Bid to develop vocational education in former East bloc

Date: 23/05/1996

TAKING a long-term approach to the EU's commitment to Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the Italian presidency has decided to focus its efforts on influencing the way students in those countries will one day contribute to developing market economies.

By gathering education and labour ministers from 42 nations together for a two-day meeting in Turin's former Lingotto Fiat factory next week, Italy hopes to inspire the newly democratic governments to instil vocational skills and mentalities in their youth.

The European Commission's development programmes - Phare for Central and Eastern Europe and Tacis for the former Soviet Union - are working to help the former East bloc countries shed their command economies and replace them with market forces.

The Italian government has pinpointed small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in these countries as a sector that will need extra support in a region where they are still a rather foreign notion.

“SMEs are the backbone of development,” said one of the conference's organisers from the Turin-based European Training Foundation.

If former Communist states now undergoing the transition to market-based economies follow the development patterns of western Europe, SMEs will constitute some two-thirds of the work force and economic activity, he said.

So far, new enterprises springing up in former Communist countries have neither the manpower nor the money to invest in training new workers. To overcome that hurdle, conference hosts will suggest that their governments include training in school curricula.

The idea is to modernise school programmes and - without abandoning reading, writing and arithmetic - create courses which will produce a new generation of young people ready for the business world, equipped with problem-solving, negotiating and leadership skills.

Conference organisers say education departments should train teachers not only to pass on such skills, but also to be able to recognise in their students the abilities which make them suited for different business sectors and then counsel them towards the appropriate vocational schools or jobs.

At the two-day conference, organisers will also promote the idea of building links between schools and industry, providing a direct feed into the working world.

“We need to reduce the waiting time between leaving school and getting a job,” said one.

But there is no guarantee that the invited government representatives, themselves products of the age of state-run enterprises, centralised industry and government-controlled education, will agree with the proposals.

“There might be a conflict of ideas, but they have no choice, really. They have chosen market economies,” said one.

But even if the Eastern nations alter their school curricula immediately, it will take years to see the results. “When we talk about training, it is always a long-term investment, but we need to show now that we are paying attention to this problem,” said an Italian official, adding that Rome was already planning follow-up exercises to the Turin conference.

Italy has also invited the former Yugoslav republics of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia and Montenegro to the conference.

The EU has discussed Phare membership for Bosnia and Croatia, but not for Serbia.

Phare officials are not involved in organising the conference, but agree that there is a real need for vocational training in all the former East bloc nations.

If the programme works, said one, “it would be a revolution”.