Understanding the adoption and implementation of Sector Skills Councils in Chile

Bravo Contreras, Paulina (2022) Understanding the adoption and implementation of Sector Skills Councils in Chile. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) policies have gained increased interest in global agendas, being a particular concern in ensuring that youths have the skills needed to enter the labour market. In this line, international organisations and cooperation agencies have widely promoted sector skills bodies. This policy seeks to involve employers in skills formation and foster collaboration among different stakeholders to ensure that the skills developed through TVET meet labour market needs. However, academic research about this specific policy is limited. Moreover, even when several countries have adopted these bodies, little is known about them from a policy transfer perspective (i.e. studying the travel of an education policy from one place to another). This thesis addresses this gap by examining the adoption and implementation of private-led Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) in Chile. Thus, two main research questions guided this study: Why and how private actors in Chile have adopted SSCs? How have different employers and TVET providers implemented SSCs’ initiatives in Chile?

This qualitative research utilised a multiple-case study design for which data was collected through semi-structured interviews and documents analysis. First, based on a Cultural Political Economy approach, the adoption of SSCs was investigated by examining the main factors that could account for the mechanisms involved in the process. Second, the implementation of SSCs was studied by considering a policy enactment focus and the principles of the Realist Evaluation approach to understand how two main actors affected by the policy, employers and TVET providers, have fulfilled the policy expectations.

The findings of this thesis show the crucial role of ideational factors (i.e. the influence of policy entrepreneur) to trigger policy change and the specific economic, institutional, political and educational conditions at the national and sectoral levels that may explain the adoption of SSCs. As a result, it advances our understanding of the different roles played by ideational and material factors in adopting SSCs as a TVET policy. Likewise, given the unusual private-led adoption of these bodies, this study provides an empirical demonstration of this uncommon situation. Simultaneously, it offers potential new insights about the assessments made by employers and their business associations when deciding to involve in skill formation policies. Moreover, by investigating the implementation of SSCs from the perspective of the main actors expected to enact the policy, this thesis provides an initial understanding of the varied contextual and stakeholder conditions affecting these actors’ responses to SSCs. In doing so, this thesis also offers an empirical demonstration of the limitations of SSCs adopted and implemented with a skills supply orthodoxy rhetoric.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Supported by BecasChile CONICYT Scholarship.
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Supervisor's Name: Valiente, Professor Oscar, Hurrell, Dr. Scott and Capsada-Munsech, Dr. Queralt
• Date of Award: 2022
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2022-82741
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 09 Mar 2022 14:03
• Last Modified: 08 Apr 2022 16:45
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.82741
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/82741