ERIC ED341773: Unemployment, Education, and Training: Case Studies from North America and Europe.

355 Pages·1991·4.1 MB·English

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 341 773
CE 060 139
AUTHOR Forrester, Keith, Ed.; Ward, Kevin, Ed.
Unemployment, Education, and Training: Case Studies
TITLE
from North America and Europe.
REPORT NO
ISBN-0-9625945-6-3
PUB DATE
91
NOTE
355p.
AVAILABLE FROM
Caddo Gap Press, 915 L Street, Suite C-414,
Sacramento, CA 95814 ($19.95).
Reports - Research/Technical (143)
PUB TYPE
MF01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from EDRS.
EDRS PRICE
Adult Education; Case Studies; Demonstration
DESCRIPTORS
Programs; Developed Nations; *Dislocated Workers;
Educational Needs; Foreign Countries; *Job Training;
*Labor Market; Labor Needs; Open Universities;
Postsecondary Education; *Program Effectiveness;
Program Implmflentation; Public Policy; *Retraining;
*Unemployment; Unions; Youth Employment
Belgium; *Europe (West); France; Netherlands; Sweden;
IDENTIFIERS
United Kingdom; West Germany
ABSTRACT
Thi3 book contains 12 chapters, each of which is a
case study or a commentary on the unemployment of the 1980s and early
1990s and on the programs devised to retrain workers. Titles and
authors are as follows: "Understanding Unemployment: A Critical
Overview of Labour Market Trends, Employment, and Unemployment: (John
Hughes); "A Critical Overview: Education and Training Responses to
Changes in the Labour Market and Unemployment" (Kevin Ward, Keith
Forrester); "Unemployment and Education: Adjustment Strategies for
Displaced Workers in the United States" (Jeanne Prial Gordus, Karen
Yamakawa); "Dislocated Workers in Transition: Overcoming Resistance
to Retraining and Continuing Education" (Lee Shore, Jerry Atkin);
"Communication and Information System for the Unemployed: A Systems
Approach to a Systems Problem" (Otto Feinstein); "The REPLAN
Programme in England and Wales: A National Programme To Improve
Educational Opportunities for Unemployed Adults" (Paul Fordham);
"Open College Networks and Unwaged People" (David BrowAing); "Adult
Education and Trade Union Centres against Unemployment" (Keith
Forrester, Kevin Ward); "Community Business Development in Scotland:
Its Relevance to Adult Education" (George Burt); "Recurrent Education
and the Labour Market: Changing Conceptions within Swedish
Post-Compulsory Education" (Kenneth Abrahamsson); "Youth Unemployment
in West Europe: Alternating Training Systems as Responses to Youth
Unemployment in Five Western European Countries" (Krista Michiels);
and "Conclusion: Education and Training Policies--Future Challenges
for Educational Institutions, Employers, and Trade Union
Organisations" (Keith Forrester, Kevin Ward). (KC)
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UNEMPLOYMENT,
EDUCATION,
Case Studies
from North America
AND TRAINING:
and Europe
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATEBIAL
Office of Educational Research and lmprovemeni
IN OTHER THAN PAPER COPY HAS BEEN
ED CATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION
GRANTED BY
CENTER (ERIC)
This document has been reproduced as
received from the person Or organization
originating it
Pal
0 Minor changes have been made to improve
reproduction quality
101
Points of view or opinions stated in this docu
NAL
RESOURCES
EDUC
THE
TO
mant do not neceSeenly represent Official
INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."
OE RI position Or policy
be Edited by Keith Forrester
and Kevin Ward
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BEST COPY AVAILABLE
2
UNEMPLOYMENT, EDUCATION AND TRAINING:
Case Studies from North America and Europe
Edited by Keith Forrester and Kevin Ward
Copyright 1991 by Keith Forrester and Kevin Ward
ISBN 0-9625945-6-3
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 90-085084
Published by Caddo Gap Press, Inc.
915 L Street, Suite C-414
Sacramento, California 95814
$19.95 U.S.
CON7ENTS
=IR
Contents
Introduction
1
Keith Forrester and Kevin Ward
13
Chapter 1
Understanding Unemployment:
A Critical Overview of Labour Market Trends,
Employment, and Unemployment
John Hughes
33
Chapter 2
A Critical Overview: Education and Training Responses
and Unemployment
to Changes in the Labour Market
Kevin Ward and Keith Forrester
63
Chapter 3
Unemployment and Education: Adjustment Strategies
for Displaced Workers in the United States
Jeanne Arial Gordus and Karen Yamakawa
99
Chapter 4
Dislocated Workers in Transition: Overcoming
Eesistance to Retraining and Continuing Education
Lee Shore and Jerry Atkin
iii
4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Chapter 5
125
Communication and Information System for the
Unemployed: A Systems Approach to a Systems Problem
Otto Feinstein
Chapter 6
151
The REPLAN Programme in England and Wales:
A National Programme to Improve Educational
Opportunities for Unemployed Adults
Paul Fordham
Chapter 7
179
Open College Networks and Unwaged People
David Browning
Chapter 8
233
Adult Education and Trade Union Centres
Against Unemployment
Keith Forrester and Kevin Ward
Chapter 9
257
Community Business Development in Scotland:
Its Relevance to Adult Education
Gene Burt
Chapter 10
271
Recurrent Education and the Labour Market: Changing
Conceptions within Swedish Post-Compulsory Education
Kenneth A brahamsson
Chapter 11
295
Youth Unemployment in West Europe: Alternating
Training Systems as Responses to Youth Unemployment
in Five Western European Countries
Krista Mkhiels
Chapter 12
331
Conclusion: Education and Training Policies
Future Challenges for Educational Institutions,
Employers, and Trade Union Organisations
Keith Forrester and Kevin Ward
Index
347
Notes on Contributors
351
iv
f"
)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Acknowledgements
The time and coordination required to assemble and prepare
a volume with international contributions was far greater than we
envisaged originally. Involving nine contributors from five
countries enhanced the educational value and objectives of the
book; organising the contributions for publication, on the other
hand, was a different matter completely!
