SKILL STANDARDS

Industry-based skill standards play an important role in the school-to-work education system articulated in the School-to-Work Opportunities Act. Policymakers, education reformers, and analysts argue that a well-functioning system of standards will have many positive benefits. Standards tell students what they need to know to enter a particular occupation; indicate to employers the skills and abilities of applicants; facilitate the assessment of educational institutions; and, perhaps most important, provide a forum for employers and schools to work together.

There are two important points concerning the history and development of standards in the United States. First, skill standards in this country are not new. Over the last few decades, states and occupational groups have developed a plethora of systems for setting standards and assessing skills. Nevertheless, contemporary standards advocates see the current reform movement, which will be coordinated by the National Skill Standards Board established by the Goals 2000: Educate America Act of 1994 as a significant break from these disparate and uncoordinated past systems because it is hoped that the new standards will be adopted nationwide and thus maximize portability within the United States. Second, the emerging interest in standards during the last few years is very much linked to perceptions about the changing workplace based on the increasing importance of learning-intensive work which focuses on the application of more general, traditionally academic skills to the workplace. Given the current emphasis on broad-based workplace skills, the adoption of skill standards should reinforce the integration of vocational and academic education.

To what extent have current skill standards efforts in the United States promoted greater integration of vocational, academic, and generic skills? On the one hand, at least through the middle of the 1990s, the movements to develop academic and industry-based skill standards have been developed independently with little interaction between individuals involved in the two movements. The National Skill Standards Board has a very strong industry focus, as it was designed to have, and, so far, educators have not been significantly involved with many of the skill standards pilot projects funded by the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education to develop models and practice. The majority of these skill standards models still conceptualize vocational and academic skills separately (Bailey & Merritt, 1995).

On the other hand, some of the skill standards pilot projects have attempted to integrate occupational and academic skills. The New Standards Project of the National Center on Education and the Economy in collaboration with the LRDC (Learning Research and Development Center) has contributed to the formulation of integrated standards. Two trends in the design of standards systems suggest progress, and both of these trends are strongly endorsed by the National Skill Standards Board. The first involves the attempts to incorporate generic workplace skills such as problem solving and teamwork (SCANS skills) into the systems of standards. While the use of SCANS skills is not the same as a comprehensive attempt to integrate vocational and academic education, it does move beyond a specific focus on narrowly defined vocational skills. Although most of the skill standards pilot projects are still trying to determine how to incorporate generic skills into their systems, there is little disagreement that it is necessary. The second trend that moves education away from narrowly defined occupational skills is based on broadening the definition of the occupations. In some, although certainly not all of the pilot projects, designers have tried to set standards for broad occupational clusters instead of narrower occupations.[7]

The goal of a contemporary standards movement cannot be simply to set recognizable standards. After all, the United States already has extensive experience with occupational and professional standards, though these are often set by individual states and not recognized nationally. Rather, standards must be seen in the context of a broader education reform movement. Industry skill standards can easily solidify past practices. This can be true even if standards have many characteristics called for by reformers such as portability, national recognition, modularization, and development through intensive employer input. This section considers some of the experiences in other industrialized countries with using standards to promote the stronger integration of vocational and academic education.

The great strides that Australia has made in improving its vocational education and certification process have centered around broadening vocational credentials. Indeed, major elements of the country's training reform agenda involve improving the efficiency and output of vocational education, making it more acceptable and relevant to high-performance industry needs.

Competency-based training (CBT) is a quality assurance system concerned primarily with training, assessment, and credentialing to meet industry-specific standards. The Vocational Education, Employment and Training Committee has defined the key features of the Australian CBT system:

Essential aspects of a CBT (competency-based training) system are that delivery, assessment, and certification of training should relate to the identification of, instruction in, and demonstrated attainment of the knowledge, skills, and applications required for effective performance at the required level, as defined in competency standards. (OECD: Australia, 1992, p. 10)

The competencies defined are of two kinds: (1) "key competencies," which show a striking resemblance to SCANS skills in the United States; and (2) "functional competencies," which deal with employment-related skills in workforce preparation programs. Functional competencies include aspects of the key competencies, but they also include industry-specific skills, and they are written in industry-specific terms (Bishop, McDonald, & Manidis, 1994). Australia's reforms seek to incorporate key competencies into entry-level training courses for all young people regardless of their chosen career path (OECD: Australia, 1994).

