TACIT SKILLS AND OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY IN A GLOBAL CULTURE
1. THE MODELS CAN BE FURTHER ELABORATED AS FOLLOWS
1.1 A strong non-formal sector
A strong non-formal sector tends to determine, to a high degree, the modes of recruitment in the labour market, whereas VET and CVT play only a minor role.
This model is a dominant one in the Mediterranean countries, including Southern Italy. Tacit skills are of little importance in the relatively small VET system, given the dominance of traditional schooling They are of considerable importance in recruitment and advancement in jobs where informal assessment of non-formal prior learning tends to play an important part. In Greece, the significance of non-formal learning has been overshadowed by issues of graduate employment, but in Portugal assessment and self-evaluation of personal competences has gained in importance as policy has been influenced by French and Canadian practices.
1.2 Market driven case,recruitment
In the market driven case, recruitment and VET are strongly geared to demands in the labour market. Flexibility is the main aim, and the features of this model are most prevalent in England, Wales and Ireland. The English NVQ system represents an internationally significant attempt to recognize tacit skills and competences informally acquired within the VET system. The general esteem of tacit skills is high according to standards published for job performance. Variants of this approach have now been introduced in many different countries, ranging from Mexico to Australia. The English government (DfEE) attempted to promote the valuing of experience from unpaid work through the NVQ system, but the complicated performance-based testing procedures required for the NVQ have hampered these and other applications of the methodology.
1.3 Occupational identity – the Beruf
The system based on occupational identity – the Beruf, places a strong emphasis on occupation-specific capabilities, to be acquired through formal learning. It characterises features in Austria and Germany and has been widely admired but little exported beyond the Germanic countries. Tacit skills are held to be products of the socialisation processes of apprenticeship. The development of generalised
‘employability’ skills is not valued since the concept of preparing for future occupational mobility into unknown fields does not fit with the precepts of the Beruf. Preparing adults who have been unsuccessful in the labour market for a wider range of future options can involve greater recognition of tacit skills and competences without interfering with the regulations of the VET system, and the CVT system can potentially add this flexibility.
1.4 Certification-based system
A certification-based system values certificates gained in a complex schooling system with general and vocational routes. Flexibility is provided through non- formal recruitment procedures. This represents important features of the French system, where inflexibility of the labour market has led policy-makers towards the strongest move across Europe, towards the identification, assessment and recognition of non-formal learning in the form of the ‘bilan de competences’.
1.5 Broad-based vocational education allied with personal development
A broad, education – led VET system aimed at personal development as well as occupational preparation, and it emphasises elements such as problem solving and critical thinking in the curriculum, but tacit skills are seen as mainly developed through experiences in enterprises. These tend not to be well linked to the VET system, and are not highly recognised or explicitly valued. However, since personal development is an important element of all VET, it also influences continuing
vocational training measures, which in turn draw on adults’ experiences in various life and work settings. Tacit skills thus become implicitly rather important in adult learning for occupational mobility. This model structure has features that are prevalent in the Nordic countries.
When these model structures are further considered in relation to the prevalent features of particular countries, UK market-led conditions were judged to be favourable for the appreciation of tacit forms of personal competences, given the lack of clearly structured systems of occupations at the lower and middle levels.
Recognition of tacit forms of personal competences was also shown to be strongly gaining in importance in strong non-formal sector settings (e.g., Portugal) and in certificate-dominated settings like France, where the bilan de competences is becoming an internationally significant development. For the UK, our study concluded that although the conditions for recognition of tacit forms of personal competences were favourable, developments were “severely restricted by the prevalent behaviouristic approach towards the identification and assessment of competences” (Hendrich et al., p. 188). Despite this, there were important examples of good practice, particularly in college programmes originally designed for ‘women returners’. While these broad characterisations do capture some important features of national contexts, a better understanding of the processes by which these skills are deployed and recognised in navigating changes in employment can only be understood by investigating individuals in context.
Considerable problems of definition surround the investigation of tacit dimensions of competence (see Eraut, 2000). While explicit knowledge and skills are easily codified and conveyed to others, tacit forms of personal competence are experiential, subjective and personal, and substantially more difficult to convey. The growing interest in their codification stems at least in part from a growing recognition that the tacit dimensions are very important in the performance of individuals, organisations, networks and possibly whole communities. Know-how is of particular significance for this discussion, referring to the ability to do things and involves complex linkages between skill formation and personal knowledge developed through experience. Much of the know-how people possess is acquired through practice or even painful experience. In this respect, this “know how is taken so much for granted and the extent to which it pervades our activities is unappreciated” (Bjornavald, 2001, p. 24). Recognition of tacit forms of personal competences is also highly gendered. The extent to which this reflects differences between the sexes in the actual ownership of skills or differences in the ways in which they are ascribed to people in social settings is also the subject of much research and debate (see Heikkinen, 1996, Billett, 2002, and Kampmeier et al., 2003).
