I’m with him on this, but there are better and worse ways to do it. The main option floated so far — a voucher system — is not one of the better ones. To see why, let’s first get clear on the key issues facing job training, and then ask how vouchers are supposed to solve them.
The two levels of government agree that employment programs should be delivered at the community level. Local service providers are more likely to understand a community’s needs than federal or provincial bureaucrats, who are usually based in another city.
So in Ontario, for example, the government has four main programs that help people find jobs, retrain, improve basic skills (such as literacy) and complete an apprenticeship. These, in turn, are supported by an army of local service providers across the province, from community colleges to private training schools, who deliver everything from career counselling to hair styling.
While the system has improved over the last decade, Flaherty is right to be concerned. Two issues crop up again and again, right across the country: the “needs assessment” and “silo” issues.
Suppose a 40-year old factory worker has been laid off and goes for employment counselling, where he is encouraged to enrol in a computer training course to upgrade his skills. Once the course begins, the instructor discovers that the new student also has literacy problems. Unfortunately, literacy training is not part of the program. What happens then?
Most likely, the instructor does what he/she can to help, while the student limps through the course. In the end, sadly, he will be no better off than when he started — indeed, now he may be frustrated and discouraged, as well as unemployed.
The system has failed the client in two ways: his needs were not adequately assessed and, once he was in the training course, there was no easy way either to redirect him to the literacy training he really needed, or to incorporate such training into the computer course. They are in different program silos.
If Flaherty really wants to improve accountability and outcomes for the training system, needs assessment and silos are the two big issues he must address. Will a voucher system help?
Vouchers give clients a training credit, which they are free to use at the accredited institution of their choice, such as a community college or private training school. Giving clients this choice empowers them by reducing the province’s control over the system. Advocates think it will also solve the silo problem.
In this view, clients who are free to choose could take their vouchers to the trainer they believe is most likely to help them. A school that wanted to attract such clients would have to work hard to provide quality services. With reduced provincial control, service providers would be freer to work across the silos.
Take the example of the computer course that couldn’t respond to literacy issues. In a voucher system, the computer trainer would be free to team up with someone who does literacy training in a way that allows them to combine their services when necessary.
So the voucher system allows the client to make choices, which, in turn, motivates service providers to improve their services. The result is better accountability and better outcomes. That’s the theory, anyway.
Will it work in practice? I don’t think so. Here’s why.
When clients make their training choices they have to weigh their needs against their training options, and then choose the best option. Choosing the wrong one will result in failure and disappointment. However, as career councillors will attest, people are notoriously bad at making such choices.
In particular, they tend to confuse their training needs with their wants. For example, someone may want to be a successful computer programmer but, if they have literacy issues, choosing such a program will run counter to their needs. Getting them to recognize this, and act on it, may require testing and counselling.
Finally, marketing adds a whole new layer of complexity to such choices. Let’s recall that vouchers force service providers to compete with one another for clients. Advertising and marketing campaigns will almost certainly play a big role in this.
But marketing tends to blur wants and needs. Indeed, the most effective marketing campaigns are ones that get people to treat their wants as needs. People who have just lost their jobs — or who don’t have one — are particularly vulnerable to such campaigns.
So my worry is that the voucher system rests on an approach to needs assessment that not only ignores the difference between needs and wants, but may actually blur it. The overall result is likely to be poorer training choices, rather than better ones. And that, in turn, would mean worse outcomes.
While Flaherty is right to expect more from the training and employment system, clawing back the provincial transfers in order to create a voucher system is the wrong way to go.
Although provincial programs may be too rigidly defined, at least they help ensure that training remains focused on real needs. The challenge that lies ahead is to improve needs assessment while solving the silo problem.
Flaherty is in a real position to help here — he has $2.5 billion worth of leverage over the provinces — but the way to make real progress is to encourage provinces to make their programs more flexible, so that service providers can do a better job of working together at the local level to meet their clients’ needs.
There’s a lot at stake in this file and I applaud Flaherty’s willingness to take action — but let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca
Author: Don Lenihan
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