Lessons from Country Diagnosis: Certification Processes are Insufficiently Linked to Labor Market Needs

Certification enables the recognition of learners’ skills and qualifications. If learners’ training involves the participation of business professionals as trainers, tutors or supervisors, it is equally important that the latter participate in certification processes. Alas, the diagnoses carried out in the three countries show that business professionals are barely involved in certification processes, due to the absence of institutional and regulatory frameworks that encourage their participation.

Moreover, the absence of technical benchmarks fails to encourage the sufficient availability of technical and pedagogical tools and materials that are adapted to private sector certification, or that can be managed by private actors.

The consequence of the insufficient involvement of private players and of the absence of tools is the lack of coordination in the planning of certification activities. Often, the timing of certification fails to consider the availability of private sector players that should participate. This also raises issues with respect to the internal organization of vocational regulatory bodies, and their ability to harness the participation of human resources with the required competencies in the certification process.

The involvement of the private sector in the certification process requires additional financial resources that are not available.

Finally, certification is perceived, from the sides of both public and private actors, as a government prerogative, which can explain the poor representativity of the private sector in joint bodies created for certification purposes, and their level of responsibility therein.