UNIT 3 - PET – Transcript

00:03Hello everyone. In this unit, we will be talking about professional education and training. Very often when we talk about BT, we think that it is a very niche part of the education system. However, in this rapid changing labor market, the question of BT becomes very central and very institutional.

00:22In this unit, we will focus very um broadly on labor market transformation because it's very very um crucial to this topic. We will make a quick pit stop on permeability and education systems although you have heard something about it in unit one. We will talk then about PT as the missing pathway because it's very often what a lot what a lot of systems miss. We'll see how PT and VT can be functionally um

00:50different. We'll make a quick stop on talking about governance and professional uh intermediaries um in in the system. We will then give you a quick recipe on how you can diagnose whether your system is missing this pathway, this PT pathway. And in the end, we'll talk about some key takeaways that you can take with you and use in your daily work. I hope that no one here has studied computer sciences. I'm not scaring everyone, but around 5 years

01:16ago, if you had a degree in tech or computer science, you were considered as safe to go. You would have had a position and a and a job in the labor market and you had nothing to worry about. However, this is changing very rapidly. As we can see here, these are articles from from last year, from summer uh and from from the from the winter. And we see an increasing number of unemployment in the tech and computer

01:42science graduate. So we can say is that what is characteristic for the modern labor market is just volatility. A lot of change all the time. And these different changes and crisis bring the education systems under pressure. We have listed here just some of the of the crisis that we've been experiencing um in this in these past years.

02:07uh only in 2022 there was the energy and inflation crisis. We can of course not forget the financial crisis of 2008. COVID 19 that changed a lot of the ways we teach um and and we work. Globalization which increases mobility and increases generally the competition in certain labor markets. Digital transformation that has not only influenced the employment system but also the education system. So we have

02:33changed what we learn, how we learn and how we work and also an increasing individualization which then has made career paths a bit more specific um and just generally difficult to to generalize.

02:48So this increased pressure on the education system makes it very necessary for the system itself to respond. Um and as we can see this crisis can happen all the time. So that is why it is important that we do not only focus on initial education but also education across the the entire life course. What we have been observing in the labor market is that um it's slowly demanding more complex skills and what this means is

03:15that throughout the lifetime of a person's career they have to have more open opportunities and as well access to lifelong learning. You can see here in the chart the the lines that are going up are the red one um and the green one and those represent soft skills and also work experience. These are both not learned um in in a school. They have to be outside in the labor market to in order to to learn these experiences. And what

03:42we also see is that the demand for tertiary education is increasing as well. And here we have to stop and think because very often when we talk about tertiary education we automatically think about universities. But tertiary education does not automatically mean a university degree. It can also be professional education and training because we can offer because a good system offers programs for the academic and the vocational pathway at the highest level for everyone and for the

04:09needs of the labor market. And we also need to not forget that of course this depends from country to country but in general only 30% of the jobs in the labor market require university degree. So we have all these other jobs that need specification and specialization as well and it is PT that serves these skills to the market.

04:32We need to make a quick stop on permeability. Uh you've learned more about it in unit one. So we will just brush it up real quick. Permeability refers to the ability of a system to allow learners to move between different programs, levels, and pathways and even into a workforce. So, we talk about a degree as a ticket in and a ticket out.

04:54So, when you get a degree, it opens the doors for you to advance in the education or or employment system, but it also gives you a ticket out. So, you can use this degree to find a job in the labor market.

05:07Permeability is opportunity. So the boxes that we see in the sketch but also access. So the arrows very often when we talk about permeability we focus on these arrows so that these transitions are possible but um opportunity is also very important because if you don't have any boxes for these arrows to lead to it's also um not working properly.

05:31What is um important to focus on here is that at the tertiary level as we saw in the in the slide before the need for tertiary degrees is increasing in the in the labor market. We have academic university and PT. So although these are different they're are totally different way they are governed in different ways they are functional equivalents. So they are at the same level. So a PhD as a at a university

05:58has the same value um as an advanced degree for example if you want to become a net worth client manager um in a bank and having permeability means that no one gets stuck. So if you decide at 14 or 15 that you want to become a chef this route here you know having professional education and training means that if you decide later on to advance in your career it is possible.

