WE HAVE A DREAM
Fulfilling the Promise of Youth Guarantee
WE HAVE A DREAM: Fulfilling the Promise of Youth Guarantee Writers: Matti M채kel채, Timo Haukioja Layout: Mia G채stgivar Pictures: Pixhill Publisher: Youth Guarantee NOW project Financiers: European Social Fund, Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Enviroment for South-West Finland, City of Turku Place of printing: Juvenes Print 2015 ISBN: 978-952-5892-59-8 (paperpack) ISBN: 978-952-5892-60-4 (pdf)
Content To the reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
Basic facts about the Youth Guarantee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Six reasons to implement the Youth Guarantee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Vision and action plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Continued operations – If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Activities in need of development – Business as Usual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Radical innovations – To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before . . . . . . . 18 Catch 22 – Don’t Try This at Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3
To the reader The Youth Guarantee NOW project was implemented in the Turku region in Southwestern Finland in 2014. Its aim was to support the Youth Guarantee by promoting collaboration between different authorities and actors as well as mapping the practices and operational models that help or hinder the implementation of Youth Guarantee. In addition to this, the project was tasked with creating a Youth Guarantee vision for the region along with a supporting action and implementation plan. The contents of the vision as well as the action and implementation plan were based on the following: 1. Youth Guarantee surveys The project completed three Youth Guarantee surveys with a total of 363 participants. Of these, 111 were young people either in school or in other youth services, 86 worked in the public or third sector, and 166 were entrepreneurs and employers. 2. Youth Guarantee seminars and workshops A total of 181 people participated in the five seminars/workshops organized by the project. 3. Expert interviews The project conducted in-depth interviews with 25 experts. In addition to supporting Youth Guarantee work in the Turku region, both the vision and the action and implementation plan are intended as tools for actors interested in developing and implementing the Youth Guarantee in the EU and elsewhere. In Turku 15.11.2014 Timo Jalonen Chairman, Steering committee Matti M채kel채 Project Manager Timo Haukioja Project Coordinator
WE HAVE A DREAM: Fulfilling the Promise of Youth Guarantee
Basic facts about the Youth Guarantee The Youth Guarantee is an initiative, implemented in Finland in 2013, that guarantees a job, work try-out, or a place in education, a workshop or rehabilitation for every young person younger than 25 and every recent graduate younger than 30 within three months of his/her becoming unemployed. The Training Guarantee is a part of the Youth Guarantee that guarantees admission to an upper secondary school, vocational institution, apprenticeship, workshop, rehabilitation or other training for every young person who has completed basic education.
Finland and Austria were the first two countries in Europe to adopt the Youth Guarantee.
The fixed-term Skills Programme for Young Adults was launched to support the implementation of the Youth Guarantee. It provides additional opportunities for young adults aged 20 to 29 who have only completed comprehensive school and helps them to apply for and complete a competence-based vocational qualification, or enter training leading to vocational qualification or specialist vocational qualification. Finland and Austria were the first two countries in Europe to adopt the Youth Guarantee. The Youth Guarantee is also high on the agenda of the entire European Union, as the EU’s Council of Employment and Social Affairs Ministers approved the union-wide Youth Guarantee Recommendation on 28 February 2013. The recommendation requires Member States to ensure that young people under the age of 25 receive a good quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months of leaving school or becoming unemployed. The EU Youth Guarantee is part of a larger Youth Employment Package, published by the European Commission in December 2012. Its purpose is to help reduce the high rate of youth unemployment, across Europe. The concern is understandable, as the Commission estimates that the disengagement of young people from the labour market costs the member states EUR 153 billion each year. This corresponds to 1.21% of European gross domestic product. This figure makes the total estimated costs of implementing the Youth Guarantee in Europe (EUR 21 billion per year) seem insignificant in comparison. In Finland, the Youth Guarantee is one of the government’s top projects, though it has faced a lot of criticism in the past two years due to the increase in youth unemployment. The conditions for its success have been questioned, while the achieved results have been described as meagre. Everyone knows that finding employment in the current economic situation is very challenging for many young people. Nevertheless, claiming that the entireYouth Guarantee initiative has failed is an overstatement, considering that we have also made progress. Ten years ago in Turku, for example, more than six percent of young people were excluded from education after completing comprehensive school. This year, this figure is down to approximately one percent, and of those, almost all were referred to some other service. During those same ten years, the pass rate for Turku Vocational Institute has increased by over ten percentage points, exceeding the national averages by approximately the same amount. The new operating models launched in the last couple of years have also produced good results: the multi-employer model and close cooperation with vocational institutions have given momentum to subsidised apprenticeship training for young people; the Skills Programme for Young Adults has helped more than 750 young people aged 20 to 29 without a post-basic education qualification to gain admission to vocational training; and a youth hiring campaign, launched in the spring of 2013, has helped more than 1,800 young people find employment by the end of October 2014.
