Vocational Education and Training and the Labour Market in Latvia

Employers and VET

Involvement of social partners

It is not possible to achieve the relevance of vocational education to the needs of the labour market without the support and involvement of employers.  During the last few years employers have become more and more active in the implementation of the vocational training process.

In 2000, the Tripartite Subcommittee on Vocational Education and Employment was established.  It includes representatives from the Ministries of Welfare, Economics, Finance, Justice, Agriculture, Education and Science and Environmental Protection and Regional Development, the Latvian Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the Latvian Employers Confederation.  The task of the Subcommittee is to promote dialog among the state, employers and employees regarding issues of education and employment.  It is intended to establish similar committees also on a regional level.

Work has begun on professional standards – the development of which is impossible without the participation of employers.  A professional standard, in the confines of a single profession, contains information on labour market requirements toward workers in the respective profession, it thereby acts as an instrument which aids labour market representatives in the compilation of common and specific requirements toward a concrete group of employees in a certain sector, so that these requirements can be passed on to educators in a concentrated form.  In essence, the professional standard is an agreement covering a certain period of time between employers and educators on the content of work to be done by those employed in a certain profession and the required skills and knowledge.  In 2000, with the active support of employers, professional standards were established for locksmiths, milling machine operators, welders, mechanical repairmen, caterers, joiners, layout artists, woodworking machine operators, pastry cooks, cooks, construction foremen, and computer programmers.

Employers also participate in qualifying exam commissions, evaluating the knowledge and practical skills of students of vocational education establishments.  However, vocational education establishments often have difficulty in providing practical training, therefor there is a need for greater support on the part of employers in hosting training placements for students.

In order to ensure the existence of vocational training which fully meets the needs of the labour market, it is necessary to involve both the state and employers in the implementation.  Currently the modernisation of training facilities and the provision of the training process at vocational education establishments is not at all as rapid and of a level to satisfy the demands placed on it.

Employers requirements for new employees

The vocational education system is not an island unto itself.  Employers are the ones who test the knowledge of graduates in the field, however, it can be said that their demands are occasionally unfounded.  For example, employment advertisements show that a large number of employers want their future employees to be young and to have work experience.  This creates a “viscious circle” – the young worker can’t find a job, because he has no experience, but he can’t gain experience, because he has no work.  The establishment of work experience is entirely the responsibility and risk of employers, because it cannot be developed at school, and not even during a training placement.  Practical work experience can be accrued when a person must complete his work tasks under his own responsibility.  The attitude that employers display toward the trainee and the new employee also differs.

 Figure 18.

While employers list a lack of practical experience as the main barrier to the employability of young workers, it is clear that this problem is elemental, because every experienced employee has at some point been a young worker.

However, in fields where there is a great demand for labour, such as in the information technology sector, employers are even willing to hire students without work experience.

In hiring young workers, employers also come across the following difficulties:

•   breach of ethics and conduct,

•   lack of motivation,

•   insufficient knowledge of foreign languages,

•  lack of communications skills,

•  unwillingness to do honest work.

The development of attitudes is one of the most difficult tasks of vocational education.  The school cannot take on this responsibility alone, if the young person has not learned to value work in the family setting.

The employers’ opinion of the vocational education system

Employers are the ones who receive the products of the vocational education system, and based on the professional competence of graduates, they form their opinion of the system as a whole.
asked which type of school leaver is given preference when hiring staff for enterprises, employers made the following choice:

• 82% preferred leavers of state run schools,

•   28 % preferred leavers of private schools,

• 10% gave preference to other options, such as Microsoft, Novell, CISCO and other certification centres.

This shows that state vocational education establishments have developed a certain image in the eyes of the public over time, but private schools are still not well known, which prompts a cooler attitude toward them.

When asked what hinders the proportional division of theory and practice within training programmes, 57% of employers answered that the cause is insufficient co-operation between schools and enterprises; 64% of employers think that it is caused by inappropriate legislation on the organisation of training placements etc.. 18% of employers see other threats:

• the state does not stimulate the participation of enterprises in the training process and in the provision of training placements,

•  teaching staff at schools is elderly,

•  there is a lack of funds for providing training placements,

• insufficient co-operation between educators and employers organisations or professional associations.

It can therefor be concluded that there is a lack of institutions for the promotion of co-operation between schools and employers.

An evaluation of interest on the part of employers in opportunities to organise training placements in their enterprise shows that:

• 50% of employers would willingly host student placements if there were appropriate tax incentives;

• 32% are considering hosting placements.

Besides which several of the employers surveyed already do take on student trainees regularly.

The following diagram shoes that a large proportion of employers are ready to participate in curriculum development with their suggestions.  The fact that almost half of them have never considered this option shows that employers are not sufficiently involved in a dialogue on vocational training issues.

Figure 19.

A no less significant issue in the development of vocational training is the question whether employers are ready to make a financial contribution.  As can be seen in figure 20., employers are not particularly willing to contribute financially to vocational training.  A survey conducted three years ago shows similar results.  This indicates that national economic stability is as yet insufficient to motivate employers to make such long-term investments as the development of education.

Figure 20.

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