TJ - The Publication for Learning and Development

Letter from Ireland

By Pat Costine (February 2005 Issue)
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For those of us with an interest in training and development, there’s a huge amount of research data on this topic that we tend to encounter over time. This is certainly true in my own case, but I will frankly admit that much of the statistical detail is beyond my immediate recall once its current utility has been satisfied.

There are exceptions, however, and during the last decade or so I have often quoted a set of statistics I first came across while undertaking some research in the early 1990s. These were drawn from an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) publication1 and, although the limitations of the research required notation, the stark nature of the inequities highlighted burned the details into my memory. The basics of the research findings were along the following lines.

* The incidence of training declines consistently from the youngest to the oldest age group.
* Considering the type of training received, women are less likely to receive formal company training and/or employer-sponsored training.
* Employees with higher levels of education are more likely to receive training.
* Higher level non-manual and skilled manual workers are more likely to receive training than their lower-level and less-skilled counterparts.

As the link between training and advancement in socio-economic terms is well-established, the details highlighted could be seen to suggest that many people were caught in something of a vicious circle. With limited education and skills to begin with, their opportunities to change this situation were significantly curtailed.

Reflecting on this again, I thought it would be interesting to review some more up-to-date research and try to see if things had changed much in the intervening years. At the outset I wish to acknowledge the selectivity of the data summarised below. However, I was keen to access data that corresponded as closely as possible to the main thrust of the inequities previously highlighted.

Let me begin by summarising some findings reported in 1999 concerning the training of adult workers in OECD countries.2 This research largely refers to training as ‘continuing and more or less formal training by incumbent workers’ and to workers between the ages of 25 and 54 years.

* The level of training differs significantly across OECD countries. In general, formal continuing training is relatively low in southern European countries such as Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, and relatively high in the UK, France and most Nordic countries.
* While in overall terms men and women appear to participate at fairly equal rates, women have significantly lower training expectancy rates than men (due to less continuous employment).
* Employees in older age groupings receive much less training than their younger counterparts in countries such as France, Greece, Portugal and Spain.
* A strong link is widely indicated between levels of initial education attainment and the extent of involvement in training activities.

Staying on the same theme and moving on to 2003, the following is a brief summary of some findings.3

* In practically all OECD countries, continuing vocational training is unequally distributed across individuals and organisations.
* The incidence of training tends to decline with age (the average participation rate of those aged between 56 and 65 is about 75 per cent of those aged between 36 and 45 years).
* While participation rates by gender appear generally similar, in terms of volume, female employees receive on average 17 per cent fewer training hours than male employees.
* Participation in training among low-skilled occupations is significantly lower than participation in high-skilled occupations.
* Rates of participation in training generally rise in accordance with educational attainment.
* Employees with a high degree of supervisory responsibility are twice as likely to participate in employer-sponsored training as those outside supervisory roles.
* Employees in large firms are generally twice as likely to participate in training as those in small firms.

It appears that the ‘training inequities’ status quo remains firmly in place among OECD countries, while there are undoubtedly many reasons behind this fact, it can be argued that addressing this situation is a critical issue. Indeed, it is encouraging to report that numerous noteworthy initiatives aimed at improving this state of affairs have been activated (and are being activated on an ongoing basis).

In my next article I intend to review some of these, focusing in particular on some examples from Ireland. In the meantime, may I leave you to reflect on an interesting headline that I came upon while undertaking the review outlined here: ‘The information society is all very well, but the trouble is ensuring everyone can be trained up for it, especially those who need it most.’4

References
1. OECD, ‘Enterprise-related training’, Employment Outlook, Chapter 5, 1991, pp. 135–176.
2. OECD, ‘Training of adult workers in OECD countries: measurement and analysis’, Employment Outlook, Chapter 3, 1999, pp. 135–175.
3. OECD, ‘Upgrading workers’ skills and competencies’, Employment Outlook, Chapter 5, 2003, pp. 237–296.
4. Andrea Bassanini, ‘Solving the training divide’, OECD Observer, no. 240/241, 2003.

For further information about the OECD plus its members in the years mentioned visit www.oecd.org/home/


Pat Costine currently serves as vice-president and national education officer of the Irish Institute of Training and Development (IITD), and is an administrator and tutor on IITD Diploma, Certificate and Trainer Skills programmes. Pat can be contacted on +00 353 151 873330 or at costinep@eircom.net He will return with another international perspective in the May issue of Training Journal.

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