This panel will explore the role of skill development and vocational training in eliciting social transformation in rural settings. Papers will focus on the impacts of formal, non-formal and informal skill development initiatives that are oriented to both the agricultural and rural non-farm sectors.
Long Abstract:
Skill development and the reform of systems of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) have emerged as major policy priorities across the Global South. Discourses on skill development tend to have an urban-centric focus on skills for the industrial and service sectors. Yet, skill development may also act as a driver of rural social and economic transformation and to address key challenges facing the rural sector, such as unemployment, outmigration, gender inequality, climate change, and the depletion of natural resources. Rural skill development is also conceptually interesting, given the close intersection of formal, non-formal and informal modalities of skill acquisition in the rural economy.
This panel will explore the role of skill development and TVET in eliciting social transformation in rural settings. Papers will focus on the impacts of formal, non-formal and informal skill development initiatives that are oriented to both the agricultural and rural non-farm sectors.
In keeping with the DSA2020 theme, papers will consider questions of leadership in skill development initiatives, such as:
- Do skill development policies, TVET institutions, and individual trainers provide effective leadership for rural transformation?
- If they do, is their leadership socially inclusive, or does it serve the interests of rural elites?
- Does leadership imply a focus on skills that align with current rural needs and aspirations, or does it rather imply the introduction of new, more 'disruptive' skills?
- Are there differences in the kind of leadership expressed in the context of formal, non-formal, and informal skill development activities?
The concept of skill ecosystems suggests skill development programs are most effective when the social and institutional environment supports ongoing learning. I show how emotion, power and inequality structure access to skill ecosystems, drawing on a study of agricultural skill development in India
Paper long abstract:
The concept of 'skill ecosystems' - initially developed in the global North - suggests that skill development initiatives are more likely to be effective when the broader social and institutional environment supports ongoing learning and offers opportunities to make meaningful use of skills. In rural contexts in the global South, however, this social and institutional environment is characterised by high levels of informality and inequality, compromising its capacity to facilitate ongoing skill development. In this paper, I argue that emotion, power, and inequality need to be central considerations in understanding how skill ecosystems function in such contexts. I draw on a study of trainees who participated in agricultural training programs in rural north India. Overall, these trainees were more successful in developing and making use of their skills when they were able to connect with a wide variety of other social actors who could facilitate further learning and market integration. These actors included government departments, NGOs, farmer associations, agribusiness firms, and fellow farmers. Yet whether or not trainees were able to connect to these actors in effective ways was highly influenced by the power relations that structure access. Strong emotional responses towards those actors, such as distrust and shame, also inhibited effective connections. I argue that because of their imbrication in systems of inequality and power, skill ecosystems often better facilitate the development and effective deployment of skills amongst those already in possession of social privilege, significantly curtailing their capacity to facilitate progressive social transformation.
This study explores synergies in multi-stakeholder collaboration and leadership in skills development programmes in rural communities. It also looks into approaches to skills training along with contextual factors which impact access and participation to training programmes.
Paper long abstract:
One of the top priorities of the 2030 Agenda involves agricultural initiatives and rural development as powerful tools to end poverty and hunger. A strategic response to this challenge is increasing the involvement of the youth and tracking the empowerment of women through skills development programmes. This study explores how multi-stakeholder collaboration and leadership create synergies in promoting sustainable farming system and livelihood practices. This is part of an ongoing project which involves two cases from rural communities in the Philippines - the out-of-school youth and women-led orgainisations in marginilised communities. It combines Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology and the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) operating within Freirean principles which entail the development of critical consciousness of structures of power and the realisation of their own power, through praxis, to take a collective action to address present challenges. The structure of this project reflects a multi-sectoral collaboration among government agencies, NGOs, research institutions and women-led organisations. The study considers not only approaches to skills training in rural communities but also contextual factors which impact access and participation to training programmes. Thus, it addresses issues such as challenges and opportunities in co-facilitating and co-producing knowledge in rural communities, practices that build on existing literacies of participants, and distribution of power across sectors to achieve social transformation in rural communities.
