Preparing for a Digital Steel Industry: What Challenge for Skills Formation Systems?

Abstract

This chapter draws on data collected under the ESSA project and on institutional literature to illustrate emerging skills needs in the steel industry, and to reflect on the effectiveness of vocational education and training (VET) reforms to meet those needs. VET systems represent a central plank of skills formation institutions. Here, we focus on recent VET reforms in three European countries (Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom) to remark on a potential disconnect between expectations and outcomes. Whilst the given reforms nominally address the skills and training arrangements deemed as necessary for the industry’s technological transformation, we argue that their effectiveness relies lastly on their fit (or complementarity) with pre-existing institutions and with the institutional model in which they occur. This has implications for how attempts to reform national skills formation institutions will support the future steel industry in meeting its challenges.