Forecasting Future Skill Needs

Core Skills Don’t Work – So What Does?

The pursuit of core skills, key qualifications, transversal competences, and transferability and
flexibility in Europe can be likened to the philosophers stone. Why have so many researchers
and curriculum developers devoted so much time and effort to dabble in alchemy? The
motivation is not hard to find. Numerous studies have attested to the changes in economy and
work organisation and the attendant new demands for skills and knowledge, which lie behind
this pursuit. The changes are leading to new demands for skills and knowledge. Whilst in the
past skill demands were reasonably static and predictable over periods of time today
qualifications are rapidly becoming out of date and new skill demands are arising at short
notice. Even in countries with high prevailing levels of unemployment there remain serious
skills shortages. Core skills and key qualifications are seen as a means to develop flexibility
and promote the transferability of skills and competences. This short paper examines the
background to this development, looks at the problems with core skills and key competences
and goes on to suggest a new framework for developing dynamic open future oriented
qualifications that can meet future skills needs.
The last two decades have seen heightened global economic competition for the economies of
western Europe, while they have also experienced a series of cyclical economic recessions
leading to a review of economic and industrial manufacturing organisation and strategies
(Atwell). The initial response to this new situation was, commonly, rationalisation and
downsizing, which attempted to achieve higher levels of efficiency and cost savings within a
Tayloristic production framework. More recently a trend has emerged for responses to be
based around a new production paradigm encompassing the following features:
• the creation of flexible production systems which can meet short deadlines as solve
problems as they arise;
• the Implementation of Total Quality Management Systems;
• shorter product life cycles;
• the introduction of new forms of work organisations.
The new methods of industrial manufacturing and work organisation are having a dramatic
effect on the level and combinations of skills required and on the consequent demands placed
on vocational education and training. Pressure towards higher quality and shorter life-cycles
of products strengthens the need to develop more integrated strategies for new technology,
work organisation and skill formation. This is leading to a focus on key competencies or core
skills such as teamwork, information technology, communications and decision taking, which
reflects a concern for individuals to be more autonomous, including through their use of
shaping skills. The rapid evolution of technologies is bringing about fundamental changes in
the role, structure and organisation of work in manufacturing and service companies leading
to demands for new skills, multi-skilling and customer oriented skills. Such changes have led
to calls for changes in approach to skill formation and continuing skill development and for a
rethinking of the nature of professional and occupational competence and expertise.
As economists have emphasised the increasing importance of human capital as the unique
factor in economic development and competition (Brown and Lauder, 1995) so the debate
over the nature of professional competence and effective learning of skills has come to the
fore. Traditional definitions and explanations of professional competence or expertise have
been based on theories of technical rationality, on the basis that learning can be applied in
predictable and repeated ways (Edwards, 1993). Limitations in the epistemology of
technical rationality and the response to changing forms of work organisation have led to new
definitions and explanations of professional expertise which emphasise the importance of
refection-in-practice (ibid.). Eraut (1993) has stressed the importance of capability - of the
ability of employees to learn new skills as the basis for future performance. BT (1993) also
values the outlook, understanding and way of working that promotes innovation and
capability.
New forms of work organisation have challenged the traditional Tayloristic separation of
conception from execution and have led to a questioning of the divisions between theoretical
knowledge and practical skills. It has also led to an attack on traditional behaviourist learning
principles: on the ‘narrow technicist approach which defines useful knowledge in the light of
bureaucratic and corporate needs’ ((Collins, 1991) cited in Hyland 1993). It has also led to
an increased stress on the need for broad based learning and skills and for the development of
core skills or key competencies - team working, being able to communicate effectively,
problem solving and being willing to learn (Further Education Unit 1993, Eurotecnet, 1994).
Core skills and key competencies are designed to the facilitate transferability of occupational
competence and work related skills to shape new work organisations and new technology.
The technocratic argument that occurs in most countries is that learning to learn is
fundamental if workers are to be able to adjust to changing organisational structures,
technological innovation and almost constant change in work processes (Brown, 1994).”
Do Core Skills Work?
