Vocational education and training development contribute to stability

Peter de Rooij, Director European Union's European, Training Foundation Turin, Italy, Project Syndicate

The Balkan wars of the 1990s ravaged not only millions of people, but also the social institutions that gave shape to their lives. Indeed, the changes brought about by Yugoslavia's dissolution and the wars of succession that followed annihilated large parts of the traditional education and training systems of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Kosovo.

Since then, stability and hope have begun to return to a region affected by the destruction of war and the widespread despair of social displacement. The Balkan Stability Pact of 1999 and massive international support have helped rebuild local education, while developing innovative vocational education and training systems that should boost long-term employment. The results of many projects in these countries are encouraging, with the current focus on training key groups, such as entrepreneurs, teachers, and young and unemployed people.

The same model can and should be followed elsewhere in the troubled lands that border the European Union. In a time of political and economic transition -- for example, the shift from authoritarianism to democracy and from a centrally planned to a free market economy -- many jobs are on the line. The redundancies that result are not only a waste of human resources, but also a source of stress for the people involved; both in economic and social terms, mass redundancies can be tragic and can lead to dangerous instability.

Vocational training can soften these blows. Indeed, universal access to primary education and vocational training programs are at the heart of any strategy to eliminate poverty and ensure stability. Developing skills and qualifications is all the more vital to establishing a more peaceful and prosperous future in areas already riven by conflict.

Compared to other forms of education, targeted professional training can offer swift results when economies are undergoing transition. For individuals, it can help turn the threat of redundancy into the challenge of venturing in new directions. For society as a whole, it can swing the balance from recession to growth.

But not only political and economic transitions are wrenching. Demographic changes can be equally painful for a society. In the Mediterranean countries of North Africa, the young active population is expanding fast. Since 1990, this region's population has grown by 24 percent, to 167.2 million. Yet one in every three young people is unemployed.

This joblessness naturally makes the EU a magnet for migrant labor. To stem this trend, the emerging economies of North Africa, as well as those of Eastern Europe, need to develop homegrown human capital by raising their populations' skill levels. This strategy alone can enable these countries to compete economically in an increasingly global market.

Vocational education and training development can make a powerful contribution towards achieving this goal. It can offer radical change in the lives of millions of people by helping them find work and thus providing hope of a better life for their families and children. It can also bring about crucial changes on a larger scale -- helping to reduce illiteracy and crime, for example, as well as other social pathologies that impede prosperity and stability. Equally important, professional training development in the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe can bring about improved international relations and trade, together with reduced migration pressure.

Unfortunately, in many countries vocational education and training suffers from low status, particularly compared to higher education. Its development is often neglected. The need to convince both policymakers and citizens of the benefits of vocational education and training is therefore pressing.

But education has always been hard to promote as a subject of foreign assistance. Education is a field where short-term results are difficult to achieve and the sheer size of even the smallest individual country's education system makes effective external support daunting. Regardless of how much money is spent, it never can fund comprehensive reform of any country's education and training system. Moreover, education is often viewed as an issue of national sovereignty.

This is not to say that educational development is a field where foreign assistance is inappropriate. But because there are limits to what foreign assistance can achieve, it needs to be planned carefully. Rather than fund comprehensive education reform, international partners can supply the tools with which individual countries can bring about reform themselves.

However such assistance is delivered, one thing is certain: Universal access to primary education and vocational training programs is at the heart of any strategy to eliminate poverty and to ensure stability. Public and private resources must be mobilized to build, enhance, and maintain solid educational infrastructures. Developing skills and qualifications represents a powerful step towards a more peaceful and prosperous future in areas of conflict and poverty, but the interest in helping countries take that step is universal.