Education and training portfolios have been integrated by the Ministers for Vocational Education, Employment, and Training (MOVEET) so that vocational competency standards will be formally linked to vocational curriculum and its accreditation to form more solid pathways for students. It is now broadly accepted that traineeship and apprenticeship systems should be brought together under a common framework that integrates the Vocational Education and Training (VET) curriculum taught in secondary schools with the postsecondary Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institutions. MOVEET agreed to move toward a new, unified, entry-level system incorporating and expanding upon the apprenticeship and traineeship systems and their qualifications (Noonan, 1994).

Efforts to integrate, both conceptually and structurally, employer-based training with training located in schools and colleges have led to an easier articulation and transfer of credits across vocational institutions. By agreeing to a series of assessment principles and processes that minimize the importance of where and when training takes place, training undertaken at work and previous knowledge and skills are now recognized and allowed to serve as the basis for the achievement of publicly accredited qualifications and competency standards. Not only does this affect worker credentialing, but the designers of curriculum now have greater latitude to modularize training in various ways leading to formal qualifications (Noonan, 1994).

Australia has made important progress toward reforming its system of vocational standards. This has promoted integration among vocational, academic, and generic skills in various vocational institutions and between secondary vocational education and postsecondary technical education. At the same time, this new system has influenced the academic high school curriculum in every state (Keating, 1995). Fifteen years ago, Australia's high schools were largely academic institutions, focusing primarily on preparing students for university entrance examinations (Vickers, 1991). Only one-third of each youth cohort graduated from high school, while the remainder left school at the end of 11th or 12th grade to enter vocational training programs in TAFE colleges or to enter the workforce. The only students who graduated from high school were those who completed a full program of academic subjects and passed the matriculating examinations (Vickers 1991, 1995a). Today, Australia's high school graduation rates are equivalent to those in the U.S., and there has been a revolution in the content of high school curriculum. Key competencies (equivalent to SCANS skills in the U.S.) are being incorporated into upper secondary school courses in every state (Keating, 1995). A wide range of new, occupationally oriented courses have been developed and introduced into the high schools, and in some cases, students are studying TAFE college courses while still in secondary school. Because Australia's national system of vocational standards is now in place, many of the new curricula being developed by the states conform to those standards. Many high school students now gain a nationally recognized occupational credential when they graduate from high school, and these credentials are recognized by the TAFE colleges (Australia: NBEET, 1994).

However, there are inevitable tensions between the norms and values of the vocational and academic education systems, and a recognition that it would be difficult to achieve a complete integration of the two. For example, while occupational credentials gained at high school are recognized by TAFE colleges, university admissions authorities tend to place more emphasis on success in academic subjects. Recognizing the inherent difficulties in unifying the two systems, Australia's planners have stated that it is their intention to integrate vocational and academic education "to the extent this is feasible" (OECD: Australia, 1992, p. 19).

Policymakers in England and Scotland have explicitly tried to develop two parallel but equal educational streams, one vocational and one academic. The development of the vocational stream has been keyed on assessments designed to promote the integration of vocational and academic education through General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs) in England and Wales, and Scottish National Vocational Qualifications (SNVQs) in Scotland. These reforms have many positive elements, although there are some limitations. The role of the GNVQs can best be understood in contrast to the National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) which were established in 1986. The NVQs are comprised of specific work-related competencies established by industry groups (lead bodies) and assessed in the workplace. They are designed to measure and certify the ability to carry out specific workplace functions (although these could be highly complex) and to be independent from educational institutions, thus allowing for the certification of skills that are acquired purely on the job or in other nonschool settings (OECD: United Kingdom, 1994).

The NVQ system has many critics. While NVQs prepare students for particular jobs and occupations, critics argue that they are too specifically task-based. Since the skills involved are specific to industries and not transferable across industries, any general academic skills or knowledge embedded in them is in effect not certified or capable of being formally recognized by other industries. The assessment system is also criticized for not being sufficiently independent, since the employers often both do the training and assess that training (Payne, 1994). It is also not clear whether employers have the capacity to train for many of the NVQs (Vickers, 1994). Overall, the NVQ route contrasts sharply with the course of study taken by university-bound students.

