Importance of a national employment policy

by Dinesh Weerakkody

Most countries that adopt a strong framework for sustainable growth, acknowledge the role of skills development and through its national policies strengthen the ability of workers to adapt to changing market demands and to benefit from innovation and investments in new technology, clean energy, environment, health and infrastructure.

The first goal of any such policy should be to ensure education for all, the broad availability of quality education for children in school. This is an essential foundation for future training.

The second goal of the policy should be to build solid bridges between the world of work and training providers to match skills to meet the needs of enterprises.This is often done best at the sectorial level where the direct participation of employers and workers with government and training providers can ensure the relevance of training.

The third goal is to ensure continuous workplace training and lifelong learning enabling workers and enterprises to adjust to change.

Next is to ensure broad access to training opportunities, for men and women, particularly for those groups facing difficulties, in particular youth, low-skilled workers, workers with disabilities and rural communities.

Finally, the fifth goal would be the active participation of employers and workers' organisations and education providers with the State to identify and build competencies for current and future needs of the economy.

Dialogue

To achieve these five goals there is a need for continuous dialogue between the political leadership, economic planners, employers and trainers and coordination across government institutions.

Second, labour market information, employment services and performance reviews are needed for the identification of skill needs. A national policy would enable reforms to be achieved with a clear statement of responsibility shared among Government and other partners.

The policy that grows out of this, increases interest in skills development as an important means to address economic, social and developmental concerns.

A national policy (or strategy or plan) for skills development, TVET (technical and vocational education and training), HRD (human resources development) or Lifelong Learning should be linked with general education and labour policies.

It should focus not only on schoolchildren and young people who have completed their formal schooling, but also on adult workers, school dropouts and workers in the informal economy and disadvantaged groups.

Often skills obtained through training and those needed by the job often do not match, resulting in skills shortages in some areas, simultaneously, a surplus of workers with skills that are not in demand, contribute to unemployment.

Weak quality assurance, too few Quality trainers, poor working conditions for trainers and outdated qualifications, curricula, training material and poor methods all inhibit the quality of training.

Weakness

Limited labour market information and inability to translate such information into improved training interventions undermines relevance.

Today, a large number of providers (ministries, agencies, central and regional governments, NGOs, employers and workers) are involved in skills development. Their efforts often overlap and are not well coordinated. Weakness in linking skills supply and demand also limits the positive impact on employment and productivity.

These challenges have forced many policy-makers to focus on producing high value-added, quality goods and services that can yield high wages and profits.

To do this they need a skilled workforce and an education and training system that adequately prepares young people to enter the labour market.

This imperative runs alongside the current thinking i.e. the need to bring education and training and the world of work together.

Therefore, formulating a national skills development policy would help bring all key stakeholders together to adequately prepare current and future workers to enter and remain productive in the labour market.

The writer is the Chairman of the National HRD Council.