In the recent years there have been several intends to theorize the role of TVET for international development from critical theoretical currents (mainly critical political economy, sustainable development and capabilities theory). These theoretical developments have run in parallel to the growing importance gained by TVET and skills in the MDGs and the global education agenda for development. The application of these theoretical frameworks to the critical analysis of policy agendas in TVET should allow us to unveil the assumptions behind these agendas, to discuss the ideas that guide the design of policy initiatives, and to suggest policy alternatives based on critical approaches to international development.
Chile provides an excellent case for this kind of research. Often presented to other countries in the region as an exemplary case of development success; today Chile is one of the latest countries to graduate from middle-income to high-income economy, it is member of the OECD club and it presents higher participation rates in education than many countries in the Global North. However, the country has paid a very high price for these development achievements. Since the military dictatorship and through the democratic period, Chile has been an international laboratory for neoliberal reforms which have caused rampant social and educational inequalities and have led to great political unrest, in special with student protests. Policy developments in education have been strongly influenced by different versions of human capital orthodoxy, with the imaginary of the Knowledge Based Economy and the ‘High Skills’ agenda being central in many education and economic development policy discourses in the last decade. One of the implications of these imaginaries have been the growing importance attributed to higher education for the development of the country and the ‘identity crisis’ of the TVET sector. In fact, while in the past TVET policies were designed to offer educational opportunities for disadvantaged youth seeking a quick insertion in the labour market, today the orientations and the objectives of these policies are less clear given the larger number of secondary TVET graduates that pursue tertiary education and the stronger policy focus on the expansion of higher education.
Drawing on development theories and critical policy studies, the paper aims to understand the competing orientations and objectives of TVET policy agendas in Chile from 2009 to 2016 with a specific focus on the changing educational, economic and social goals and functions attributed to VET, the social expectations generated over secondary VET graduates, and their potential implications and effects on post-school trajectories. The paper is based on the analysis of a selection of TVET policy texts and 21 semi-structured interviews with key national policy actors, and it is part of the three-year ESRC Newton Fund research project “Governing the educational and labour market trajectories of TVET graduates in Chile” coordinated between the University of Glasgow and the Alberto Hurtado University.
The analysis of the policy discourses shows a policy shift in the left-wing coalition of the second Bachelet administration in relation to orthodox approaches to education and development from previous administrations in Chile. The discourse of the new coalition placed social justice concerns at the centre of education reforms and defended the idea that the main aim of TVET policies should be the expansion of students’ capabilities. However, both orthodox and critical approaches to TVET seem to assume that no decent jobs and living conditions can be offered to secondary TVET graduates in Chile, and their policy agendas converge in the idea of transforming the TVET sector into a second-class pathway to higher education for young adults from a disadvantaged background.