The nature of ‘transfer’ of competences between jobs and environments is also highly contested. For the purposes of this research, we hold that all skills and competences have both tacit and explicit dimensions. We regard tacit competences as partly structural and partly ‘referential’ (ie referenced to context), recognising that people do take things with them into new jobs and occupations, but not in simple ways. Naïve mappings of key skills from one environment into another are not a basis for occupational mobility. Even ‘near’ transfer into related activities is far
Table 1International Significance of Tacit Forms of Personal Competences (TCP):
five analytical models (Source: Hendrich, Heidegger, Evans, Figueri, Patiniotis, 2001)
from simple, leading to the recognition by activity theorists such as Engestrom (1994, 2000) that it is whole activity systems which count. For people with interrupted occupational biographies, this presents particular problems, particularly when they have spent extended periods away from the workplace and have no belief or confidence in their previous skills.
The call for wider recognition of skills gained through non-formal learning is only one facet of a debate centred on the nature of the so-called knowledge-based economy and the ways in which the ‘knowledge’ concerned is codified and used.
Workers soon to demand pay for what they have learned, no matter where they have learned it…learning that takes place away from the classroom, during leisure time, in the family or at work, is increasingly seen as a resource that needs to be more systematically used. (CEDEFOP RELEASE, 2001)
The new debate has been fuelled by economists and labour market specialists, creating new possibilities for interdisciplinary endeavour with learning professionals and educational and social researchers in trying to understand better what it is that Extent to
which TPC recognised as relevant for:
Strong non- formal Sector
Market- driven
Case ‘Beruf’ based
Certificate based
Broad VET Based
*VET Little (in voc schools)
important attempts:
NVQ/key skills
‘key qualifications’
implicitly built in
little (in schools)
some key competences
*Labour market
Very important
highly valued for
‘flexibility’
not highly valued – resistance
less important Little acknowled gement
*Esteem Very variable
high when related to standards
low, reluctance to recognise
rather low still low
*CVT some significant innovation
attempts mostly aimed at certificates
important:
‘bilan des competences’
‘officially’
little relevance
*Employabi- lity
Very important
important little, except for long-term unemployed
not much Little
*Personal development
important implicit importance
little official emphasis
important in
‘bilan’
Implicit importance
*Assessments growing imbedded in performance assessments
very little important for
‘bilan’
NVQ method increasingly important
*Self evaluation
growing approaches for valuing unpaid work
some innovation
an importance feature of
‘bilan’
Little
actually constitutes the ‘knowledge base’ of the economy and the place of non- formal learning in this scenario.
Cowan, David and Foray (2000) in an issue of Industrial and Corporate Change have identified the distinction between codified and tacit knowledge as being in need of redefinition in the ‘knowledge-based economy’. They argue that it is a mistake to view any knowledge or skill as inherently tacit—nearly all knowledge, they say, is codifiable. From their economists’ point of view the only real issue is whether the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs. Furthermore, they have pointed out that any acceptance of the view that knowledge can both be inherently tacit and important undermines the basis for standard micro-economic theory, and any attempts to model human behaviour. Johnson and Lundvall (2001) take issue with them as fellow economists, showing how the concept of the ‘knowledge-based economy’ is poorly understood and raising fundamental issues which lie behind the drive to codify previously uncodified knowledge and skill for ‘systematic use’: how does ‘codification’ actually take place in relation to different types of knowledge?
What are the driving forces which lie behind efforts to codify? What are the consequences of codification of different kinds of knowledge for economic development and for the distribution of wealth?
These questions are centrally important in considering questions of inequalities in skill recognition and access to learning at, for, and through the workplace. This is not an ‘academic’ discussion. The extract from the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training given above is close to the heart of the political and economic agenda in the expanding European Community, and the proposals merit critical examination by us all.
For the purposes of the discussion which follows, non-formal learning embraces unplanned learning in work situations and in domains of activity outside the formal economy, but may also include planned and explicit approaches to learning carried out in any of these environments which are not recognised within the formal education and training system. It is taken that such non-formal learning has strong tacit dimensions. While explicit knowledge is easily codified and conveyed to others, tacit knowledge is experiential, subjective and personal, and substantially more difficult to convey.
The interest in its codification stems at least in part from a growing recognition that the tacit dimensions of knowledge are very important in performance of individuals, organisations, networks and possibly whole communities. Knowledge is taken in its widest definition as incorporating, at an individual level, knowing why, knowing that, knowing how and knowing who. At the organisational level, these four types of knowledge are found in shared information, shared views of the world, shared practices and shared networks. At the societal level we may talk about knowledge which is stored as personal knowledge, knowledge embedded in culture, knowledge stored in institutions and in networks. Know-how is of particular significance for this discussion, referring to the abilities to do things and involves complex linkages between skill formation and personal knowledge developed through experience.
It is more helpful to regard all knowledge as having both tacit and explicit dimensions. When we can facilitate the communication of some of the tacit
dimensions, these become explicit and therefore codifiable. Why should we want to do this?
