rates of participation and company policies.

Action guideline 3

New technologies and changes in work organization have made many innovations possible in the field of continuing training. However, the transfer of innovative practices inside the European market is neither fast enough nor widespread enough. The development of a European industry producing multimedia facilities for use in continuing training and in individual assessment should be encouraged, as should the development and transfer of innovative practices.

The Commission proposes to:

• present the vocational training section of its "Learning in the information society" action plan in the course of 1997;
• extend the pilot projects for skill self-accreditation;
• give priority to projects linking development of access to training with reorganization/reduction of working hours and new types of work organization.