Lessons from Country Diagnosis: Access to Vocational Traning Systems is Still Too Inequitable

Equity and access to vocational training are issues faced, beyond the “gender” dimension, in terms of the supply of training in rural areas and in the recognition of nonformal training paths. The diagnoses suggest that these two aspects are not sufficiently considered and developed in the three countries.

Indeed, an imbalance that discriminates against rural areas was noted in the supply of training, both from geographic and sector stand-points, because of a lack of planning/programming and due to the absence of innovative approaches to the development of supply in rural areas. This situation is accentuated by the lack of involvement of local authorities in steering the vocational training system.

As concerns the recognition of nonformal training paths, this firstly suffers from a lack of information management in relation to informal pathways for the acquisition of existing skills, but also from the insufficiency or absence of legal frameworks to regulate the process of recognition of such skills.

The main cause of this de facto situation appears to be a shortage of competencies for the development of arrangements for the recognition of informal training paths.