At the advanced level, the GNVQs are intended to be equivalent, but still separate, from the academic A level examinations required for students seeking admission to university. Thus, the GNVQs cover general knowledge areas for young people in full-time education. As noted in the previous section, the number of advanced GNVQ holders applying to institutions of higher education has grown rapidly to nearly 20,000 in 1996, and more than 90% of these succeeded in winning at least one offer of admission (UCAS, 1996). Thus, in contrast to the NVQs, GNVQs are explicitly aimed at encouraging the integration of vocational and academic education and appear to have accomplished their explicit purpose of bridging the separation between vocational and academic streams. While the GNVQs are a bold reform, critics have argued that the GNVQs tend to neglect some of the conceptual and theoretical knowledge that underlies relevant practice. Moreover, there is still a long way to go before the GNVQ system can achieve full parity with the traditional academic route (Payne, 1994).

Similar to the English system, the Scottish system has attempted to integrate vocational and academic credentials at the postsecondary level through the General Scottish Vocational Qualifications (GSVQs):

Unlike occupational SVQs, GSVQs will not be designed as statements of competence as defined by lead bodies [industry organizations], but will focus on the skills, knowledge, and understanding that underpin a range of SVQs, within a broad occupational area. They will therefore be designed so that the outcomes to be achieved can be developed and assessed in colleges and schools, whilst maintaining an emphasis on application. (OECD: Scotland, 1994, p. 5)

Scotland has a longer history than England of attempts to integrate vocational and academic education and to increase the status of vocational studies. The GSVQs have been built on a broad reform agenda introduced by the 1983 Scottish Action Plan, which also tried to bring vocational and academic education closer together. The Scottish Action Plan developed a modular system of vocational qualifications awards with input from both employers and Further Education Colleges (similar to community colleges in the United States). The flexible certificate system which leads to a National Certificate (NC) is available in over 3,000 modules (each representing 40 hours of study) and was designed to serve the diverse needs and interests of students and employers. NC modules can be used to meet parts of the high school graduation requirements and can act as stepping stones to advanced-level vocational qualifications. This system was aimed, among other objectives, at allowing individuals to mix vocational and academic education; encouraging greater participation in further and higher education (by facilitating credit transfer, progression, and choice); and encouraging active, practical, and student-centered approaches to learning and teaching (OECD: Scotland, 1994, p. 9).

An interesting feature of the Scottish Vocational Qualification framework is the use of modules or units of learning in the NC. Individual modules can be built into group awards similar to occupational or educational clusters, and tailored to meet established national criteria as well as specific employer and student needs. They cover a wide range of subjects, including engineering, finance, agriculture, tourism, science, languages, arts, building, and health. The modular or cluster format was also being used in Further Education Colleges leading to Higher Certificates (higher-level academic degrees) and Higher National Diplomas (higher-level vocational degrees). These group awards are now forming the basis of the GSVQs.

Although the NC system allows students to combine vocational and academic courses in broad occupational clusters while leaving open the option of higher education, the vocational and academic paths are still divided. Some NC modules had formal equivalence to the academic Highers and were recognized for entrance into university, but there remain two distinct routes to higher education and a persistent disparity in esteem between the vocational and academic credentials (OECD: Scotland, 1992, pp. 13-14; OECD: Scotland, 1994, p. 12).

As a result of these perceived deficiencies, Scotland is introducing another series of reforms for higher-level secondary education. These reforms are designed to strengthen the links between vocational and academic education, increase the vocational content of academic studies and the academic content of vocational studies, and reduce further the contrast in status. In the last years of secondary school courses, students following the traditional academic route (overseen by the Scottish Examination Board) and those following the vocational route (overseen by the Scottish Vocational Education Council)--including those leading to the General Scottish Vocational Qualification (GSVQ)--will be brought into a unified curriculum and assessment system leading to a restructured secondary school diploma. This will incorporate academic and advanced occupationally related subject matter into a reformed and unified stream. The SVQ system will remain as a separate system for "those [students] for whom Highers are inappropriate" (OECD: Scotland, 1994, p. 13). Thus, despite widespread attempts to unify the two streams, a credential-based lower stream will remain, at least for some students.