So far so good but do core skills work? The very plethora of different frameworks and
schemas from different countries, and within individual countries, should lead us to be
suspicious. What could be wrong with core skills? The major drawback is the idea that a
series of skills can be abstracted from technical and occupational knowledge, in other words
taken out of the context in which they are to be applied. If we are saying that the nature of
knowledge is becoming more unpredictable and the contexts in which it is to be applied more
complex then it is surely the very content and context of that knowledge that we should be
focusing on. Let me take one example, admittedly somewhat a stereotype. NCVQ base their
qualification framework on a series of national standards, of competence statements,
performance indicators, and accompanying knowledge. Students and trainees must display
they can perform to a satisfactory standard each of these competences. The knowledge and
skills required for each of these competences is defined in advance and is transparent.
Leaving aside the problem, which I have elaborated elsewhere (Attwell, 1997 forthcoming),
that the process of functional analysis necessarily is based on old skills needs, NVQs carry the
implicit message that there is one correct way of doing things, one right answer to any
problem. In fact they almost assume that there are no problems but only answers. But then the
real world intervenes. Employers increasingly want workers who are flexible, able to apply
their skills and knowledge in different situations and contexts, can solve problems. So along
come core skills, designed to achieve all of this. In answer to the criticism of abstraction they
advice that core skills, in their delivery, but not assessment, should be integrated within the
overall learning. That raises another problem however. For NCVQ do not stipulate any
formal, or informal learning processes, let alone a developed curriculum. When looking at
core skills there must also be another suspicion. Certainly in Britain, and possibly in a
number of other countries, core skills and key qualifications are being used as a ‘deficit’
learning model to raise students and trainees basic education to the level required to
undertake more complex technical tasks.
The problem of forecasting future skills, and the development of core skills is not confined to
the UK. In Germany officials of the body responsible for developing new occupational
profiles are still prone to quote with pride that the last revision of the standards for electrical
engineering only took ten years to complete. Whilst the learning of theory, and general
education, is guaranteed through the Dual System, there remains an alarming gap between the
school curriculum and the learning of ‘practice’ based in the enterprises. Furthermore the
segmentation of occupational profiles into some 375 defined occupations hardly enhances
transferability and broad based learning. The definition of key qualifications once more fails
to overcome the basic and deep-seated curricula problems.
Beyond Core Skills
So if core skills are not the answer what is? I would propose we need to take a fundamental
reappraisal of the meaning of vocational education and training, what is and how it is
acquired. The problem is that while for general schools we have a reasonably well shared
knowledge and theory of the basis of education – a basic theory of pedagogics – this does not
exist for vocational education and training. Understanding of different terminology is one part
of the problem but not at the heart of the debate.
The core of the problem may be seen in the very title for this symposium – Forecasting
Future Skills. I suspect the title has in fact been put forward to provoke controversy and
discourse. The following ideas which have come from research undertaken through the
Leonardo EUROPROF project provide a basis for the new forms of curriculum that are
needed, not to forecast future skills but to develop the skills and knowledge to shape future
skills and technology.
The Shaping Principle
The so-called ‘shaping principle’ has become the focus of considerable discussion in the last
few years. In a recent paper in the Journal of European Industrial Training Gerald Heidegger
(1997) explained that basis behind the idea:
“I deliberately use the somewhat uncommon term ‘shaping’ because it should transcend
the activities of designing and planning (Medway 1992). The term ‘shaping’ is meant to
point not only to the „mechanistic“ aspects of a specific task which can be analysed by
rational thinking. It should, with equal significance, also express the importance of
work being an activity, which contains human wishes, especially the emotional ones.
The latter, however, very often cannot be completely understood by rational thinking.
Here a more holistic view of working as a genuinely human activity is at stake (Layton
1984).
In this way, when it comes to shaping the future, education becomes very important.
Integrated „general“ and vocational as well as continuing education, in particular, might
become especially effective where conscious shaping of future occupational work and
production technology is at issue. As will be described below, and as (1988) already
emphasised in his justification for the „Job Profiles 2000“ project, it is one-sided to
assume a „quasi-automatic“ technology development, in particular with respect to the
qualification requirements of the work force. Rejection of technological determinism
prohibits the deriving of future qualifications from technology forecasts. Not only are
such forecasts extremely uncertain, a spectrum of various forms of industrial work and
work organisation appears possible for the future, particularly on the basis of social
change. Along with Rauner/Martin (ibid.), we promote interaction as the basis for a
description of the connection between production technology, industrial work and work
organisation, as well as education or qualification.
