Centre for Labour Market Research,
Aalborg University, Denmark (CARMA)
A Danish model for Scotland?
Edinburgh 24.3.2010
by
Morten Lassen

• Policy- import? – No!
- different contexts, different regimes
• Policy-transfer? – Perhaps!
- depends on specific conditions and political will
• Policy-learning? – Yes!
- inspirations on content, institutions and processes

• 5.4 mio. inhabitants
• An universalistic welfare state:
- social welfare financed through taxes
- free public services for all citizens in many areas
• The Danish Labour Market model:
- based on the flexicurity model
- tripartite co-operation

• The Danish Labour Market:
- the labour force constitutes appr. 2.8. mio. people
- a high participation rate of appr. 77%
- women make up about 47.5.% of the labour force
- about 33 % of all employed work in public sector

The Danish flexicurity triangle
•Low employment protection
•High job mobility
Flexible labour market
Income security
Unemployment benefits
•High degree of compensation
•Four years in the insurance system
Active
LMP
Educational policy etc.
•Focus on better qualifications
•Right and duty to accept job offers

ADULT EDUCATION AND TRAINING
SYSTEM IN DENMARK

• Provision of a coherent and publicly funded education and continuing training system for adults at all levels
• Ensure access for all – not least low skilled
• Coherent education/training and career guidance for adults
• Ensure possibilities of skills and competence development
(general and work-related supply from public institutions)
• Ensure recognition of skills and competencies of prior learning
(focus on non-formal and informal learning) by employers and society at large
• New institutional framework – VET-centres from 2010

• Financing:
– Public provision and taximeter funding of approved education activities
– Co-financing by participants or employers through graduated tuition fees favouring low-skilled, certain offers being free
– Co-financing by competence-funds, raised by collective agreements giving individual rights for wage-earners
– Publicly financed support/allowance schemes for forgone earnings during trainee leave (qualifying courses only)
– Training for unemployed purchased by Public Employment Service

VOCATIONAL ADULT EDUCATION
AND TRAINING for low- skilled and skilled labour
-two main entries

STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT AND MANAGEMENT
-corporatism

• Main objectives:
– To provide, maintain and improve skills and competencies of participants in accordance with the demand of the labour market
– To solve restructuring and adaptation needs in the labour market
– To contribute to lifelong learning upgrading of skills and competencies in the workforce

• Profile of the AMU-system:
– Target group: Unskilled and skilled workers (more than 500.000 participants per year in a course)
– More than 3000 programmes
– Each year, app. 500 programmes are developed or changed due to changed needs on the labour market
– Nationally recognised certificate upon completion of a course
– More than 150 providers: colleges, training centres and private providers

JOINT COMPETENCE DESCRIPTIONS
- A shift from focusing on education and training to focusing on competencies

INDIVIDUAL COMPETENCE ASSESSMENT
-a new tool

• Raising activity for unskilled persons
– -a question of motivation
• Raising activity for employed in SME’s
– a question of firm decisions and offensive promoting of VET-supply
• Better interplay between general and vocational providers
– a question of strategic planning by management of institutions
• Implementing new VET-centres for better need scanning in firms and coordination of supply in a still more market –oriented supply
– a question of strategic will and cooperative spirit from the people of the supplying institutions
• -Raising activity for unemployed
– a question of new policy profile of labour market policy

• Thank you for your attention
• I hope you have been inspired for further discussions of learning, perhaps transfer or even import of the Danish model of Life Long
Learning……..