Introduction
Employment and Job training program is a valuable tool for ensuring organizations, and even nations at large, gain in terms of increased workers’ productivity. From the dimension of the workers, employment and the on-job training programs are beneficial in the sense that, they result to investment in workers’ abilities and careers, often improving them in the course of execution of such programs. For fresh graduates, employment and job training programs provide them with an amicable opportunity to both learn and work.
For the purposes of realization of these benefits, it is critical that organizations, in both public and private sectors, develop effective policies that guide proper and smooth running of employment and job training programs. The question is, thus, how should it be done? Assuming the position of an external policy analyst, the paper seeks to answer this interrogative.
Akin to development of employment and on job training programs policies, within organizations, is the need to distinguish between two technical terms learning and training. Friedlander and Robbins argue, “Training’ suggests putting stuff into people, when in essence we should be developing people from the inside out, so they achieve their own individual potential – what they love and enjoy, what they are most capable of, and strong at doing, rather than what we try to make them be” (923).
Based on this argument, it is perhaps plausible to argue also that training is the province of organization’s concerns while learning is the concern of people working for the organization on an individual basis. This infers that learning is chiefly an outcome of training, which can be achieved or fail to be achieved, depending on the trainee’s levels of interest and intellectual abilities.
Consequently, the paper proposes that employment and job training policies need to be formulated and implemented, in such a way that, such peculiar differences, amongst the target persons, are well addressed in the attempt to achieve enormous success of employment and job training programs.
While formulating employment and job training policies, it is critical that substantive flexibility is provided. The paper argues that flexibility in policies development and enactment is relevant in the sense of making sure that mechanisms of incorporating dynamic changes, in terms of technological innovation in the programs, are provided.
This implies that, problems should be redefined whenever an attempt is made to derive a new approach in deploying job training programs, in seeking to improve the productivity of the organizational workforce. However, any employment and job training program policy needs to be structured such that, it always defines the problem at hand, considers philosophical and cultural perspectives of the organization (guiding principles, values, ethos, and visions among others), and people (their abilities and financial limitations).
Moreover, it should define legal contexts (in terms of discrimination, safety and health); methods of career development, recruitment, succession and selection; financial planning; and social responsibility perspectives (diversity, environment, ethics, sustainability and social corporate responsibility among others).
Training program timing, scale and geographical factors, methods of measuring and evaluating policy achievements, and system tools, among others also need factoring in the policy formulation, implementation and evaluation phases.
With this in mind, this paper focuses on policy development in the area of employment and job training programs. The paper begins by considering problem definition, followed by policy goal setting, then policy tools, and finally, consideration of probability of the proposed policy ability to get into an agenda.
Problem definition
Upon passing of the 1961 area redevelopment act in the U.S., policymakers embanked on reshaping and also endeavoring to upgrade skills coupled with employment prospects of people who garnered low income via employment and job training programs that were highly publicized. Many of these programs kicked off their concerns, by availing vocational training opportunities to people, who were displaced and dislocated before shifting in covering people who lived in poverty.
Many of the persons, regarded as weak in the vocational training programs, were largely economically disadvantaged in the sense that, they had a long history that was ideally poor. As Friedlander and Robbins note, “during the 1960s the menu of services provided to economically disadvantaged people expanded, but since that time their variety and content have not changed very much” (927). However, the goals and orientations of employment and job training programs in the U.S. policies can be argued as having shifted incredibly.
For example, within the last four decades, training programs policymakers have indeed changed their emphasis with regard to low costs as opposed to services that are high cost in nature with regard to the extent in which they serve the interests of the unemployed people who often are economically disadvantaged. Much change has also been realized, in the context of such programs capacity, to serve youths in comparison to adults, particularly dropouts of high schools.
The main problem is that such programs fail to produce substantive earning and or employment gains among the youths. This problem is widely supported by the results of non-experimental evaluations coupled with alternative social experiment program models with the exception of findings of Job Corps program. Friedlander and Robbins reckon, “Some evaluations, including one experimental evaluation, report that Job Corp programs services modestly increase participants’ employment rates and earnings” (933).
The services provided by Job Corps are, however, expensive but comprehensive in nature. The ability of the Job Corps’ employment training program to produce positive results is indeed, however, impacted by the fact that cost benefits analysis show that earnings increase derived from Job Corps training fails to justify the costs incurred in conducting the trainings. Ideally then on margin, chances are that the society may be better off in case the employment training resources could have been channeled to adults other than youths.
Statistically, expenditures on employment training program in the U.S. amount to 0.1 to 0.2 of the GDP depending on the nature of the program being implemented (Heckman, LaLonde, and Smith 43). Almost all other OECD member countries spend much more than the U.S. on employment training program as a share of their GDP (Heckman, LaLonde, and Smith 47).