Fortunately, a number of people helped to ensure that our
frustrations were kept to a minimum. Without the support of
Diane Jacks, Jaswant Bhavra, Rosalyn Hawkins, and Marilyn
Moreland, in the Department of External Studies at Leeds
University, this publication would not have been possible. We are
extremely grateful to them.
We were fortunate, too, in working with contributors who
displayed considerable patience and good will. The exchange of
materials and information within and across countries; visits to
particular programmes and institutions; the organisation of an
international conference; and finally the publication of this book
have provided the basis for joint projects and continued learning.
v
f;
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Finally, on a personal note, we must thank our respective
partners, Sue and Marianne, without whose support, not only this
publication, but more importantly, our continued involvement in
the demanding areas of adult education, would not be possible.
Keith Forrester
and Kevin Ward
vi
I
FORRESTER and WARD
Introduction
By Keith Forrester and Kevin Ward
Unemployment is falling, people are getting
back to work: but I don't believe it. Things are
getting better, I am told: I don't believe it....I
have been struggling to find a job since being
the
are
made redundant...the unemployed
untouchables of (society). It's not for want of
it's
not disappointment,
trying...Failure
is
heartbreak....there is no progression, no future,
just stagnation and slow decay. The gulf bet-
jobless is a vast one;
ween the employed and the
of understand-
not only financially but in terms
ing _much of training is but free Lbour for
employers masquerading as trainers. The un-
employed aren't getting jobs, only schemes...the
unemp!oyed are...undesirables. I wonder what I
have done that I and my family should be
denied the simple dignity of living a normal life.
These are the words of a 40-year-old unemployed man
writing in a major British newspaper in Spring 1989. At the same
1
IN7RODUC770N
time, a significant book was published in Britain which indicated
that it was highly likely that Jim Jarrett's desperate search for
work would continue, unsuccessfully, into the 1990s.2 This book
was written by a former adviser in the United Kingdom (UK)
government's Department of Employment. It included reports on
long-term unemployment from commissioned economic forecasts
based on monetarist and Keynesian perspectives. On the basis of
these (which all predicted major continuing unemployment
problems into the 1990s) and other surveys, the author concludes
that unemployment in the UK will rise from its current figure
(2,018 million in early 1989,2 to 4 million by 1991); and this is
an
underestimate since it does not include, for example, those
over
65 wishing to work.
When these British figures are placed in the context of the
employment and unemployment details of other OECD countries
(a total of around 30 million for the latter half of the 1980s)
which are provided by John Hughes in Chapter 1 of this book,
then we have some idea about the scale of the problem of un-
employment in the 1980s and 1990s in western industrialised
countries.
At the beginning of the 1980s, when there was a proliferation
of moral panic and other responses to unemployment (see
Chapter 2 for a descriptive analysis of these differing responses),
none but a tiny minority were truly blase about unemployment.
Since then, however, there seems to have been a gradual change
in attitudes in many countriesat least on the part of those in
power and authoritytowards the unemployed. In some countries
(Sweden and the United States, for example) lower levels of
unemployment may have led to more of a focus on education and
retraining for the current workforcealbeit a two-tier system of
low-level training for unskilled workers (a semi-literate under-
class?), limited training for skilled workers, and more generous
provision for managerial staff. In other countries (Britain being
the prime example), recent falls in unemployment official totals
have led to a misplaced complacency and a diminution of urgent
responses; perhaps because high levels of unemployment have not
2
9
FORRESTER and WARD
proved so politically dangerous as was once assumed. Whatever
the reasons, unemployment is no longer regarded as the critical
issue it was in the early- to mid-1980s.
In this context, the purpose of this book is to contribute,
marginally at least, to that debate which stresses that unemploy-
ment should be regarded as a major social, political, and econom-
ic problem for the foreseeable future. In addition, even in those
countries where the official unemployment rates are relatively
low, there is an urgent need, in a context of rapid technological
development and major changes in the labour market, to provide
accessible and relevant educational opportunities for creative
work and creative leisure.
The origins of this book lie in adult education work with
unwaged people which has been developed since 1981 by the
editors and other colleagues from the Department of External
Studies (previously called the Department of Adult and Continu-
ing Education) at the University of Leeds in the North of Eng-
land. The Department already had a well established programme
of workers' education, but in common with the vast majority of
educational institutions it had no specific response to dramatic
rises in unemployment. Thus, an adult education action-research
programme with unwaged adults in the community and with
redundant workers was established. This work is well-docu-
mented elsewhere.' As adult educators, it meant that we had a lot
to learn both from unwaged adults about their concerns and
priorities, and also from other projects and programmes both in
the UK, other European countries, and North America. Some of
these contacts were eventually brought together at an internation-
al conference held at Ruskin College, Oxfordwell-known for its
tradition of working class adult education in Britainin 1988. The
papers for the conference (Adult Education and Responses to
Unemployment: Some North American and European Experien-
ces) provided the basis for this book. The book describes and
analyses significant education and training responses to unemploy-
ment, underemployment, and general labour market restructuring
from a variety of institutional and organisational settings in
3
1 II