The simplifying, though still most widespread, adaptation approach attempts to deduce
the expected qualification requirements from future technology development. An
extended analysis takes into account the various forms of new work organisation that
could be compatible with the costs of new technology developments. However, a
consideration of this direction alone still remains one-sided. The opposite is also
important. Existing qualifications or those to be created, and even more so the services
that can be offered by occupationally really ‘educated’ people, have an effect on the
forms of work and work organisation. They thus influence the utilisation of technology,
they can even co-determine the direction of production technology development. They
constitute an important factor when it comes to the path to be taken to the factory of the
future, during the present branching period. Viewing qualification development or
rather vocational education (and continuing education) in such a way as a conditionally
independent variable is part of the shaping approach in a system of integrated
vocational and ‘general’ education.”
Occupational Competence and Expertise
I would put forward the ‘shaping principle’ as the first of a series of clues or cornerstones
of what a future oriented curriculum might look like. The second is based on discussions
as to the nature of occupational and vocational expertise and knowledge. The need to
embed the development of learning strategies and key competencies, or cognitive learning,
in an occupational context has led to the development of theories based on work process
knowledge. Traditional pedagogical processes have rendered key aspects of expertise and
real professionalism invisible to students (Enkenberg, 1994). The curriculum has been
based on a knowledge hierarchy of basic science, followed by applied science and then the
technical skills of day to day practice. Enkenberg stresses the importance of learning being
‘situated’ - knowledge cannot be separated from its source and context or environment.
Knowledge is relative and learning occurs through a process of ‘enculturation’ as concepts
are understood through use.
Per-Erik Ellström (1997) has developed an analysis of ‘change-oriented human competence’
looking at cognition versus competence:
What, then, are the specific competencies that will enable and empower people to an
increased participation in problem-solving, planning, evaluation and further
development of their work? In other words, what are the characteristics of a proactive,
change-oriented human competence? This is of course a question that cannot be
answered in a satisfactory way without theoretical and empirical analyses of the
competencies-in-use when people engage in different types of developmental work, i.e.
analyses of developmental expertise.
However, the literature on work, learning and problem-solving in complex work
settings may provide some clues (see e.g. Chaiklin & Lave, 1993; Engeström, 1987;
Klein et al, 1993; Suchman, 1987; Schön, 1983). One important dimension in attempts
to portray skilled performance or expertise in different domains is the role of
theoretical, explicit knowledge in contrast to experienced-based, implicit know how
(often called tacit knowledge). Other important dimensions concern the relations
between knowledge (theory) and practice (action), and the character of the problem-
solving and learning process involved.”
He goes on to contrast the two different research traditions and the cognitive-rational and
intuitive-contextual perspectives. Given the complex character of much development
work, he says, and the need to move between routine and non-routine work, seems to
imply that developmental expertise cannot be equated with one or other of the two
perspectives:
“Rather, a change-oriented competence is probably best described as an individual
capacity to move between a theoretical-analytical and a more experience-based,
intuitive competence depending on context; or perhaps rather as a synthesis between
these two set of competencies. In many cases, however, this may only be accomplished
through the use of work teams composed by individuals with different competencies
and experiences.”

Communities of Practice
Alan Brown (1997) has highlighted the importance of entry into communities of practice
in the development of knowledge and expertise. This is based on “the ideas that:
• learning is a relational social process;
• that processes of becoming skilled take place within a broader process of identity
formation;
• and that recognition of significant achievement (and attainment of the status of
experienced practitioner) is itself a socially mediated (or contested) process, dependent on
the recognition of others and a sense of self-worth
all fit with the idea that a dominant theme in occupational identity formation is entry into a
community of practice. That is, individuals are developing occupational identities that
need to be related to particular socially situated, contextually embedded practice.