4
5
The Yhdess채 tekeminen tuottaa tuloksia (Cooperation for results) report, published in spring of this year by the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy, also identified many positive aspects from the implementation of the Youth Guarantee. According to the report, the best results were gained from implementing the Training Guarantee and from youth services offered by municipalities. Workshop activities and outreach youth work received a special mention. The Youth Guarantee has also helped to strengthen the cooperation inside organisations and between educational institutions and employers. Generally, the chances of implementing the Youth Guarantee were considered to be relatively good and likely to improve in the future. Social and health care and rehabilitation services were identified as areas of development on a national level. Multidisciplinary cooperation and cooperation with employers should also be increased further.
WE HAVE A DREAM: Fulfilling the Promise of Youth Guarantee
Six reasons to implement the Youth Guarantee 1. The social exclusion and marginalisation of young people is an economic burden
4. Education increases the years spent in working life
According to the European Commission, the economic loss to Europe due to the disengagement of young people from the labour market is approximately €153 billion per year. In 2007, the National Audit Office of Finland calculated that every young person who is permanently disengaged from the labour market costs the society no less than EUR one million. At an annual level, the costs calculated at the time totalled approximately EUR 28,000. To account for inflation and other costs, these figures from seven years ago should now be increased by no less than 25 to 30 percent.
Education has a significant effect on employment rates. In Finland, those who have only completed comprehensive school have an employment rate of 65 percent at best, while completing a degree in upper secondary education raises the rate to a little over 80 percent, and a higher education degree to 90 percent. Additionally – and somewhat surprisingly – those who have only completed comprehensive school are the last to enter the labour market; men around the age of 24, and women at the age of 35. This can be explained by the fact that uneducated people often have long periods of unemployment, child care leaves and possible studying attempts at the beginning of their careers, and these factors together keep their employment rate low.
2. The social exclusion and marginalisation of young people threatens social stability According to the Ministry of the Interior, social exclusion and marginalisation are one of the main threats to domestic safety. We can easily agree with this statement, as several examples from Europe have demonstrated that areas where young people cannot see any opportunities in their future or any signs of improvement can become real powder kegs. 3. Working life requires everyone to contribute As unemployment increases, it sometimes becomes difficult to remember that changes in the population age structure of Finland and other European countries makes it increasingly important that all young people receive education and find their way into working life.
6
Not having any other education aside from basic education also significantly shortens the length of the individual’s career. According to statistics, a man who has only completed comprehensive school will work for 25.4 years, and a woman for 22.7 years; men will also spend approximately 6.2 years and women 5.6 years as unemployed. Completing an upper secondary school degree increases the number of expected work years by six years for men and by ten for women. Lower tertiary education further increases the number of work years for both men and women by four years, and upper tertiary education by an additional two years.