This may be for the purpose of teaching someone else to do it (if we are a teacher or trainer), or communicating to others that we have skills and competences appropriate to a task, role or occupation (if we are job applicants), or identifying that a person or group has the capabilities we need for a job to be done (if we are employers or project leaders). In other words, the reasons for codification largely revolve around ‘transfer’. It can be argued that, for those competences and forms of knowledge which have a high tacit dimension, transfer has to involve high levels of social interaction, demonstration and ‘showing how’ –manuals and written accounts are of little help. In the case of the job applicant, jobs which require a high level of skills, which is not easily codified, will often require a demonstration of skills and competence. In the case of a new entrant to a job and workplace, know how will involve both skills acquired previously and the underpinning knowledge which allows this skill to be operationalised in a new environment. Beyond this a period of interaction within the social and occupational practices of the workplace will be needed for the tacit dimensions of know how to be adjusted to culture and environment of the new setting.
The ideas of individuals being able to transfer skills and competences between jobs in the interests of ‘flexibility’ fitted the ‘modernisation’ and deregulation agendas of the 1980s and 1990s in Britain, and key competences came to the fore as an instrument of ‘lifelong learning’ policy.
Treating these as completely codifiable leads to the claims at the beginning of this chapter. If we can codify and compare key competences against ‘objective’
criteria, some of the assumptions commonly held about skill levels of different occupations might be challenged. (See Table 1). But research on ‘work process knowledge’ such as Boreham’s (2000) finds that these skills derive much of their meaning from the context in which they are used. Treating these skills as partly structural and partly ‘referential’ (ie referenced to context) recognises that people do take things with them into new jobs and occupations, but not in simple ways. This is one of the gaps in our knowledge. Much of the work on key competences has focused on extracting these from tasks and not in looking at the dynamics of the ways in which people carry knowledge and learning into new environments. The importance of this is now being recognised in the economic domain as well as in VET research and practice, with Johnson’ and Lundvall’s latest paper calling for “a major interdisciplinary effort” (2001). We know that the idea of simple skill transfer from one setting to another is very problematic - the fact that we can use common language to describe a skill group does not mean it is transferable intact. What we need to understand is the processes by which skills are ‘transformed’ from one setting into another. Naïve mappings of key skills from one environment into another are not a basis for occupational mobility. Even ‘near’ transfer into related activities is far from simple, leading to the recognition by activity theorists such as Engestrom (2000) that it is whole activity systems which count. For people with interrupted occupational biographies, this presents particular problems, particularly when they have spent extended periods away from the workplace. This fits with clear evidence that people with extended breaks from the workplace have no belief
or confidence in their previous skills. Their feeling of being completely deskilled can be seen as a lived reality, not as lack of the personal attribute called
‘confidence’.
The discussion which follows considers the origins of ‘key competences’ and formulations which have developed heuristically through micro-level research on the realities of how women and men recognise, use and develop their skills and the possibilities and contradictions they encounter in their occupational and learning biographies. These analyses have been developed through work carried out in the UK component of the European funded research discussed earlier (Evans, Hoffmann
& Saxby-Smith, UK; Hendrich & Heidegger, Germany) and research carried out within the UK in the ESRC Teaching and Learning Programme Research Network project (Evans, 2001; Kersh, 2001)
The final sections consider whether the European proposals for codification and communication of ‘know how’ via ‘personal skills cards’ (or other means) would decrease inequalities or increase them, and asks what the place of non-formal learning might be in the alternative scenarios for lifelong learning articulated by Coffield (2000) as the technocratic or democratic visions of a ‘Learning Society’.
The table 2 below shows competences performed by work category, according to research by Billett (2000), reported in Gerber and Lankshear (2000). The research highlighted the skill content of jobs cast as unskilled, a finding which is consistent with Rainbird’s Future of Work research which led the team to replace the term
‘low-skilled’ with ‘low-graded’ work.
The table concentrates on identifying forms of key competences, or key skills found in jobs. Key competences have gained in importance in all EU member states over the past decade. Formulations of key competences have come from different origins and are controversial in different ways. While the ideas behind key competences in the wider European understandings contain rather broad conceptions of skills and competences, competences in UK have to be understood comparatively in a rather narrow sense. In the European research a more holistic approach to competence was needed which would refer not only to occupational needs but to needs of the individuals with respect to enabling them to manage their personal biography as a whole. A new learning culture also had to be envisaged which would refer to competences which are generative of future individual and group performance rather than based on reductions of present individual work activities.
While there are official formulations of ‘key’ competences in most countries, these are in very different stages of development. Where they are controversial within their respective national contexts, this is because of the ways in which they sit in relation to the dominant models already discussed. For example, the focus in Germany on key competences came initially from labour market perspectives on the changing nature of work, and subsequently started to permeate discourses about the development of VET systems and practices in the search for ways to meet the requirements of enterprises for new qualifications in the workforce. Key competences are controversial in Germany because of fears that they undermine the
‘Beruf’ principle and occupational structures which underpin the German systems.
In comparing competences and qualifications within Europe, different meanings of the term ‘qualification’ have to be understood. This is associated with certification