This echoes the theories of Piaget (1970) who argued that “knowledge is personally
constructed from internal representations by individuals using their experiences as a
foundation”. Learners gain knowledge through a process of personal and co-operative
experimentation, questioning and problem solving through which meaning can be
constructed. Learning is the articulation of schemata which incorporate cognition, perception
and action (Mjelde, 1994). Schemata are made meaningful by jointly carrying out activities
with an ‘expert’ in such a way that the learner gradually masters successively more difficult
parts of the task through successively more complex stages (ibid.).
Cognitive Apprenticeship
The arguments presented above may begin to develop the clues as to what sort of learning is
needed to allow people to begin to shape future skills. However it still leaves unsolved the
problem as to how such a conceptual framework can be transformed into occupational
profiles, curricula and rich learning environments.
Gerald Heidegger (1997), in pointing out the limitations of rational and deliberate planning
processes, describes socially shaped technology as a “unity of the elements of that which is
technically feasible and that which is socially desirable, as a regulative idea” (Rauner and
Martin, 1988). He suggests the need to develop scenarios of possible future developments
based on both discourse and conflict. "Teaching should aim at developing orientations for
deciding on different alternatives, and to enable young people to develop their own
orientations”. Instead of developing key qualifications it is important to promote key areas of
competence. Knowledge and skills in particular occupational situations are needed because
the general can only be implemented in the specific. Education not only refers to the training
of skills for realising of the abstract (for instance, theoretical technology and design).
“Additionally, it is equally important to create competence to act: for this concept of
integration of vocational and general education is superior to that of a purely academic
education. Furthermore, it is not only important to acquire knowledge and skills but to
develop creativity and imagination as well; and the latter will become even more
important, the more one takes the shaping of the future into one’s own hands (and
heads).”
Such a curriculum is based on a new combination of general and vocational education. It
also needs to be grounded in a new idea of occupational profiles. Instead of Germany’s
375 odd occupational profiles and the UK’s some 900 NVQs there is the need for a limited
number of open, dynamic ‘core occupations’. These occupations should overlap in terms
of skills and knowledge to allow the migration of occupational identity (Heidegger and
Rauner, 1997).
Cognitive Apprenticeship
However it is not only occupational profiles and the curriculum itself that needs reform and
renewal. The authenticity and transfer of knowledge and skills depends on the refinement of
intelligent instructional systems and on the design of learning environments in which students
are helped to construct knowledge themselves (Enkenberg, 1994). Within these learning
strategies there is an emphasis on the development of inferential and metacognitive skills.
Nieuwenhuis (1991) proposes the development of ‘cognitive apprenticeships’, as a strategy
for the development of higher order skills encompassing key skills and core competencies,
where learning is situated and context dependent (Brown et al, 1989; Mulder, 1995).
Teaching and learning strategies include modelling, coaching, scaffolding and fading,
articulation, reflection and exploration (Enkenberg, 1994).

Concluding Remarks

In this paper I have rejected the idea of attempting to forecast new skills. In proposing that
there are different choices and scenarios for the development of technology and qualifications
it should be stated that there are different choices and scenarios for the dealing with the issue
of future skills and qualifications. It is possible to project a scenario whereby students follow
a prolonged general education with vocational skills being learnt through in-company training
and development. Other scenarios could include a ‘just-in-time’ competency based system
with the individual responsible for the development of their own skills. Whilst the scenario
put forward here is based on ideas of social shaping, co-determination and anthropocentric
production it is also argued that such a scenario offers the best opportunity for the
development of expertise in the workforce. Of course expertise may be itself only one basis
for sustainable economic growth. Crouch (1997) has argued that to promote employment in
Europe there is the need to create a considerable number of low skilled, secure jobs.
Nethertheless I would contend that to a large extent the prospects for sustainable economic
development and increased employment largely hinge on a skilled workforce. Within this
four key priorities for development can be identified. The first is the identification and
analysis of new occupational profiles to meet the needs of new industries and occupations,
new skill requirements and changing work organisations. The second priority is the
development of new curricula and training programmes to meet the occupational profiles and
provide for competencies to shape technology and science. The identification of new learning
strategies and learning environments which can develop skill and competence in a holistic
manner and which provide for multi dimensional qualification represents the third task. The
final priority is the design and organisation of Vocational Education and Training Systems
which can provide ‘prospective’ or future oriented vocational education and training and
foster life long learning and develop a learning society.
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