7
5. Implementing the Youth Guarantee will generate enormous savings Full implementation of the Youth Guarantee would generate annual savings worth a total of EUR 132 billion in the area of the EU. To make this easier to imagine, let us look at a calculation performed at Turku Vocational Institute that indicated that the sharp increase in guidance and support activities since 2003 generated EUR 1–1.5 million to the institute each year in the form of increased central government transfers and performance-based funding. Similarly, every young person who has completed at least an upper secondary school degree saves the society over EUR 200,000 on average during their career in comparison to a person who only completes comprehensive school. 6. The Youth Guarantee is part of a just society Money is not everything. The Youth Guarantee is also part of the Finnish social model, which sees helping and supporting disadvantaged people as a value in itself. Ultimately, whether the Youth Guarantee is realised or not is not a question of savings generated for educational institutions, municipalities, society or the EU, but of individuals and their unique lives and dreams.
Vision and action plan According to the vision of the Youth Guarantee NOW project, the Youth Guarantee will be implemented in the Turku region in 2017. For this, the following things are required: 1. Every young person will be provided with sufficient support and guidance during and after comprehensive school, so that they can move forward in their lives to further education or other meaningful activities. 2. Most young people (90%) in upper secondary education will complete their studies and gain the ability to enter working life or further education. 3. Every young person will be provided with the guidance and support that he/she needs to find a job or a place in further education, workshop or rehabilitation. 4. Young people will take active responsibility for their own lives. 5. Parents will support young people in their efforts to reach their full potential, and parents themselves will receive sufficient support where needed. 6. Everyone from public officials to worklife representatives will actively work together and focus on finding opportunities and creating new innovations. 7. Active and effective steps will be taken to remove any bureaucratic obstacles. The actions that support the realisation of this vision were compiled using surveys, seminars, workshops and expert interviews. The actions are divided into the following four groups: »» »» »» »»
Continued operations – If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It Activities in need of development – Business as Usual Radical innovations – To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before Catch 22 – Don’t Try This at Home
Under each heading, the reasons and a short description of the actions are provided. Some of the actions are mentioned in more than one subsection, as they may involve continuing and mainstreaming current operating models as well as developing new, more efficient ones. The subsections also outline various developmental tools and operating models that support the implementation of the Youth Guarantee as well as some related questions.
8
9
Continued operations – If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It The Youth Guarantee and the related Training Guarantee have been under active development in the Turku region and the entire southwest Finland since 2005. Through diverse development projects, various actors have engaged in extensive cooperation to create models and practices to ensure that young people receive a place in education, to prevent dropouts, social exclusion and marginalisation, and to support their transition to working life. Special attention has been paid to cooperation in the transition phase and in other processes, and to the promotion of the Youth Training Guarantees for special groups (such as young people not speaking Finnish or requiring special support). Some of the new guidance and training models have also been successfully introduced elsewhere in Finland and Europe.
Youth Guarantee projects in South-West Finland 2005–2015 2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
VaSkooli 2005–2008 Vaskooli-project for young immigrants 2008–2010
MAST 2009–2012 OPEDA 2011–2014 Huippu 2011–2014 VaSiTe 2011–2014 Siirtymät sujuviksi 2012–2014 Valmis 2011–2015 M.O.T. 2014–2015
Many of the operating models have become established as mainstream practices over the years, and they have also helped to enhance the implementation of the Training Guarantee and the Youth Guarantee. Concrete examples of this include the realisation of the Training Guarantee and the clear improvement in pass rates in vocational training. It is therefore extremely important that we ensure that the models that work continue to be used and that sufficient resources are reserved for them in the future. To put it simply: new things can only be built when the foundation is strong enough.
WE HAVE A DREAM: Fulfilling the Promise of Youth Guarantee
Action
Reasons and description
Continuing the exchange of information and cooperation in the transition phase
The cooperation in the transition phase between basic and secondary education has been under development in the Turku region for over a decade. This work has produced operating models that focus on various information and guidance services (outreach youth work, the guidance model in Kaarina, the transition phase career counsellor and Ohjaamo in Turku, career counselling and other guidance for students in basic and secondary education, etc.) as well as the various models and forms for the exchange of information that were developed to support these services.