By considering the magnitude of poverty in comparison to wages inequalities among economically disadvantaged people- who are often targeted by employment and job training programs, it becomes challenging and often sheds light on why training program produces little impact on wages structure and or output. Employment and training programs, with regard to the policies establishing them, they ought not to affect the well-being of participants, on average.
Apparently, based on evaluations, existing programs fails to integrate participants in the realm of the economic mainstream. Indeed even though job training programs may be primarily argued as effective in conducting training, from the workers dimension depending on the differences existing between various people especially their learning abilities, they may fail to ensure that workers indeed learn as intended.
Consequently, amid making people disadvantaged economically less poor, the programs may fail to reduce poverty levels substantially, yet this aim is their noble role. Surprisingly enough, majorities of the programs are executed under lower costs per participant, than the annual cost of normal schooling.
Heckman, LaLonde, and Smith exemplify this point by asserting, “In 1997, programs operated under the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) spent on average about $3,000 per participant” (82). Arguably then, anticipating employment and training program to hike productivity output per participant to a sufficient level so that yearly earning escalate, by for instances thousands of dollars, infers that social investments need to have internal return rates that are extraordinary.
In the modern-day, technologies deployed in organizations incredibly change virtually almost overnight. It is thus almost impossible to anticipate that, skills transferred to the population, through formal schooling, would do much such dynamic. Evidently, a mechanism of ensuring that workers remain updated with the emerging innovative technologies and methods of production, especially the ones that reduce production costs, is indispensable.
Essentially, such knowledge is more likely to be transferred to people through employment and training programs that to date forms a concern of every organization that seeks to remain competitive. Reforms of employment and training policies are thus not an option, but a must for embracement by organizations.
This aspect is perhaps largely significant by considering that, the question of effectiveness of employment and training program are likely to attract large public interest, especially by noting that, creativity and innovation are the key drivers of modern economies. Arguably, continuous training is the core of workers productivity output improvement. One of the most plausible ways of ensuring that employees continuously learn is the deployment of vocational training in every sector of production-something many nations have ardently embraced.
However, change of policies governing vocational training is essential to make the current vocational training program more effective. To resolve the problem of failure, of employment and training programs to produce substantive earning and or employment gains among the youths, calls for change of the vocational training programs from being voluntary to mandatory.
However, these trainings consume money and hence, the government essentially needs to either fund them on differed payment mode or treat then as part of essential services it provides to the citizens free of charge. Where charging is necessary, then, temporary assistance to needy families needs being considered.
Policy goal setting
The goal of developing vocational training policy by declaring that, it is mandatory for every student to attend mandatory vocational education and training program, in the due course of his or her education, is pegged on the idea of improving chances of students being considered for jobs upon clearing their formal education.
Students, who have attended technical and vocational training programs, have experience on their line of specialization and hence are better placed to handle responsibilities delegated to them with minimal on the job training. Additionally, the goal of making such a policy is based on the belief that by placing students on mandatory vocational training program, they would get a lid of stereotyping associated with their careers.
This has the consequences of making them develop impression that is realistic in relation to their careers of choice. Moreover, students would get acquaintance with their specialties’ “culture of industry and commerce, to develop the students understanding of the role and functions of different employees within an organization and to provide the discipline of employment” (Conger 30).
Making technical and vocational training mandatory is necessary, especially by considering that, experience has shown that technical and vocational training institutions have an immense opportunity of having their students placed, as compared to other students who do not attend such programs. In this essence, the goal of making technical and vocational training mandatory is to ensure that students become demand-driven, dynamic, competitive, at both national and international levels, and quality conscious.
Ensuring that students develop abilities to respond to work environmental dynamics would apparently mitigate the challenges previously encountered in training programs over the first two decades of the last four decades in which upon conducting on the job training, minimal results were obtained in terms of increased workers productivity outputs in comparison to the costs incurred during the training forums.
Even though setting the goals of making technical and vocational training mandatory may sound as having the capacity of providing students with mechanisms of being recruited for jobs quick enough upon completion of the formal studies, several nations experience a number of drawback towards institutionalization of technical and vocational training programs. For instance, in India, technical and vocational training has been widely acclaimed as having the ability to improve the output of new job entrants.
However, technical and the vocational training program policies have experienced immense challenges, because in India, there exists low priorities amongst the citizens for vocational training, insufficient industries for linkages, inadequate trainers and teachers, and non-existence of vertical mobility.
Moreover, India boasts inflexible curriculum, non-agreement of various agencies, and absence of overall social appreciation of the roles of vocational education, among others. Application of the policy declaring that technical education and vocational training are mandatory needs also to embrace certain aspects in its formulation if at all the goals of vocational education and training are to be meet precisely.
