diVerences. In terms of its focus, VET is mostly industry led and centered on the
workplace in the UK and Germany, whereas training is education led and centered
on vocational training schools in Italy and France. The German dual system entails
instruction in VET schools in parallel with work-based training, but the curricula
focus on workplace needs. Whereas VET is regulated by the state in Germany and
France, in the UK and Italy arrangements are market led, with responsibility for
training largely devolved to employers (Winterton 2000 ).
Whatever the system, training policy should ensure that labor market needs are
met. Some have questioned employers’ ability adequately to identify future skills
needs, asking whether employers really need the skills they want (Stasz 1997 ) and,
equally, if they want the skills they need. In the UK, it was argued that employers
recruit graduates because they are plentiful, but then use them in intermediate
functions to remedy labor market skills deWciencies at this level. Recent evidence
disputes this hypothesis, showing that the vast majority of graduates in England
are employed within three years in positions that demand graduate skills, despite
the doubling of university entrants in a little over a decade (Elias and Purcell 2004 ).
In market-led training systems like the UK, some employers have been tempted
to focus on narrow job-related skills, wanting to ‘pick and mix’ modules of
vocational qualiWcations to suit their needs forXexibility, rather than respecting
the integrity of qualiWcations that improve employability. In the state-led German
system, modularization has been resisted in the interests of maintaining the
integrity of ‘Beruf ’, usually translated as occupation but embracing the culture
and traditions of a craft. State regulation facilitates a higher level of skill develop-
ment, which explains why vocational qualiWcations are almost as extensive in
France as in Germany, but the French system is focused on state vocational schools
and employers complain that the training is inappropriate, a problem not apparent
in the German dual system where the curriculum is focused on workplace needs.
Turning to practice, training involves three processes: analysis of needs, devel-
opment of provision, and evaluation. Training needs analysis compares existing
competences with those required and can be undertaken at the level of the
organization, the work team, and the individual. At the organizational level, the
purpose is to establish training priorities in the light of organizational strategy and
associated core competences. At team level, the purpose is to ensure that teams
possess the complementary skills required for eVective performance and functional
Xexibility. At the individual level, a development review aims to match career
aspirations with organizational needs. A comparison of the attributes required
for a particular job (in the job proWle) with those of the current job holder provides
a starting point; more detail is obtained by task or functional analysis which
identiWes speciWc knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed.
In the development phase, the training content is determined from the needs
analysis and appropriate modes of delivery identiWed for the diVerent elements.
Training is invariably more structured for new employees because the induction
330 jonathan winterton