Continued use of the Southwest Finland provincial guidance model
Sufficient and efficient use of the provincial guidance model created in the MAST project will support the implementation of the Youth Guarantee now and in the future. Measures must be taken to ensure that the following practices are implemented and receive sufficient resources: »» clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of the various actors who provide guidance in the transition phase and when a student intends to drop out of school; »» each municipality in Southwest Finland has a designated entity that is in charge of providing guidance to young people who intend to drop out; and »» cooperation between vocational institutions and youth workshops that gives young people the chance to complete some of their studies at a workshop.
10
Providing sufficient resources to ensure the continued operations and development of low-threshold guidance facilities
Ohjaamo, an easy-access guidance service point, has played a key role in implementing the Training Guarantee and theYouth Guarantee since it was opened in 2004. These operations have since then been continuously expanded, and currently outreach youth work has a particularly important role. Similar operating models have also been created and mainstreamed in the other municipalities in the region.
Ensuring sufficient guidance and support activities in upper secondary vocational education
Over the last ten years, various guidance and support services have been created in the Turku region for vocational upper secondary education. Examples of these services include the support team at Turku Vocational Institute, the groups for catch-up work at various educational institutions, and other group-based guidance and support services. The continuation of these activities should be ensured even under difficult economic conditions, since they play a key role in reducing dropout rates and increasing pass rates and will continue to do so in the future. As an example, the pass rate at the Turku Vocational Institute increased by more than ten percentage points between 2003 and 2011 due to a strong increase in guidance and support activities.
11
Continuing and developing the practices for increasing the participation of young people
Various events that give young people the chance to speak their mind have proven to be effective in identifying key challenges in developmental projects and developing the operations of various educational institutions. The creation of youth councils has also been an important step. In the future, it is vital to ensure that the participation of and the ideas from young people will lead to action or at least to clear feedback and dialogue. We should also ensure that everyone, not just the most active youth, get to speak their mind. We will come back to the latter issue in the following subsections.
Developing entrepreneurship training at all levels of education
Operating models for entrepreneurship and related training have long been developed at various levels of education, from early childhood education to institutions of higher education. These activities must also be continued and developed in the future.
Continuing and clarifying the operations of cooperation networks
Various cooperation networks have played a key role in the implementation of the Youth and Training Guarantees. Networks have been formed between entities that work with immigrants, guidance providers, and providers of preparatory education, among others. Actors in the third sector have played a key role in many of these networks. In the future, the roles, tasks, objectives, and the division of labour, in the various networks should be clarified further. An excellent first step in this direction was taken in October 2014 at the Takuulla nuorisosta (“For Youth, Guaranteed�) seminar, which introduced the service map of the Guidance Services for Youth in Turku network (see the next page).
Continued cooperation with parents
The education system has various working practices for cooperating with parents. Examples of such practices include various types of parent-teacher meetings, as well as operating models and tools for keeping the contact going. The experiences with parents’ evenings for immigrant parents have been positive. Interpreter services have been offered when necessary, and the meetings have been able to focus more on the special characteristics of the Finnish education system and the opportunities it offers.
Continuing the cooperation between Youth Guarantee actors and working life and developing it further
The use of and developmental work on the long-standing and effective operating models for working life cooperation must be continued. Examples of these models include introduction to working life periods in basic education, work placement periods for teachers, work try-outs and practical training, utilisation of workbased learning environments, training of workplace instructors, the utilisation of vocational advisory committees in the development of working life cooperation, and the use of various on-the-job learning models in vocational education to assist young people in finding jobs.
WE HAVE A DREAM: Fulfilling the Promise of Youth Guarantee
Continued use and further development of operating models that stimulate young people and promote their access to employment
Based on the surveys and interviews, workshops and work try-outs were considered effective in activating young people and preventing marginalization. Similarly, the Sanssi card (a card indicating that the cardholder is eligible for a salary subsidy) was considered a success in promoting youth employment. In some municipalities, the social perspective adopted in procurement strategies has clearly helped in providing employment for youth requiring special support.
