Ei-iE

The Education International First World Congress meeting in Harare (Zimbabwe) from 19 to 23 July 1995:

Notes that:

1. Education systems must give all young people the opportunity of taking up initial vocational education and training based on diversity, responding overall to industry's needs, and facilitating both career development and the pursuit of studies up to the highest level.

Initial vocational qualifications gained in the educational system should take into account current and future developments in the technical field as well as in the organisation of work and society.

Initial vocational education and training should bring together general and technological knowledge with specific professional expertise.

It should be offered at all qualification levels, including the highest, depending on the ability and motivation of young people and on economic and social requirements.

2. Unemployment and the processes of exclusion to which an increasing number of young people, including graduates, are subjected lead us to query firms' strategies and the free-market economic policy in force in most countries.

3. Vocational education and training must enable all young people to obtain a job with a recognised qualification.

4. A quality vocational education and training system is a good investment: it is better to invest in young people's qualifications and the development of employment than to fund the economic and social costs of unemployment and exclusion.

5. Education systems and public educations have developed training schemes with a heavy technological and professional bias. When conceived in a broad, integrated and balanced way, they bring with them elements of diversification and the possibility of success and access to various levels of training. They must therefore be further consolidated and developed since they form part of the democratisation and dynamisation of education systems.

6. General trends and cultural and professional requirements indicate that it is the totality of disciplines and types of teaching (general, technological and vocational) which determine the education and training of young people. It is in this way that vocational education and training should improve the concept of education and the means of access to culture.

7. Each country's training system is linked to the way public education in seen within the whole social system. However, in each country, initial vocational education and training should be offered free of charge to young people, in the framework of the public education and training. Private and public sector employers should recognise their financial and other responsibilities towards the vocational education and training system and should contribute to training courses in accordance with various procedures which would favour a coherent global training scheme. Unions must be encouraged to promote and negociate rights to educational and training opportunities for their members. The education and vocational training public service must maintain control of the conception and organisation of training schemes in general.

8. Vocational education and training must offer open and quality education and training to young people, allowing them to obtain aprofessionally-recognised qualification and to progress towards other levels of qualification, either by initial training, or by continuous training.

9. Those bodies with responsibility for the policy, planning and implementation of the vocational education and training system must organise dialogue on the development of training and diplomas between teachers, employers and wage-earners. Teachers must play a leading role in developing the content of initial vocational training and programmes.

Recommendations

10. States must guarantee for all citizens the life-long right to vocational education and access to initial or continuing vocational training.

Within the education system high quality initial vocational education and training should be established, leading to a professionally-recognised qualification, and available to all young people.

11. Initial vocational education and training must be considered as a means of training and towards specific achievement, bearing the same status as general and technological programmes.

There should be the possibility of switching between the different types of initial, general, technological and vocational education and training.

This would allow young people to reach the highest level of training and qualifications given their ability and the choices they make.

Teachers in professional education and training should be given the same consideration and guarantees of status, remuneration and service as other teachers.

12. Vocational education and training plays a role in the struggle for equality of opportunity and against educational, cultural, economic and social failure. It also allows for individual development to the highest qualification levels.

13. EI should emphasise the importance of an initial education of vocational teachers of high quality. The education of vocational teachers should include both:

a. general knowledge and skills

b. vocational knowledge and skills, and

c. pedagogical knowledge and skills.

14. The role of initial vocational education and training routes in the promotion of education policy must be emphasized as an instrument in the diversification of the educational system, the democratisation of access to qualifications, and in the struggle for equal opportunities.

15. Cooperation between public institutions and the world of work must be encouraged in accordance with various procedures depending on the system, and with respect for the principles and mission of public education.

16. Teachers must play an essential role in defining initial vocational education and training programmes and diplomas, in conjunction with other parties concerned.

17. Public bodies must invest in the initial vocational education and training of young people and must determine ways in which this can be developed.