Vocational training of the unemployed is being conducted to facilitate re-employment through the development of their ability. If the purpose of training is reached, it will bring positive change to the labor market, in terms of reduction in unemploym...
Vocational training of the unemployed is being conducted to facilitate re-employment through the development of their ability. If the purpose of training is reached, it will bring positive change to the labor market, in terms of reduction in unemployment rates and increase in employment rates. It means that it requires high-rationality to implement policies for vocational training of the unemployed. 'Training Process' that uses voucher as the policy measure, is being executed as part of vocational training of the unemployed in Korea.
According to the theoretical logic of voucher, 'Training Process' is expected to bring increase of employment rates, through the mechanism: the expansion of choice for the trainee who is policy consumer and the competition among institutions will bring good quality of training. But the study of experience shows the contradictory results; expansion of choice for trainee has not been appeared and competition among institutions didn't exist. Above all, re-employment rate has been insufficient for trainees. Re-employment rate through 'Training Process' is 20.5% that is lower than that of existing contracting vocational training.
In summary, it is determined that 'Training Process' has not generated the originally targeted policy effects. It is considered to be policy failure that has not effect of policy implementation but output. 'Training Process' is the program that is designed through policy transfer of vaucher developed in a foreign country. Therefore, this research will focuse the fact that the failure of 'Training Process' is due to inappropriate policy transfer; that is the idea distortion occurred in the process of transition to adjust the contents for policy environment to the country(Korea).
According to results of interviews and participant observation, policy transfer has occurred in the aspect of execution system, provider, and consumer during the execution process of 'Training Process'. First of all, execution system of voucher has been complicated under the influence of Korean political and administrative environment, a small government oriented. Second, restrictions on provider has been eased to secure multiple provider as opposed to the original system. Finally, in case of consumers, the regulation of subsidy limit and their charge have been added in Korea to minimize financial burden.
These deteriorations of detailed policy contents reduced outcome and produced side effects. Absence of cooperation among implementation agencies and lack of implemental capacity have led to the distress of suppliers estimation. In addition deregulation on the provider have made a result of inappropriate providers scrambled. The limitation of subsidy that is 2 Million won per person was not enough to complete the vocational training for the consumers. It made consumers loose their motivation. Addition, self-charge that is designed to make consumers assume their own responsibility, is acting as a barrier to entry of consumers who need real training. The unemployed who are not capable of tuition are giving up the training, and housewives who are relatively economically free are participating in it.
Eventually, the deterioration which was made during policy implementation has distorted logic of voucher. The competition between providers has been useless because of poor screening of provider as inappropriate providers has scrambled. Specifically, diversification of training courses was replaced by simple division of training courses; by a temporary trainer. The standard of course; expenses, period and etc. that was developed to overcome the limits coming from the lack of implementation capacity, has suppressed the competition among providers. Target group of training policy has been decomposed by the lack of training period and self-charge, which is due to limitation of subsidy. It is results in failing to choose right consumer. Eventually, the result of political effect of 'Training Process' was below expectations, and has the low quality of production and poor service of vocational training, due to little motivation and meaningless competition among providers.
This research presents that transformation through the policy transfer can cause policy failure. Therefore, it is important to recognize the difference of policy environment between original country and its country which imports the policy. If there is a difference in important part of policy environment between two countries, it is needed to have firm determination to cancel the policy import. For the policy transfer, it is required to inspect idea of policy and specific information more closely, need to examine the problems that policy transformation can bring in specific parts. Implemented field consists of the network of several stakeholders. So there can be an unexpected trouble among them. Therefore, it is desirable to gradually expand a business through a social experiment.
This study has the following limitations: Range of Interviewee was limited to the Daegu-Gyeongbuk area. Also, the study did not control the various parameters that occur in the process changing policy to the effective one. If more data is accumulated and the scope of investigation is broaden, the more significant policy implications can be drawn out.
Keywords : Policy transfer, Policy failure, Voucher,
Policy implementation, Policy instrument,
Vocational training
Student Number : 2008-22286