Responsiveness at the Local Level: Building VET Systems to Advance Communities

To advance the social and economic goals of the communities that vocational education and training (VET) serves requires more than being responsive to governmental and industry needs. While necessary to a degree, being responsive to such needs is not a sufficient goal to which VET systems should be directed, enacted and judged. They also need to: (i) be responsive to the communities served by those systems and (ii) play a role in bringing about change in those communities through supporting innovations, extending existing economic activities and building capacities at the local level. Given the scope of these roles, VET, perhaps more than any other educational sector, requires effective localised social, administrative and educational infrastructures to achieve such outcomes. Social infrastructure includes partnerships that support work placements, work experiences, employment opportunities and articulate local enterprises' requirements. Administrative infrastructure includes the intentional organisation and enactment of vocational educational provisions and their certification. Educational infrastructure includes the provision and alignment of expertise and resources to achieve these outcomes, including those of teachers and the ability to extend their efforts beyond the educational institution. These forms of local infrastructure are proposed as being essential for achieving five contemporary purposes of VET: (i) engaging young people with VET; (ii) assisting them in identifying occupations to which they are suited; (iii) preparing them for occupations; (iv) continuing education across working life to meet changing needs and goals and (v) aligning workplace innovations with workers' learning. In advancing that proposal, this paper draws on the reviews of literature and findings from a three-decade-long programme of research in VET provisions in countries with both developed and developing economies, to make a case for VET going beyond responsiveness to meet local communities' needs, advance their capacities and extend their social and economic potentials.