Who Gains from the
New Skills Training ?

BY NANCY S. JACKSON

Depuis plus de dix ans, les groupes de femmes luttent pour donner à toutes davantage accès aux programmes de formation. Toutefois, pour les féministes, il ne faut pas s'en tenir là: pour elles, le contenu et la qualité du programme de formation sont également essentiels.

Comme le montre ici Nancy Jackson, étudiante en doctorat de sociologie à l'Institut d'études pédagogiques de l'Ontario, le concept d'habileté et compétence domine de plus en plus les programmes de formation. Par habileté, on entend non pas une aptitude innée que possède une travailleuse ou un travailleur, mais plutôt des compétences qui se mesurent et s'évaluent par des certificats et des diplômes. Tout ceci mène à des programmes de formation dont les objectifs sont étroits, à court terme. Certes, ces programmes répondent aux besoins des employeurs. Mais, d'après les critiques, ils donnent lieu à un apprentissage superficiel et routinier qui mène à l'acquisition de connaissances préfabriquées. Or ceci freine le développement d'une autre forme de connaissances qui, elle, contribue à l'épanouissement personnel, pour le bien de l'individu et la société.

Les programmes de formation qui s'adressent surtout aux femmes sont probablement particulièrement vulnérables sur ce point, tout simplement parce que le travail des femmes est généralement défini comme nécessitant peu d'habileté. On craint que cette façon de voir les choses ne perpétue un concept déformé et restreint des connaissances professionnelles pour les femmes.

Over the last decade, national, provincial and local women's groups in Canada have fought to secure a fair deal for women in post-secondary education, particularly in adult education and training. The issue of access (to both traditional and nontraditional areas of instruction) has dominated these efforts to date, because the blatantly discriminatory exclusion of women has contributed to the continuing economic disadvantage and dependence of many Canadian women. But the struggle will not be over even if we are successful in our demands for equal access. Current changes in the learning environment itself pose a different kind of threat to women's interests. Skill training is being reorganized to serve more closely the short-term interests of employers, potentially impoverishing the contents of the vocational knowledge transmitted and separating the skills from the power and status of the workers. These widespread developments should be of particular concern to feminists who see education and training as a means of improving the economic status of women. I will begin my discussion with a critical look at the current use of terms like "skill" and "competence".

In recent years, the concept of skill has come to dominate the popular understanding of education. "Skill" has become both a metaphor for the total output of all our institutions of learning and a standard by which they should be judged. It has overtones of status, representing the knowledgeable and the scientific, and lends an aura of authority to whatever falls in its shadow. Furthermore, it implies that innovation in education is needed because of economic circumstances, and that all have a common stake in the outcome. The conventional concern with matching demand and supply of skills is being replaced by an interest in the way occupational skills are organized and produced. Historical forms of organization and control which make skill a property of the worker, (of which apprenticeships are the most common example) have come to be seen as a limitation on the prerogative of employers to use labour power according to their own interests. As a result, concepts of craft mastery are being replaced by a new logic of skill which gives the employer more control over the organization of knowledge and skills on the job, and thus more flexibility in the deployment of labour. This flexibility is a key objective among those who support change in the structure of vocational and technical programs. 1

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