In Denmark, a growing emphasis on academic rigor in the first year of vocational training, combined with more valid assessments involving employers and educators throughout the learning process, "contribute to placing vocational education on an equal footing with other educational disciplines" (Danish Ministry of Education and Research, 1992, p. 4). The coordination required to maintain continuous dialogue between industry mentors and school-based instructors on pedagogic and assessment issues leads to a greater understanding of vocational credentials among all constituencies, especially employers, and aids in increasing the quality and reputation of vocational education programs.

All vocational education and training courses in Denmark culminate in a "skilled worker certificate" issued by Trade Committees (OECD: Denmark, 1994). As in Germany, the overall educational experience leading up to it represents a solid combination of general, academic, and vocational courses:

A supreme objective of vocational education and training policy in Denmark is to preserve the versatile character of vocational training and to provide genuine opportunities for continued training. The courses must also contribute towards the aim that not only young persons who choose a general upper-secondary education, but also those who choose vocational training in a specific trade should have general education. (OECD: Denmark, 1994, p. 8)

Denmark has established a series of upper secondary vocational training courses leading to graduation through either a higher technical exam (HTX) or a higher commercial exam (HHX), both of which have become valid alternatives to general upper secondary education and contribute to the increasing reputation of vocational education relative to general education. These vocational routes, established by law in 1990, share many structural and content features with general upper secondary schools such as theoretical courses in the second and third years (OECD: Denmark, 1994). Maintaining the Danish goal of educational mobility, they have become an equally valued alternative to general education because they qualify students for admission to higher education as well as employment. Passing these courses allows for admission to university higher education courses, advanced commercial courses, and engineering diploma courses. Østerlund (1994) reports that substantial percentages of students in these vocational programs do transfer back to the university track. While maintaining distinct vocational and academic secondary level credentials, the Danish system increasingly permits students to cross back and forth between the two pathways.

The many strengths of the German system have received widespread attention in the U.S. (Commission on Skills of the American Workforce, 1990; Hamilton, 1990). At the same time, the German system itself is continuing to evolve as educators and employers in that country try to adapt to changing economic conditions and skill requirements. For example, Rauner (1995) argues that the "traditional pragmatism and history of the German occupational structure is certainly not a sufficient basis for a forward-looking professionalisation of occupations" (p. 12). He points out that traditional German occupations and their associated certification tend to be defined by specific technologies, but increasingly rapid changes in technology destabilize the labor market and tend to undermine the associated occupational structures. In contrast, professional occupations such as doctors and engineers, traditionally trained in universities, have maintained a stable culture and identity despite changes in technology. Thus, analysts within the German apprenticeship institutions are working toward strengthening the teaching of interdisciplinary and social skills required for self-reliant occupational competence (Federal Institute for Vocational Training, 1994, p. 13). These reforms are given impetus by reports, noted in the first section, that employers in some industries who used to recruit through the apprenticeship system have begun hiring university graduates instead, with the result that young Germans perceive a growing advantage of a university relative to a vocational credential (Bailey, 1995; Federal Institute for Vocational Training, 1994; Mickler, 1996; OECD: Germany, 1994; Steedman, 1993).[8]

As a result of these tensions, the Germans have introduced a number of reforms. One important change has been the dramatic reduction in the number of occupational categories. In 1987, 37 metalworking occupations were replaced by six with much broader profiles of responsibilities (Rauner, 1995). While in the past, "generally acknowledged vocational qualifications such as the master craftsman certificate [did] not have significance for admission to a technical college" (Reisse, 1992, p. 16), steps have now been taken to widen the recognition of vocational qualifications. Increasingly, young Germans are also entering universities after completing apprenticeships.

Vocational education reform in the Netherlands has assumed two primary objectives over the last several decades. Until the early 1980s, reform efforts were aimed at assuring educational equality and reducing the differences among vocational and general education. These efforts sought to give students ample opportunities to transfer within the system. At that time there was "a heavy emphasis on the principle that vocational education should not be a dead end and that it should offer students at least some of the same opportunities as general education" (Streumer, 1994, p. 5). With national economic difficulties arising in the mid- and late-1980s, however, the purpose of vocational education reform shifted toward developing a more effective workforce preparation mechanism in which the labor market could interact with the educational system to fulfill its labor needs.