In the clamour for enhancing livelihoods through imparting new 'skills', loss of skills to sustain livelihood options among the most marginalised shouldn't be overlooked.
Paper long abstract:
Historically, indigenous communities lived near forests, largely dependent on forest produce and some farming. Life and livelihood of such tribes, founded on an intricate relationship with the ecosystem used to clearly contrast with that of the mainstream society. The present-day tribal population in India, alienated to a large extent from their natural landscapes, is dependent substantially on agriculture, wage labour and migration. Farming practices and technologies prevalent in the dominant mode of agriculture are fast invading the tribal landscapes, deskilling indigenous communities of their time tested know-how and socio-cultural fabric. This is evidently posing several threats to themselves and even the larger society struggling with large scale ecological and socio-economic changes.
Weakening social-ecological institutions along with incursion of capital intensive modes of farming, seems to be furthering their vulnerability than empowering them or making them part of the core economy. This happens even as country wide formal initiatives in skilling rural India invest significant amount of public resources. It is in this background that a team of development researchers and practitioners, along with tribal villagers embarked on a co-enquiry to explore the kind of skills and skilling processes befitting the tribal context of central India. Adaptive Skilling through Action Research (ASAR), as it came to be known through its journey, is in its third year and sprouts of transformative thinking are emerging in the hamlets. The paper will unravel the role of collaborative, creative and adaptive thinking needed for rural India, especially for the most marginalized of them.
The South African government initiated a land reform programme as a means to redress the critical land issue that has the potential to derail the country's transition from apartheid to a democratic dispensation. However, lack of proper skills transfer process seems to hamper this ambitious plan.
Paper long abstract:
Land reform is a critical aspect as a means to redress the past imbalances created by apartheid in South Africa. Noble as this programme sounds, it has not been fully effective, with limited success. What has been revealed is that the absence of post-settlement support by authorities serves as a fertile ground to torpedo this ambitious, yet necessary programme. Lack of skills amongst the beneficiaries and within the myriad of government institutions has led to a massive failure to this programme. The eventual losers of this programme are predominantly the emerging farmers and rural populations that tend to rely on a successful and productive land occupation. The key objective of the paper would to identify the appropriate skills transfer model for land reform beneficiaries in South Africa with a comparative view from countries such as Brazil Kenya and China. The main objective would be to argue that skills transfer is a critical component to the success of any land reform programme, particularly in South Africa.
Conventional VET approaches have retained an urban and industrial bias. Yet more than 3 billion people living rurally learn skills. We draw on the growing social ecosystemic skills research tradition to probe its potential for guiding research on rural skills.
Paper long abstract:
Conventional formal vocational education and training (VET) approaches emerged in response to the industrial revolution and have retained an urban and industrial bias. Yet the more than 3 billion people living rurally learn many skills through a range of mechanisms that are poorly understood in mainstream VET research and policy circles. Here we draw on the growing social ecosystemic skills research tradition in the wider VET research sub-field to probe the potential for such a conceptual and theoretical framework for guiding research on rural skills. The significance of social ecosystem models in skills research is that they seek to develop skills development approaches that forge stronger connections between working, living and learning. They foreground regional, place-based models for skills planning that require interfacing with vertical facilitatory mechanisms, and horizontal connectivities, and are aligned with adaptive management approaches to social-ecological systems research in landscapes of practice and sustainable economies where market, home, commons and state intersect. We will draw empirically from cases in South Africa and Uganda to illustrate the potential application of social ecosystem models to research on rural skills.
The aim of this paper is to explore the entrepreneurship education and training needs of women entrepreneurs operating in agritourism sector of the Indian economy.
