The book is a summation of a major research project by the authors into the European Qualifications Framework (EQF), funded by the Nuffield Foundation. The project involved an evaluation of the system created by the European Union (EU) for mutual recognition of vocational education and training (VET) qualifications granted within the separate countries of the EU. In simple terms, the EQF is an attempt to reconcile the pre-existing national qualification frameworks into a single supra-national framework. The goal of the EQF is to foster greater labour mobility within the EU and encourage more investment in VET training by EU firms and citizens (pp. 14–16). As with many governments around the world, the EU has imposed a remarkably broad range of ambitious policy goals on VET; reducing social exclusion and income inequality, regional development, promoting life-long learning and lifting national competitiveness through technical and organisational innovation.
The purpose of the book is twofold. The first is to examine the ‘equivalence’ of VET qualifications across four key nations within the EU, England, the Netherlands, France and Germany. This addresses the question, whether a plumber in Utrecht is the same as a plumber in Coventry. The second purpose is to evaluate the validity and reliability of the methods used within the EQF to establish such equivalence.
The authors are outstanding European scholars who, collectively, have been researching VET for decades (Reference Clarke and WinchClarke and Winch, 2006). A real strength of the book is the ability of the authors to apply a diverse range of concepts and approaches to the subject. They apply empirical case study, historical, educationist, political economy and philosophical tools to the task of analysing the specific characteristics of VET systems within each nation and comparing and contrasting this sector with the three others. The analysis in almost all of the chapters is based first, on what might be termed the ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ approach (Reference Hall and SoskiceHall and Soskice, 2001), focusing on the more obvious differences in the funding and delivery of VET; the role of the state, employer associations, unions and educationalists in the design and implementation of the VET system, and the mutual interaction between national VET systems and labour markets. The second analytical apparatus is a detailed examination of the central ideas animating the respective VET systems, principally the concepts of ‘knowledge’, ‘occupation’, ‘qualification’, ‘skill’ and ‘labour market’. This second apparatus comprises a detailed linguistic and philosophical comparative analysis of these core concepts as they apply in and across the four nations.
There are separate chapters on each of the four national systems, providing useful thumbnail sketches of the organisation of VET but, more interestingly, the ideas animating specific differences in these systems. These chapters serve as a useful introduction to the English conception of ‘skill’; the German conception of beruf; the French savoir, savoir faire and savoir etre; and the Dutch idea of competence.
Among the key findings, the foremost is that the English VET system can be identified as a clear outlier in contrast to the other three states. In England VET is regarded as quite distinct from education. By contrast, in France, the Netherlands and Germany, VET is under the administrative control of education departments and general education subjects such as languages, mathematics and civics are part of VET curricula. In the United Kingdom, VET serves a purely direct labour market function (in contrast to its socially integrative role). The design of the UK VET system is employer dominated, but paradoxically, employer associations are weak and un-representative, necessitating strong state direction and funding. In the United Kingdom, training is directed to impart competencies and is assessed against a narrow range of task-related functions required in the current workplace. This is in contrast to an emphasis in the other systems on knowledge for problem solving and innovation to create ‘autonomous workers who can plan, control, co-ordinate and evaluate their own work’ (p. 31).
A second key finding is that, given the profound differences in VET systems across the EU and a number of deficiencies in the EQF methods used to determine qualification equivalence, the authors are highly sceptical that an EU-wide VET qualification system can be created that does not threaten higher quality continental VET training. The EQF ‘could open up a can of worms, opening the door to qualifications with little or no credibility or educational validity and for which little trust can be established’ (p. 148). The exceptions are a few highly regulated occupations, such as nursing, which not only have a strong and common occupational identity but also already-established multi-country agreements creating uniform and tightly specified educational inputs and outputs. Software engineering (SE), though not subject to occupational licensing, is also much less problematic for a different reason: the prominence of multinational corporations in SE has created relatively uniform work organisation and occupational roles within the EU and software vendors are prominent suppliers of training which, again, establishes a degree of uniformity in training and assessment standards (Chapter 8).
While the contributions are of uniformly high quality, perhaps the most interesting is the chapter by Christopher Winch on ‘Skill’. A philosopher and educationist, Winch provides a forensic examination of the limited conception of skill in England. Restricted largely to the performance of a limited range of tasks in production, the English definition downplays broader occupational knowledge, education and capacity for critical reflection on the production process. Winch traces this to Reference SmithAdam Smith’s (1776) paean to the division of labour and even identifies Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind (Reference Ryle1949) as a culprit. The ‘quality of VET in England continues to suffer’ from this limited conception (p. 101). Rather than simply labelling ‘skill’ a ‘social construct’, a self-evident proposition anyway, he demonstrates how it is deeply embedded in English philosophical, cultural and linguistic ideas. Importantly, Winch also identifies the material conditions supporting this limited conception by noting how the idea influences, and is in turn, influenced by Taylorism and the ‘low-skill equilibrium’ that is claimed to typify much of English production.
The other genuinely novel contribution is the final chapter, written by all six authors, a 35-page essay on the different meanings attached to a set of core concepts by the VET systems in the four nations and by the EU. These concepts include competence, education, occupation, qualification, training and knowledge. This chapter will be an extremely valuable research and teaching aid.
This edited work is another in the now prodigious array of academic research critical of the English VET system. There does appear to be an ever-widening rift in the design of the VET system between the views of the academy and policy makers and politicians of almost all persuasions. On occasion, the policy makers are prepared to acknowledge some of the major deficiencies, such as the existence of a ‘low-skill equilibrium’ in the English labour market (p. 96), without, however, diminishing the vigour with which they implement neo-liberal VET policy. A similar situation applies in Australia. It is difficult to think of another field of public policy where such a complete incompatibility between scholarship and implementation applies. This is surely worthy of examination.
