It could be said that the world of production and work associated with education always existed, and that there have been changes in the division of labor, technological aspects and scientific development. Depending on the social, economic and historical circumstances, the change in the mode of formation may anticipate that of the mode of production or vice versa.
It could be said that the world of production and work associated with education always existed, and that there have been changes in the division of labor, technological aspects and scientific development. Depending on the social, economic and historical circumstances, the change in the mode of formation may anticipate that of the mode of production or vice versa. Training thus has relative autonomy from production. This relationship has been the object of social tensions and conflicts, hence we can think of training in and for work as a process of adaptation, but also of change.
It seems important to me to make a synthesis of this historical journey, so as not to limit the analysis to training in the company, in addition to expanding the field to training in the world of work and seeing what changes were happening, and then analyzing the relationship of adult with the training provided by the company or by groups of workers, and how the latter are linked to knowledge and the place of change in this analysis.
Starting the analysis in the 11th century and the evolution up to the 19th century, taking M. Carton we can speak of the passage, a change from a corporate teaching to a school teaching, «(…) in the Middle Ages the practices of teaching and Reproduction of the system were controlled by the same trainers. In the school system, management is in charge of the State and the social forces that control it, while corporations regulated the use of those who had received training, then it is the State, the labor market and pressure groups, who participate in that regulation… while corporate education and work were directly related, the school system corresponds to the emergence of the labor market,that is inserted between training and work and in which the position of a diploma awarded by the State is a currency for obtaining gainful employment »(Carton M.“ Education and the world of work ”, Unesco, 1985).
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was a development, along with popular education, of individual social promotion linked to changes in the professional situation. The economic crisis between the two world wars accelerates the development of vocational training systems. Formal education is necessary, but not sufficient.
In the 1950s, there was a massive arrival on the labor market of labor with general school qualifications, and only accessory and professional skills, posing problems related to productive needs. In a context of crisis in education planning systems, the ideas of continuous training and permanent education emerge, employers 'and workers' organizations propose the application of continuous training systems, in which they will be direct actors, with the possibility or not of participation by the State.
Thus again work appears as the object of confrontations and negotiations, raising the question of the control of the interaction between work and training. The relationship between training and work is no longer proposed with reference to the school model, but with reference to the company:
«… it is no longer the individual request for training that is at stake, but the institutional offer of training, in relation to the employment opportunities and the description of the jobs, the required qualifications and the evolution in them under the joint influence of technological changes and economic crisis ”(Carton M.“ Education and the world of work ”, Unesco, 1985).
Currently, in the competition between economic blocks, education and knowledge play a relevant role as new industries depend more on the organization of knowledge and learning that is achieved than on natural resources, territory or raw material:
"The qualities of the workforce will be the basic competitive weapon of the 21st century, and specialized people the only lasting competitive advantage (…) organizations will be fine networks of knowledge that are limited to connecting needs with resources anywhere on the planet… »(Thurrow, L." The war of the 21st century ", Ed. Vergara).
We are in the passage from one industrial stage to another dominated by information, in a context of vertiginous changes and transformations, with the worsening of the unemployment problem, with new qualifications that technological and organizational changes demand, demands regarding service and quality, in contexts of uncertainty.
As stated by A. Gallart, the focus of attention shifts from qualifications to competencies, understood as a set of knowledge, skills and attitudes that are put into play to solve specific work situations. For this reason, changes will constantly put them to the test and we will need continuous training that allows us to adapt to the new needs of work, with an increase in our professionalism and flexibility.
Let's see what happens to this adult who learns in this context. The first thing we can think about is what it is to learn. There it is interesting to return to the training approach for adaptation and change. Let's look at the definition of learning presented to us by O. Blake:
"Learning is an adaptive change that is expressed through a person's behavior, which tends to last and that occurs in their balanced interaction with both the physical and social environment."
If, based on this definition, we locate ourselves in the word “change”, the training provided by the company or by groups of workers could be a dynamic resource that helps adults to apprehend their world and transform it.
It is just as dynamic as it becomes an essential instrument in the change processes carried out by people. On the other hand, if we place ourselves on the word “adaptive”, we could think of the need for learning to “survive” in today's labor market: adapt to survive?
But in job training, we are talking about a learning process, a peculiar training, since we link training with work, and therefore in a group of adults. Thus this person and this social environment enunciated by Blake acquire particular characteristics.
The changes confront this adult with various problems, among them the threat to the unknown, changes in relations with the world of work, including relations with colleagues, self-image, power relations, among others.
New forms of language and argumentation are also being developed. In the face of change, we abandon previous ways of thinking. All these processes take considerable time and modifications of knowledge, skills and attitudes, to a greater or lesser extent.
If we talk about interaction with the environment, we can think that in the workplace, what I can transfer from what I have learned to this specific environment, which is my field of work, becomes relevant in this relationship. There, training in competencies becomes relevant, but these competences are not limited to our professional experience, but also carry all our social and personal experiences, the peculiarities of our professional identity, making each professional and training path unique. Hence, if we want training to stimulate change processes, we must respect this trajectory.
If training is the training of competences, it is teaching based on the adult being trained, we cannot stop talking about action and transfer of what has been learned to the world of work. We can also think that one of the skills to develop in these adults is to transmit knowledge, making this adult both a subject who learns and one who teaches. There we would find the greatest diversity of profiles in what would be the figure of the trainer, since any employee of the organization, from the president to the operator, has a knowledge with the possibility of being transmitted, from the phenomenon of work specialization.
But we are not only talking about the need to survive for people, but also for organizations. Thus, organizational development
“… It is a long-range, planned effort by the company for a renewal process that solves its problems and increases its stability” (Gore E., “Education in the company”, Ed. Granica).
If training is understood as training, it must focus on action, facing the problems experienced in the reality of work, analyzing and solving them through the application or transfer of the set of knowledge, skills and attitudes of workers in their positions of work. For this, it is essential that the training area involves from the preparation to the monitoring of each project, all the actors that are linked to it, especially the operational managers and the adults in training themselves, from listening to their demands..
In relation to organizational development, training would become an obligation, as stated by Louart, since the introduction of new technologies requires new skills, with the survival or transformation of jobs and own organization, thus becoming a highly complex strategic reflection. We must be clear that training does not generate changes in the culture of the organization, since it is a very complex process if we understand that the organizational culture
"… is a pattern of basic assumptions that a group invents, discovers or develops to face its need to respond to external demands without losing internal coherence (…) conferring a certain identity" (Gore E., "Education in the company ”, Ed. Granica).
Thus, the organizational culture conditions learning. Organizational structures are resistant to change, as they create relationship stereotypes that are embedded in culture and endure beyond individuals. The training will help the organization to modify itself, to doubt its own learning, "… to objectify and put the learned experience in context, so that the person himself can imagine what learning he would need in the new context" (Gore E., "Education in the company", Ed. Granica).
This implies reflection in action, where learning becomes doing, learning from what is done, from a network of agreements between the different actors.
Training can help adaptation or change to the extent that it collaborates or not with the organization, in the process of turning it into an intelligent organization, which requires subjects who apprehend in a context riddled with complexities, and recognize themselves same in this complexity.