06:23So you can become from a chef to a food and beverages specialist and then maybe take over the role of a hotel manager. We call PT the missing piece because it's very often what countries miss. So um PT are these programs that are not offered at a university but they are formal and they are essential because they offer adults the opportunity to

06:49upskill, retool and advance in their careers. As we saw in the beginning, this is very crucial when it comes to um different crisis that can happen in the labor market and people need to act very quickly in order to still keep their jobs. But this can also be based on biographical changes. When people migrate and their degrees are not recognized in the country that they're now living in or if say an accident

07:14happens, you are a nurse um and then you hurt your back so you can no longer work while standing. So this means at maybe 40 or 50 you need to acquire another profession. Um and if this is possible this is great because this person still remains in the labor market. So if you cannot offer this upskilling and retooling these people then just like drop out of the system and become a burden um to then the social systems for example.

07:42PT differs in its governance requirements and the way the skills are delivered. But just like VT, PT programs should also be in line with the labor market needs. There should be based on national qualification standards and developed by industry associations and um intermediaries. It is very important that we differentiate PT and VT because it happens very often uh in some countries when we ask whether they have

08:08a PET. programs at the tertiary level. Um because it sounds so similar to VET in its core, people confuse it with VT and seems like oh yes of course we do when in fact they are lacking this opportunity at the tertiary level. So here we use the ISKED qualification. So the international standard uh classification of education which gives us the different levels at what levels these programs are situated and then they're easily comparable to the ones in

08:35the academic pathways which are more familiar to to all of the system. So um when we talk about VT we talk about upper secondary. So these are level three and four in is but PT is tertiary. So level five and eight. So up to for example um a PhD which would be the equivalent at a university. The age range a VT is um actually the

09:02alternative so the parallel to a high school diploma. So these students are from 15 to 20 years old in average while PT promotes careers uh in professional fields. So we're talking about adults which can be 25 up to 60. you can reskill and uptool uh until until as long as you want.

09:23In a VT program, you learn broad multi-sklls um competence bundles because you will because you're still very young and you still haven't specialized in a certain field. While in PT, these skills become very specific um because here you're either training for a for a specific position um or a specific um change in occupation that you're that you're aiming for. The

09:50general education that is offered in VT um is about 40% of the curricula. So almost half it's it is standard is mandatory and while in PT is additional we don't have a lot of um general education that is offered um but it can be very specific to the occupation and the needs that it has. Mobility is pretty much the same. We talked about this idea of a ticket up and a ticket out. So, um, if you have a VET diploma,

10:18you have the ticket up to go to the tertiary level, but you can also just go out and start a job in the labor market. The same with PET. This ticket up opens the doors to even more training um, in the in the tertiary level, but it can also um, give you the ticket to go in the labor market and take the job that you're that you're aiming for. VT and PT are very essential tomeme

10:45industries. So like Switzerland for example where small and medium enterprises are the ones that we mainly have here in the country. VT makes up about 50% of the employees inme industry and while PT provides the majority of the tertiary diplomas that um that we have in that field. So these two systems they serve different but very complimentary functions. We're going to make a quick stop in the Swiss system

11:12again to show you actually how a system can develop over time and respond to the needs of the labor market. In the left, we see a simplified version of how the Swiss system is now. So, we see that the pathways have programs until the last level. So, a PhD has then a PET equivalent. We have the University of Applied Sciences in the middle.

11:35You don't have to go into a lot of details, but what you have to focus on is that we have a lot of arrows and a lot of boxes in all the levels. So it means that doesn't matter where you start, you can end up anywhere. And in the right side, we can also see that the last reform was done in 2006. So not so long ago. Um so the PET the entire PET part of the system was established in

12:00the in the 70s which is you know it has been a long time but it also means that the system is not born perfect. So if you take the decision to change your system at some point um it is possible. So PT was established in the in the 70s and then in the 90s the University of Applied Sciences came into existence to answer more broadly to the requests of the labor market and then