These aspects include; expansion and upgrading of vocational training and education, expansion and upgrading of technical and higher education, promotion of research in institutions of education and also redesigning patterns of education at school levels to ensure that skills development is facilitated.
Government being the primary organ charged with ensuring the successful implementation of policies applicable at national fronts, on its part needs to ensure that vocational training and education program polices are fully implemented by declaring its roles precisely. Within the broader goals of making technical and vocational training mandatory, a government needs to strengthen, reinforce, and reform vocational training and education.
It also needs to enact extra policies that ensure the capacity of technical and vocational training is expanded, by incorporation of the private sector coupled with promotion of academia and industry interaction, in the endeavor to ensure that, the gaps that may exist between skilled labor demand and supply is magnificently narrowed.
Policy tools
Policy tools are essentially engineered to serve as a variety of various evaluation approaches often applicable in the broadest probable application. The main objective of putting in place tools for policy evaluations is to derive the fundamental foundation of basing possible reforms on the proposed policy. In education policies formulation and implementation, there exist several reasons as to why policy tools need being set in place.
One of the reasons is “to assess the nature and magnitude of the opportunities and constraints that face the systems that provide education and training” (Fetterman 18). Secondly, policy tools enable both private sector and the government to establish priorities in the allocation of resources for implementation of resource-constrained policies that are of national interest.
This reason is enormously crucial while determining the capacity of likelihood of success of a policy seeking to make technical and vocational training mandatory and part of educational curriculum in the U.S. This move is particularly significant, since as argued before, for success of such a policy there needs to be heavy channeling of resources to according temporary assistance to needy families.
Upon identification of the constraints, mechanisms of dealing with the constraints are enacted, and hence providing the basis for weighing possible options. Tools and instruments essential for implementation of the policy, stated herein as, “every person shall undergo mandatory technical vocational and training program as part of her or his qualification requirement”, must have cost elements ingrained in them.
This means that justification of costs for running such a policy in relation to the anticipated economic gain is relevant. Therefore, in this context, policy tools are indeed not only mechanism of reflecting outcomes of a given policy, but also a way of providing informed guidance in an attempt of categorization of a policy as relevance or irrelevant both in public and private domains.
Bearing in mind the cumbersome process of making policies in the U.S., providing the platforms of classification of the policy this way, may provide a more competitive edge for resulting in the consideration of the proposed policy in the agenda. Apparently, if the policy is not included in the agenda, it cannot proceed to the next phases before it is approved. In attempting to push for the implementation of the policy, desirability and affordability are somewhat critical elements for consideration.
The argument for desirability is that, technical and vocational training follows systematic procedures, just like any other form of education, and thus it could have myriads of benefits and desirable effects. Reforms in polices are intended to ensure improvement of outcomes from the contexts of quality and quantity of outcomes.
Data providing evidence of investments, in technical and vocational training capacity to result in enhanced economic growth and increment, in employment rates could, in this end, support the desirability of making technical and vocational training mandatory. However, as previously argued, this endeavor would call for substantive government funding.
Ideally then, pegged on the need to contemplate on the aspects of opportunity cost incurred if the policy is negated from inclusion in the agenda often would provide a coercive force to the policymakers who are mindful to the welfare of the society especially while choosing between beneficial and most beneficial policies for inclusion in the agenda.
On the other hand, consideration of costs as a critical tool for ensuring successful implementation calls for taking into account valid dimensions of costs attributed to making technical and vocational training mandatory. These costs are either direct costs, for example, payments of salaries of technical and vocational trainers and teachers, and the costs of financing temporary assistance to needy families’ kitty or indirect costs.
Indirect costs would entail aspects, such as costs for failing to provide financial incentives to needy families and or reduction in total payments payable at technical and vocational training institutions, as reflected in the in economic indicators, such as levels of unemployment and living standards of people.
More importantly, analysis of costs needs to go beyond financial costs and involve political and social capital, among others. Consideration of costs as a tool for promoting the relevance of the policy, arguably entails putting policies makers in conditions of substantive evaluations and considerations of various possible policies for inclusion in the agenda which if not addressed would translate into increased indirect cost in future. This means then that the policy tool relies heavily on information availability and persuasions.
Assessment of likelihood of incorporation of the policy in the agenda
Getting an issue into a plan is one of the essential steps in policy development to address certain perceived social problems. This implies that unless an issue appears on an agenda, addressing it in a policy becomes a nightmare (Birkland 59). In fact, a lot of research has been done, by scholars, to determine the processes of getting issues into an agenda, coupled with issues that make an agenda and when such issues deserve to form part of an agenda.
