VET Africa 4.0: Reducing Inequality And Enhancing Sustainability Through Skills Development

非洲需要一种新的职业教育和培训(VET)方法，以应对《2030年议程》的见解，即如果不集中关注颠覆复杂的不利条件和确保环境可持续性，以及经济增长和就业，发展就没有意义。自60年前非洲独立浪潮开始以来，非洲的职业教育和培训经历了三个阶段，反映了现代化、基本需求和新自由主义等更广泛的发展正统观念。有了新的教科文组织职业教育愿景和可持续发展目标，现在是时候看看非洲职业教育理论和实践的第四阶段可能是什么样子了，它不仅可以解决经济考虑，而且还可以解决公平/包容和环境可持续问题。为此，我们借鉴了三个主要理论传统：i)将从进化、制度和复杂经济学中学习的发展政治经济学方法与现有的技能传统政治经济学相结合；ii)新一轮人类发展和能力研究浪潮，将能力方法与关键的社会学传统相结合，并将其应用于职业教育和培训；三)关于技能发展促进可持续发展的说明，强调需要对绿色技能采取有利于穷人和社区所有的办法。我们的思考工具包的第四部分由现实主义评估的方法论方法提供，重点是如何确定不同利益相关者的想法在每个案例研究背景下有效(和不有效)，何时、何地和为什么，我们将使用我们工具包的这四个部分来审查四个案例研究：1.乌干达--试图将当地技能和就业培养成一个主要的石油和天然气项目(Hoima)2.乌干达--青年--冲突后环境中的创业和社区发展(Gulu)3.南非--德班的主要基础设施发展倡议，作为从港口到工业中心豪登省的经济走廊这一更大雄心的一部分。南非-农村、社区驱动的绿色技能(E CAPE)提供了在复杂的技能和工作生态系统中进行技能发展的一系列背景。这些项目包括大规模的城市和农村基础设施项目；绿色技能倡议以及采掘业的持续发展；以及小型社区项目，包括冲突后背景下的项目。它们都有重要而复杂的性别和经济不平等的动态。我们将回答四个研究问题：1.是否有证据表明，在非洲，无论是在项目层面还是在更大的规模上，不同的新兴发展技能方法都是可行的？2.不同的利益相关者认为，在这种倡议中，何时、何地、为什么以及对谁有效(和不可行)是什么？3.不同的干预措施在多大程度上为促进所有人的体面工作和可持续生计提供了富有成效的方法，特别强调满足那些面临多种形式不利条件的人的需求？是什么促使和/或限制了这一点？4.这样的技能干预措施是否能够克服旧的生产主义方法，以应对日益增长的环境可持续性挑战？通过对多个案例的理论和应用层面的操作，这项研究将对解决成功的职业教育改革的重大挑战做出重大贡献。它将产生强大的学术研究，通过与利益攸关方的持续接触建立起来，并将以适当的方式与学术、政策、从业人员和社区受众进行沟通。这将使项目团队能够就如何通过生态系统方法更好地支持VET系统转型提供新的实用见解。这将产生新的知识，有助于满足最边缘化的国家发展需要和全球可持续发展目标议程。

A new approach to vocational education and training (VET) in Africa is needed to address the insights of Agenda 2030 that development cannot have meaning without concentrated attention on overturning complex disadvantage and securing environmental sustainability, as well as on economic growth and employment.Since the African independence wave began 60 years ago, VET in Africa has gone through three phases, reflecting wider development orthodoxies of modernisation, basic needs and neoliberalism. With a new UNESCO VET vision and the SDGs, it is time to look at what a fourth phase of African VET theory and practice might look like that can address not just economic considerations but also issues of equity/inclusion and environmental sustainability.To do this we draw on three main theoretical traditions: i) a political economy of development approach that combines learning from evolutionary, institutional and complexity economics with the existing political economy of skills tradition; ii) a new wave of human development and capabilities research that combines the capabilities approach with critical sociological traditions and applies this to VET; iii) accounts of skills development for sustainable development that emphasise the need for pro-poor and community-owned approaches to green skills. The fourth part of our thinking toolkit is provided by the methodological approach of realist evaluation, focused on how to ascertain what different stakeholders think works (and doesn't work) in each case study setting, when, where and why, and for whom.We will use these four parts of our toolkit to examine four case studies:1. Uganda - attempts to build local skills and employment into a major oil and gas project (Hoima)2. Uganda - youth-entrepreneurship and community development in a post-conflict setting (Gulu) 3. South Africa - major infrastructure development initiative in Durban as part of larger ambitions regarding an economic corridor from the port to the industrial heartland of Gauteng4. South Africa - rural, community-driven green skills (E Cape)These provide a range of contexts in which skills development takes place within complex skills and work ecosystems. These include massive infrastructure projects, both urban and rural; green skills initiatives alongside continued developments in extractives; and small community projects, including in post-conflict contexts. They also all have important and complex dynamics of gender and economic inequality.We will answer four research questions:1. Is there evidence that different emergent approaches to skills for development in Africa are viable, both at the project level and, potentially, at larger scale?2. What do different stakeholders think works (and doesn't work) in such initiatives, when, where and why, and for whom?3. To what extent do the different interventions offer a fruitful approach for promoting decent work and sustainable livelihoods for all, with a particular emphasis on meeting the needs of those facing multiple forms of disadvantage? What enables and/or constrains this?4. Are skills interventions such as these capable of overcoming the old productivist approach so as to address the rising challenges of environmental sustainability? By operating at both theoretical and applied levels across multiple cases, this research will make a significant contribution to addressing the grand challenge of successful VET reform. It will produce strong academic research, built through continuous engagement with stakeholders, that will be communicated in appropriate ways to academic, policy, practitioner and community audiences. This will enable the project team to offer new practical insights into how better to support VET system transformation through an ecosystem approach. This will result in new knowledge that can contribute to meeting the needs of the most marginalised, national development needs and the global SDG agenda.