[powerpoint version - slides] - paradox of planning in vocational education and training

8/14/2019 [PowerPoint version - slides] - Paradox of planning in vocational education and training

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Christian Helms Jrgensen Educational Studies Roskilde University Denmark

Paradoxes of educational planning

- Planning for a shared vision of the future,technocratic social engineering or

modern technologies of the self ?

Three historical paradigms of planningin the Danish dual system of VET

Three current paradigms of planning in Further Education

Is educational planning possible in flexible capitalism?

VET-NET ECER Conference10. September 2008 in Gteborg


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Three historical paradigms of educational planning

1. Tradition based planningThe period up till World War II

Background: Dual system of VET grew out of medieval guilds 1937: A trade committee for each industry was by law given

responsibility for planning and regulation.Principle of vocational autonomyor corporatist self-regulation

Dominant type of planning: The projection of the past into the future

The gradual adaptation of inherited practices to new conditions Planning of VET mainly based on trades and industries


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1. Tradition based planning

Weaknesses of tradition based planning:

Slow reactions on social changes

Incremental adaptation challenged by radical social changes

Separate interests of individual trades and industries dominate


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2. Comprehensive state based planning:

The Fordist period from World War Two up till the 1970ies

Background:

Integration of large birth cohorts of WW II

Systems competition & Human Capital theory: education is a key to growth

Social democrats: Education for social equality and democratisation

PP-I and II Perspective Planning 1970-871975 U-90. Comprehensive planning of education up to 1990ies

Dominant type of planning:

Far reaching forecasts of labour market skills requirements Planning of educations is included in comprehensive social planning

Technocratic planning: centralised, apolitical and based on experts


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2. Comprehensive state based planning

Weaknesses of state based planning: Apolitical educational planning became highly politicised:

Critics from left wing:

Planning serves the interests of business

Critics from right wing:'Planning serves the interests of a new meritocracy

Economic crisis in 1970ies eroded the faith in state based planning:

Mismatch on the labour market

Unemployment among newly educated

Cuts on state budget withdrew the resources for planning

Reduced predictability of the economic changes to come

The national corporatist regimes under attack by globalisation


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2. Comprehensive state based planning

Paradoxes of state based planning Apolitical and technocratic educational planning lost legitimacy

because it was regarded as serving political interests.

Educational planning that aimed at social equality was discardedfor contributing to the reproduction of social inequalities

Comprehensive educational planning was replaced by fragmented planning

at a time when policies for knowledge society became central


7/18Christian Helms Jrgensen Educational Studies Roskilde University Denmark


3. Market based planning

The neo-liberalist turn in policy from the start of 1980ies

Cuts and increased efficiency in educational budgets demanded

More market regulation and privatisation

Decentralising and deregulation of public education

New Public Management: Taximeter and output based regulation

More students for less money

Dominant type of planning:

Decentralised planning based on users/customers skills requirements

Instrumental planning focussing on efficiency and productivity

Shift from supply to demand for education:

choice, flexibility and modularisation



Shift of centre in educational planning

Employability and career,

individual life project

User, consumer,

employeeIndividual

Businesses competitiveness

and students employability

Colleges and

businessesInstitution

Regional developmentBusinesses and vocational

colleges in regionRegional

Renewing the educational

programmes

Labour market

organisations

Industry &Trade

Employability and social

cohesion and equalityGovernmentNational

Mobility and

CompetitivenessEU OECDInternational

Goals of planningActorsLevel

Multilevel planning continues



Gap-analyses ofskills requirements

Educational & training plans

Teaching & training

Learning

Employment and application ofnew skills in the workplace

Work

Work

Education & off-the-job training

1. The instrumental paradigm

Market based planning



Gap-analyses ofskills requirements

Educational & training plans

Teaching & training

Learning

Employment and application ofnew skills in the workplace

Problems of the instrumental planning paradigm

Requirements of business,technology and organisation not of learners

From requirements to plans?

- And from plans to learning?

Transfer of skills- transformation?




Market based educational planning

Weaknesses of planning based on skills-gap analyses

1.Adaptation: looking for deficits - not resources2.Technocratic: skills are required by technologies and organisations

not by learners

3.Based on experts not learners

3.Hides power relations

5.The Taylorist tradition:- a fragmented focus on work tasks (not trade/profession)

6. Linear and hierarchical procedure of planning

Decentralised market planning have many of the same weaknessesas the centralised technocratic state based planning



Plans of businesses

for education and training

Plans, subjects

and curricula of schools

Plans and motivation of learners

for education & training

BusinessEducationalinstitution

Learner

2. The social and political paradigm- multiple and divergent actors and plans




Learner

Business Educationalinstitution

Useful knowledge

Logic of productionCorrect knowledge

Logic of school learning

Meaningful knowledge

Subjective logic

Competing forms of knowledgeand rationalities


Instrumental rationality

Subjective rationality

Substantial rationality



Plans of businesses Plans of schools

Personal plans

Mediation between divergent plans- dialogue or dispute?


Strategic and systematicplanning of VET

Appraisal interviewsand staff development

Guidance,Career coaching

Market based planning as communicative planning?

Mediation through ideal speech situations (Habermas)?



Plans of businesses Plans of voc. colleges

Personal plans

Mediation as adaptation to thedominant planning rationality


Dominant discourse ofcompetitivenessand employability

Employee development plansas means of shaping theself-controlled model workers

Personal educational plansas means of shaping theadaptable student in VET

Market based planning as technologies of the self?

Subjectification of employees and learners asflexible and adaptive enterprising selves (Foucault)?

Asymmetrical power relations



Plans ofbusinesses

Personal plans

for education

3. Planning with multiple actors, divergent plans- and hidden dynamics

Workplace (sub-) culturesStruggles for control and status

Plans ofvocational colleges

Social & psychologicaldynamics - Hidden curriculum

Unconscious motivesand tacit forms of knowledge



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Paradoxes of educational planning- State based educational planning promised a common will to create a

just and rationally controlled development of society- But was discredited as an expression of technocratic, centralised

control

- State based planning pursued an apolitical and scientifically based ofplanning

- But was seen as expression of private interests and illegitimate power

- Market based planning promised the freedom on the market of theindividual user of education,

- But can result in new forms of self-control and domination.

- Market based planning appear as rational acts of autonomous agents,

- But is undermined by power relations, hidden dynamics and unintendedconsequences of planning

How is educational planning possible in a field of multiple actors,

power relations, hidden dynamics and unintended consequences?


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Employees and learners are subjects ofplanning

Employees and learners are objectsof planning

Reflection on intended and unintended

consequences and experiences

Measurement of effect in relation to

given ends

Directed towards negotiated endsDirected towards indisputable ends

Local participation and controlHierarchical governance and control

Based on multiple interacting agentsBased on experts and managers

Multiple rationales accepted- multiple solutions are open

One rationale - one optimal solution- one best practice

Situated procedures continuouslynegotiated in a communicative process

Universal, formal procedureslaid down in expert systems

Reflexive planning- planning as learning

Technocratic andinstrumental planning

Proposals for a reflexive concept of educational planning

[powerpoint version - slides] - paradox of planning in vocational education and training

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