Global policy adoption of dual apprenticeships: policy ideas and institutional path-dependencies

Global dynamics have intensified the pressure on countries to reform their TVET system and to make it more responsive to the needs of employers. International competitiveness in global markets, technological innovations, changes in the world of work and new demands of skills have forced policy actors to problematize TVET provision and to develop policy responses. International organizations and cooperation agencies have been actively disseminating the idea that a greater involvement of employers in the governance and provision of TVET, especially through apprenticeship training, would help countries to tackle these challenges better (McGrath, 2012). In this context, the Germanic model of dual apprenticeships, which combines school-based and workplace provision with high involvement of employers in decision making, has become an ‘export hit’ in global policy transfer in education. Despite existing research evidence on the impossibility of directly transferring the Germanic model to other political and economic contexts, more and more governments all over the world are trying to adopt the principles of the dual model in their home country in cooperation with governmental and non-governmental national and international actors (Gonon, 2014).

The main objective of this panel is to analyse the material and ideational drivers of the adoption of dual apprenticeships in different political economy contexts. As shown by research in education policy transfer and borrowing, investigating political processes and contextual conditions in recipient countries is key to explain the influence of international and national drivers in education policy changes (Steiner-Khamsi 2004). Papers in this panel draw on the contributions of the Cultural Political Economy (CPE) approach to policy analysis outlined by Jessop (2010) and its application to policy adoption research operationalised by Verger (2014). CPE is an analytical approach in policy studies that, contrary to structuralist political economy approaches, not only considers material (economic, institutional and political) but also semiotic drivers (discourses and ideas) and the interaction between them in the explanation of processes of policy change. For Verger, policy adoption research interrogates into the processes, reasons and circumstances that explain how and why policymakers embrace new education policies, usually coming from outside, and aim to apply them in their educational realities. Two main research questions we want to answer in this panel:

1. Why and how do policymakers in different countries decide to adopt dual apprenticeships in their own context?
2. How do the process and the context of adoption shape the type of dual apprenticeship policy that is finally retained?

The papers in this panel will be eminently qualitative. Two main sources of data will be used in these papers: policy documents (legal texts, policy reports, media news) and semi-structured interviews (e.g. German cooperation agencies, ministries of education, chambers of commerce, state governments, civil society). Each case study of policy adoption is re-constructed through the tracing of key policy events and qualitative thematic analysis of policy discourses contained in selected documents and interview transcripts.

The two middle income countries selected for the comparison, India and Mexico, face important educational and socioeconomic developmental challenges that justify the interest in the adoption of their dual apprenticeship programmes. India and Mexico present a high percentage of young people out of school in upper secondary education (48%, 42%), high occurrence of informal employment (92%, 60%) and large inequalities of income as measured by the GINI index (35, 48). From a policy transfer perspective, they present similarities and differences in the adoption of dual apprenticeships that make the comparison particularly interesting. Both countries share the strong national ownership of the reform and its wide systemic scope, which has already led to significant legislative changes in both countries: creation of the Dual System of Training (DST) in India and the Mexican Model of Dual TVET (MMFD) in Mexico. On the other hand, while the adoption of dual apprenticeships in India represents an upgrade of its current model of market apprenticeships, in the case of Mexico it implies the creation of the first apprenticeship experience in a country where the whole TVET provision was delivered in schools. Given the different TVET traditions and political economies in these two countries, it is expected that the factors driving and mediating the adoption of their dual apprenticeship programmes will be significantly different and will shed light on how the adoption of these global policy ideas are mediated by national institutional frameworks and path-dependencies.

The panel is putting together three papers from an international research project funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund of the ESRC in the UK. The research consortium is participated by research teams from India, Mexico, Germany, Switzerland and the UK that collaborate in a 27-months comparative policy study of dual apprenticeships in India and Mexico. In this panel, project team partners will be presenting findings for the first empirical work package of the study (‘policy adoption’). The first paper will focus on the political economy analysis of the adoption of dual apprenticeships in India, the second one will do the same for the case of Mexico, and the final paper will present a comparative analysis between the two cases. The chair of the panel is an international expert in policy adoption studies and the panel discussant is another member of the project, not directly involved in this work package, but with expertise in apprenticeship policy in low- and middle-income countries. The panel will follow the conventional format of individual paper presentations, followed by discussant comments and audience discussion.

Uncertain Itineraries: The Germanic Model of Vocational Education and its Future in Contemporary India, by Srabani Maitra and Saikat Maitra.

The Mexican model of dual formation 2013-2018: policy adoption and re-contextualization, by Hugo Javier Fuentes Castro, Víctor Aramburu Cano and José Antonio Cervantes Gómez.

How do political economy contexts shape the adoption of dual apprenticeships? A comparison between India and Mexico, by Oscar Valiente, Judith Jacovkis and Srabani Maitra.