At first glance, it appears that these two reform objectives actually work against each other. An industry focus places much of the onus of reform on vocational education to narrow its mission and become an instrument for the fulfillment of specific, sometimes narrow, industry training needs. On the other hand, an emphasis on establishing equality between general and academic education means achieving some middle ground between broadly and narrowly defined educational missions. Many countries forced to deal with this conflict have opted for the former and concentrated on upgrading employment-related and job-specific skills, sometimes giving them a broader focus than vocational education formats have traditionally offered. In the Netherlands, the tensions between creating equality among educational paths and catering to industry needs have stimulated changes in both the vocational and general education systems. Vocational and general education have moved toward a more symmetric relationship as "complementary parts of a single coherent whole with a common purpose" (Streumer, 1994, p. 5).

New national skill standards and a unified qualification structure for vocational education have helped to bring vocational and academic education into a common framework. Efforts to broaden occupational credentials to meet industry needs began in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the Dutch government established a qualificationnorm representing the minimum vocational qualification that every Dutch resident must meet in order to function adequately in the labor market and modern society. Agreement was reached that courses in senior vocational secondary education and higher forms of general secondary education would be equal at the starkwalificatie or apprenticeship level, forcing changes at both the junior secondary vocational and lower general secondary levels of education (Van den Dool & Weijs, 1994, p. 6).

On-the-job training and the practical aspects of education have gained credence in upper-level general as well as vocational education, emphasizing not just the broadening of skills but the idea of "professional practice as part of the formal curriculum" (Van den Dool & Weijs, 1994, p. 7). Although it is likely that traditional institutional distinctions and hierarchical relationships between vocational and general education will persist in the Netherlands for some time, the gap is beginning to be bridged as university curricula have started to include work-related elements consistent with current labor market requirements. According to Van den Dool and Weijs, "there is a slow shift toward equality of status as the vocational element in university courses is strengthened and the vocational sector is increasingly seen to deliver courses leading to final qualifications of equal value with their university counterparts" (p. 1). A certificate from higher vocational education (HBO) now qualifies students to enter the university (Streumer, 1994).

In summary, it is apparent that standards and certification processes are important vehicles for systemwide reform and innovation in many OECD countries. There has been a general movement to consolidate the numbers of particular occupations for which credentials are awarded and to incorporate generic workplace skills into standards systems. But these changes can occur without challenging the distinction between vocational and academic streams of education.

In addition, a growing number of countries are developing vocational credentials that can serve as stepping stones to university and other forms of higher education. In Australia, the development of new vocational standards has influenced the content of traditional academic secondary school education. The advanced GVNQ appears to have become established as a viable route to higher education in England. Scotland is developing a unified secondary credential. Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands have all opened more avenues to universities for holders of vocational qualifications. By combining vocational and academic content, new standards and credentials open students' options for both employment and continued education.

[7] Jeff King notes that "the question of integration of academic and vocational skills seems to turn on related issues of connecting `generic skills' to `occupational skills.' And perhaps so. But what does not seem to be considered . . . is the possibility that generic skills may themselves be a product of contextualized learning within occupational categories, both those which are `narrow'--if deep enough also--and those which represent `broad occupational clusters.' (Cognitive returns to scale issues again [see note 5 above].) . . . Must it be the case that deep training in technical specialties necessarily forecloses `generic' skills? What if the technical specialty is itself based on very broad and deep learning in basic arts and sciences disciplines--math, science, comprehensive literacies, etc.--as well as technical specialties both using and advancing the subtlety of this basic knowledge? It seems to be an underlying assumption here that technical training in occupations cannot do this. But it can . . . ."

[8] Jeff King suggests a different view: "The problem is not that apprenticeships as a broad system of skills training and certifications are too unlike the professions and show no signs of ever becoming like them. Rather the problem is that the entire system is rapidly moving apprenticeships toward ever higher degrees of professionalism, and whether that may eliminate distinctions between apprenticeship trainees and college trained graduates to the extent that lower skilled and lower wage positions begin to lack formal training pathways linked to higher education."