Turku youth service map = public sector actor = third sector actor
Housing services and support
Employment services
Economic support and advice
Health services
Substance abuse and gambling Eating disorders Mental health 12
Support for life skills and everyday affairs
13
Tool for development: The Peak tool Many innovations created through developmental work have been mainstreamed and established as normal practices over the years. With regard to the Youth Guarantee, such innovations include the various models for providing guidance and cooperating in the transition phase and otherwise. The innovation transfer tool developed in the Peak project makes it easier for other actors to adopt various good practices. Download The Peak tool: http://www.koulutustakuu.fi/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Huippu_englanti_painoon_korjattu.pdf
Tool for Transferring Innovations evaluation
evaluation
Survey:
Testing:
Implementation:
»»identifying problems and the need for change
»»good practice into use »»a part/parts of good practice into use »»modification of the practise into a new environment »»piloting new practises »»development project »»implementation project
»»description of results and product development »»mainstreaming and planting »»dissemination »»intense dissemination »»new ideas for development
»»planning the process »»finding possible solutions
NEW IDEAS FOR DEVELOPMENT ENGAGEMENT + PLANTING + DISSEMINATION
Development question: What are the main developmental challenges with regard to the Youth Guarantee in your organisation?
WE HAVE A DREAM: Fulfilling the Promise of Youth Guarantee
Activities in need of development – Business as Usual We live in an ever-changing world, and implementation of the Youth Guarantee requires that new models are continuously developed and old ones fine-tuned. This subsection consists of developmental measures that are widely considered to be necessary and capable of achieving benefits. These measures are strongly based on earlier developmental work and experiences gained from regular day-to-day activities. The risks they carry are mostly negligible.
Action
Reasons and description
Developing and enhancing the communication about the Youth Guarantee
Although the Youth Guarantee has been discussed and received a great deal of media attention in recent years – both positive and negative –, our survey tells us that young people in particular are still not very familiar with it. Based on our expert inteviews, communication should be developed not by increasing volume but by improving its timing and helping it reach the intended target groups. More information needs to be provided both for young people and their parents regarding e.g. the Skills Programme for Young Adults and the opportunities provided by adult education in general.
Developing the cooperation with vocational institutions and specialised vocational institutions
The Training Guarantee and the Youth Guarantee are clearly not realised as well for young people who require special support as they are for other young people. One reason for this is that the student intake of special education vocational institutions in Southwest Finland is clearly insufficient given the demand. Improvement has been sought in the matter through lobbying at provincial level but unfortunately with poor results. In order to realise the Youth Guarantee and the Training Guarantee for young people requiring special support, cooperation with vocational institutions and specialised vocational institutions should be enhanced, and new models should be found for organising training and guidance and support services for these young people.
Developing and mainstreaming youth apprenticeship and its operational models
14
From a national point of view, apprenticeships for young people who have only completed comprehensive school are off to a good start in the Turku region. Although the number of youth in apprenticeship training is still far from great (this year, new apprenticeships were arranged for approximately 30 young people who had completed comprehensive school), improvement over previous years is staggering. The operating and funding models (such as the multiemployer model) in youth apprenticeship training should be established to ensure the continuation of operations that are off to a good start.
15 Developing the Ohjaamo 2.0 operating model for an improved easy-access, onestop guidance service point, and finding and stimulating young people who have long been outside the reach of the services
Compared to the national level, guidance services for young people have been readily available in the Turku region, and they have also produced good results. Despite the cooperation between various guidance providers, a one-stop guidance model needs to be to be developed in the future. This would make it possible for young people to receive all the services they need at one service point. This naturally requires that cooperation be further improved between youth and social & health care services, the Employment and Economic Development Office, educational institutions and the third sector. A joint service point and cooperation would also make it easier to reach and activate young people who have been outside the reach of all previous measures for a long period of time. It would also serve to increase face-to-face guidance sessions. For many of these young people, transitioning from home to education and into working life requires time and cooperation between many entities. Making this transition may not even be possible for some young people, in which case the objective should be to provide them with the services they require to lead a meaningful life.
