Reforming education and training to make it more relevant to labour market needs is an urgent issue in the EU’s partner countries in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean (SEMED). The tradition of centralisation and disproportionate public sector employment levels coupled with a large informal sector and a plethora of small and medium sized enterprises are real challenges that need to be tackled in mostly all countries of the region. These issues are exacerbated by the fact that among the challenges they face, these countries suffer from the pressures of some of the fastest growing populations in the world which will put massive pressure on labour markets to absorb the newcomers. For these reasons, the reform of the education and training sector has been identified as one of the most important ingredients for economic development in the region. Slowly but surely, demand-driven systems are replacing the supply-driven and centralised systems, which lack the flexibility to adapt to fast-changing economic needs. Recent meetings bringing together ministers from the region under the umbrella of the Union for the Mediterranean have concluded that involving social partners in the process of education and training reform can help to make it more relevant for countries’ economic needs. EuroMed Social Dialogue Forum and Euromed summit of Economic and Social Councils together with Torino Process reports and Education and business studies prepared by ETF in 2010 have stressed that social partners as respective organisations of employers and workers in ETF partner countries of the Mediterranean are not fully playing the role that the shift towards demand-driven VET systems would require them to play. An ETF study ‘Social partnership in VET in the southern Mediterranean region: work in (slow) progress’ (2010) looks in 8 countries how increasing the number of stakeholders in education and training reform can be beneficial. It examines the roles of social partners in the identification of skills needs and their contribution to system governance and financing.
In all countries of the region social partners participate in a range of discussions and agreements with national governments. Still VET is so far rarely considered as a regular and permanent area during formal tri-partite social dialogue. Effective participation of social partners is limited by several factors amongst which: * Policies are elaborated by Government through a top-down and centralised governance process. * Lack of an active involvement of industry associations, employers’ bodies and trade unions to engage in human capital development (HCD). * A large number of social partners’ representative institutions are not prepared or keen to engage in a field which they do not sufficiently know and that, so far they do not consider as of strategic importance. * Trade Unions’ weak capacity and involvement in HRD is a persistent feature. * At regional level, there is no formal organisation for social partnership or dialogue as there is in the European Union.
Additionally Social partners from the region invited by ETF to meet during a conference in Rome in December 2010 came to the conclusions that a regional project to support their capacity building is very relevant with their own needs. Based on these findings, ETF has decided to launch a new three year project (2010-2013) to support the efforts of social partners in the region to play a more active role in policy development and implementation of VET.
Project is structured in two components which are (i) mutual learning at regional level and (ii) developing and reinforcing social partnership at national level. The two components, aiming both at more and better policy involvement of social partners, will interact over the overall lifetime project. Results from national activities will be presented and debated in regional meetings and vice versa. Project is supported by an advisory executive committee comprised of international experts involved in social partnership issues, and regional representatives of social partners organisations.