Despite the fact that numerous conditions that impair people’s abilities to contextualize issues relating to justice and fairness exist, evidently, not every condition is a problem requiring government interventions through policies. Unemployment is indeed a social challenge not only in the U.S. but also across the globe. Particularly, during recession, organizations prefer retaining workers who are highly productive to have high levels of output, while ensuring that cost of production is maintained as low as possible.
With the conceptualization of this economic argument, and with justification of the fact that unemployment constitutes a social problem and that vocational training and education may increase chances of job selection coupled with hiking economic growth, getting the policy into an agenda is widely possible.
However, challenges may be encountered, especially considering the cumbersomeness of policymaking process of the U.S. This aspect is perhaps significant by considering that, in some situation, some issues are considered as issues, while others are treated as non-issues, and hence hardly make it to the agenda list.
Some issues are more likely to get into the agenda than others are. Among the reasons, why some issues do not make it to the agenda level includes problem definition, crowding an issue with other issues; the problem may be an illegitimate concern of the state, non-decision making and issues irrelevancy.
The seriousness of issues is expressed in their definition. Poorly defined problems would consequently end up neglected in the agendas. However, even though the problem may have been defied properly, its concerns may be irreverent to the state. However, it is anticipated that in the attempt to make vocational education and training mandatory in the U.S., the link between it and increased productivity indeed would make the policy being considered as an issue.
Perhaps, by considering the concept of non-decision-making issues raised by a Bachrach and Baratz, it is apparent why some issues end up as being agendas while others do not. As Bachrach and Baratz reckon, “non-decision making in a power context is based on the presumption that political consensus is commonly shaped by status quo defenders, exercising their power resources and operated to prevent challenges to their values and interests” (901).
A social condition, which attracts keen interests from the wider society, constitute a social problem, which needs solution often arrived at, after the issue of concern is incorporated in a public agenda. However, some issues that attract immense public interest are non-issues, perhaps because the concerned population may lack the ability to site solution as they may lack the power to do so (Birkland 87).
Even if solutions are available, they may largely violate the interests and the status quo of those influential figures that would set the mechanisms of enabling the incorporation of the issue into an agenda. This implies that, though a social condition may be an agenda issue, the larger population may be forced to embrace it as part of their lives since they are incapacitated to push for likely solutions to it.
A fear is also expressed that, the concerns of vocational training and fostering placement of fresh graduates may be treated as non-issues, and thus produce an impediment for the policy being incorporated in the agenda. Several reasons would account for this fear.
In the debate of whether it is relevant making vocational education and training mandatory or not, it is anticipated it would derive many disagreements among policymakers especially considering the hefty costs that go into it in terms of provision of temporary assistance to the needy families to meet its costs, and this scenario breeds fear.
However, taking a condition entailing “actual disagreements in preferences among two or more groups” (Bachrach and Baratz 904) as comprising an issue is confusing. The question is, even if disagreements exist, do they attract the attention of the wider society.
If so, does the wider society have the power to solicit suggested solution? In addition, if so, is the power limited to the extent that it does not violate the status quo of those in power? Any precondition for compliance with the two queries may make an issue end up being a non-issue and in the context of making vocational training and education mandatory, hinder it from getting into the agenda.
Conclusion
In the paper, it has been argued that employment and job training programs are a valuable tool for ensuring organizations and even nations at large gain in terms of increased workers’ productivity. Research proves that employment and job-training program raises the probabilities of job recruitments among people.
Investment in technical and vocational training is arguably one of the ways of enhancing employment and job training programs in the U.S. From this assertion; the paper proposes that in the U.S., a policy that makes technical and vocational training mandatory needs to be enacted. However, the success, of putting such a policy into an agenda, is challenging, considering the cumbersomeness of the policymaking process in the U.S. Hence, substantive tools need to be put in place, for ensuring that the proposed policy gets into an agenda.
Apart from clear and concise problem definition in a manner that it amounts to a social problem and hence worth public attention, consideration of elements such as cost and benefit of making technical and vocational training mandatory may indeed play a crucial role in facilitating articulation of the policy into the agenda. For these reasons, the paper has paid incredible attention in problem definition, goal setting, and the examination of policy tools by assuming the position of an external policy analyst.
Works Cited
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Conger, Stuart. Policies Guidelines for Educational and Vocational Training. Paris: UNESCO, 2006. Print.
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Friedlander, Douglas, and Paul Robbins. Evaluating Program Evaluations: New Evidence on Commonly Used Non-Experimental Methods. American Economic Review 85.4 (1995): 923–937. Print.
Heckman, Johnston, Duncan Lalonde, and James Smith. The Economics and Econometrics of Active Labor Market. Amsterdam: North Holland, 1999. Print.