Paper long abstract:
During the last decades agritourism has expanded tremendously worldwide and a complex set of personal and economic goals resulted in the creation and maintenance of agritourism. Literature suggests (Lane and Kastenholz, 2015; Hyungsuk, 2012; Thomas et al., 2011; Carpio et al., 2008) that challenging conditions in the current agricultural context have encouraged farmers worldwide to develop agritourism. Agricultural sector in the developing economies is very male dominated, however, the contribution of invisible hands (women) cannot be denied (Sandhu, 2012). Women's contribution in the agricultural sector and access to entrepreneurial finance in the developing economies, which have nascent entrepreneurial ecosystem is an under researched area (Sandhu et al., 2017). This paper analyses the prospects of agritourism in Indian Punjab and significance of right EET for women entrepreneurs to make it a success. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected through a survey of in-depth face to face interviews based on a semi-structured questionnaire undertaken with 50 registered farmers (Punjab Heritage Tourism Promotion Board) and 100 unregistered male and female farmers selected from different districts of Indian Punjab. The results suggest that there is significant scope to apply the concept of agritourism in the agrarian economy of the Indian Punjab. However, emerging research results suggest that male farmers are reluctant to involve females in business, mostly due to the potential involvement of outsiders. Lack of sufficient finance and the unavailability of specific, contextual EET, have emerged as the most significant challenges and barrier to success for both female and male entrepreneurs in the sample.
In a rural agricultural village in Rwanda, a TVET school is breaking barriers in providing formal education in vocations such as carpentry, masonry, and tailoring for the rural youth. With 70% of trainers coming from the village, students are much closer and inspired by leaders who also tutor them.
Paper long abstract:
In Rwanda, the government's policy on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) has been robust, with continuous support and guidance to institutions that run formal training. In fact, the Workforce Development Authority created by the government seeks to ensure that, the youth of Rwanda acquire technical skills that benefits their future and that of a thriving Rwanda.
In Kivumu, a rural farming village in Southern Rwanda, the Padri Vjeko Centre (PVC), a TVET school is breaking barriers in providing formal education to poor rural youth in vocations such as Masonry, Electricity, Welding and Tailoring. These skills are helping to reduce unemployment and improve the economic situation of the village. A new form of inspirational leadership is also evident within this institution. 70% of trainers in the school graduated from the same institution and are also from the village. This has created a combination of skills training and mentorship for students who attend this TVET school. The cultivation of leaders that are within hands reach is providing an inspiration for the young people that live in this village. And so, the combination of skills training by trainers and leaders who are from the village is creating a holistic form of both formal and informal education. This paper seeks to retrace the steps from the set up of the school to creating leaders and trainers from the village who provide both formal and informal training for young people.
Demand-driven approaches are the key to sustainable skill development in rural areas in the agricultural and non-farming sectors. The demand study expresses a pilot approach in the Indian state of Meghalaya and shows the needs of the rural population in terms of vocational education and skills.
Paper long abstract:
Demand-driven approaches are increasingly being taken into consideration when it comes to the development of skills in the vocational education. This and the advantages of the individual-driven approaches, like the avoidance of mismatching, are the reasons why the author used this method to realise a field research in Meghalaya/India. The remote rural North-eastern state is facing several problems in the training of its people. The needs were analysed with the use of focussed-group discussions carried out in twelve villages in Meghalaya. The focus group interviews were supplemented by individual interviews and expert interviews and were conducted using a theory-based interview guideline. The result shows that there are multiple skills needs concerning the vocational sector like commercial needs (e.g. sales and distribution), agricultural needs (e.g. food processing) and craft needs (e.g arts and crafts and weaving). A needs-assessment is the first step to implement sustainable skill developments in Meghalaya and helps to meet the aspirations of the rural people in terms of employment and livelihood. Another main finding of the demand study was the need for teacher training, while keeping in mind that in Meghalaya, informal and traditional forms of learning are predominant. Thus the study also provides insights into how these desired skills can be taught with respect to traditional teaching methods. The contribution of the study is therefore how the skill needs of rural populations can be assessed and how they can be taught while taking local circumstances (e.g. gender) into account.
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