7.5.4 The role of public sector training institutions: Institutional design and capacity building

Many believe that public sector training institutions are intrinsically unable to support the training needs of the poor and disadvantaged and that, for this reason, primary reliance should be placed on NGOs and other private sector training institutions. However, this is unduly pessimistic mainly because it fails to address the main underlying problem, namely that governments have failed to provide powerful enough incentives for public training institutions to change their traditional course offerings. The removal of soft (core) budgets and the resulting necessity to compete for clients in order to survive creates the necessary incentive framework. How gradually government should remove core funding becomes, therefore, a major issue. If this is done too quickly weak organisations will fail to adjust successfully. However, if done too slowly, the whole process of training reform can grind to a halt.

Increasing the organisational autonomy for public training institutions without changing the overall incentive structure can be problematic unless the poor are well represented on governance structures and/or senior managements are strongly committed to re-orienting training in favour of the poor. King argues that the considerable autonomy of national vocational training institutes in Latin America has given them an exceptional degree of independence from government interference and thus the flexibility to explore new modes of provision. Castro, on the other hand, argues that this autonomy has been a major factor inhibiting VTIs from adjusting the supply of training to training demands from the poor to the extent that is needed (see King 1996 and Castro, 1996).

EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING PAPERS 43 Learning to change: Skills development among the economically vulnerable and socially excluded in developing countries Paul Bennell Employment and Training Department International Labour Office Geneva First published 1999 To learn more about this author, visit International Labour Organization's Website.

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