links between providing institutions and employers. Training designed to improve job
performance is, of its nature, more likely to occur in or near the work place. The
exceptions may be where bureaucratic employment regulations insist on qualification
upgrading as a major criteria in promotion relatively independently of job performance.
Training for job creation has widely proved problematic. There are many difficulties
that confront inexperienced young adults in starting a new livelihood rather than
entering existing employment (e.g. the availability of capital, credit and land, attitudes
of senior community members, existence of and access to markets, the problems of
employing other worker). Where self employment opportunities exist and can be
expanded, those who have been in the labour market for some time may take
precedence, and have competitive advantages, over those emerging from training
programmes. Skill exemplars to organise training may be unenthusiastic about sharing
their skills with those who will compete with them and possibly lower incomes as a
result. Entrepreneurship training may be especially difficult. The characteristics of
entrepreneurs and how these are acquired are poorly understood. Entrepreneurs are,
almost by definition, a scarce commodity in most communities. There may be strategies
to assist those who display such talents; it is likely to be much more difficult to train
individuals to acquire them.
2.3.4 Cost effectiveness
Metcalf (1985) has reviewed studies that bear on the extent to which vocational and
technical schools are a cost effective approach to investing in human resources. In
general this review concludes that rates of return are usually sufficiently positive to
justify training. However, short rather than long courses tend to be more cost effective
and informal and firm based training tends to be more cost effective than separate
vocational and technical schools separated from production organisations Between
1966 and 1988, 21 studies have been identified (Haddad (1991:46) several of which
make comparisons between academic and technical and vocational education. The
findings are generally consistent with those highlighted by Metcalf. They reinforce the
view that in plant vocational training may be more cost effective than training in
separate schools and that short courses may have higher rates of return than longer
ones.
However there is a wide variation in the findings relating to different systems. In some
cases productivity gains can be identified (Fuller 1970, Min and Tsang 1987), higher
rates of return than to academic schooling are evident (Chung 1987, Ziderman 1988)
and graduates of technical and vocational training are more valued in the labour market
(Chin-Aleong 1988). In others there seems little labour market advantage for technical
and vocational graduates (Psacharopoulos and Loxley 1985, Moock and Bellew 1988)
suggesting the benefits of training are not always reflected in labour market signals.