Developing transition phase training programmes
The training programmes offered in the transition phase between basic and vocational upper secondary education (preparatory instruction and guidance for VET, preparatory training for immigrants, preparatory training and rehabilitation, and household management training) will be combined in 2015 to form a training programme called Valma. The previous transition phase training programmes have supported the Training Guarantee well. In the future, this new form of training should be developed in such a way that its efficiency is retained and increased further. Cooperation with comprehensive schools (including the exchange of information) also requires further development.
Improving the teaching of life skills and the skills needed for independent learning and career planning
Young people must be supported to help them take control of their own lives and learning processes. Experience shows that this work increases their motivation and reduces the risk of both social exclusion and marginalisation. People who carry out this type of work can utilise e.g. the results of the OPEDA project. The various models for activating young people and giving them the opportunity to speak their mind also support this development work.
Creating a joint Youth Guarantee forum for Southwest Finland
The actors involved with the Youth Guarantee in Southwest Finland have cooperated for years to implement various large-scale developmental projects (such as VaSkooli, MAST, Valmis). A regionwide cooperation forum should be established to support the overall implementation of the Youth Guarantee. The purpose of this forum would be e.g. to monitor the implementation of this action and implementation plan, to determine joint development targets, to identify key challenges, and to plan the necessary actions. The forum can utilise the experiences and results gained from the seminars and workshops held in the Youth Guarantee NOW project.
WE HAVE A DREAM: Fulfilling the Promise of Youth Guarantee Developing new guidance and pedagogical practices and learning environments
The development of new guidance and pedagogical practices and learning environments is an ongoing task. Examples of current themes include game pedagogy, social media as a tool for teaching and guidance, and increasingly work-based learning environments.
Continuing the Skills Programme for Young Adults and mainstreaming its operating models
The Skills Programme for Young Adults is a fixed-term government programme that will be implemented in 2013–2016. In the Turku region, it has already helped more than 750 young people without a secondary education degree gain admission into an educational institution. Based on the surveys and interviews conducted in the Youth Guarantee NOW project, the programme has clearly reduced the social exclusion and marginalisation of the most disadvantaged young people and increased the cooperation between educational institutions. Due to these positive results, we should seek to continue the programme by obtaining funding, and/or integrating the programme’s operating models into other adult education after 2016.
Mainstreaming the social perspective of procurement strategies
The social perspective adopted into the procurement strategies of various municipalities has promoted the employment of young people who require special support. Nevertheless, the use of this operating model should continue to be promoted and expanded further. The operating models used by the City of Espoo, for example, may be used as a basis for developing the model further.
Better and more extensive utilisation of models developed elsewhere
“There is no point in reinventing the wheel” may be one of the most repeated phrases in developmental work. However, this is exactly what is often done. Due to this, the developmental activities in any organization should be increasingly capable of finding out whether workable, transferable solutions to their challenges have already been designed elsewhere. When adopting an innovation, the Peak process introduced in the previous subsection can be utilised.
Early intervention and early start to the transition phase
Post-basic education alternatives and possible vocational careers are usually not discussed in more detail until the last year of comprehensive school (9th grade). However, many young people would be greatly helped in their career and educational planning if the guidance activities and e.g. visits to prospective schools were started earlier (on 7th or 8th grade). Similarly, young people who are likely to be excluded from education after completing comprehensive school should be identified earlier and provided with sufficient support services.
Increasing guidance and support activities, career counselling and working life cooperation in upper secondary schools
16
The guidance and support activities offered at upper secondary schools are currently insufficient, though the new Pupil and Student Welfare Act has helped the situation somewhat. The challenges in career counselling are evidenced by the fact that of those who graduated from upper secondary school in the early 2000s, approximately 20 percent did not enter into further education within the next eight years. An even larger percentage of the graduates still had not completed any post-secondary degree. One possible remedy to the situation is greatly increased working life cooperation in the upper secondary stage (potential measures include working life courses, training for various types of certificates, and work placement periods for teachers).
17
Tool for development: Agile and traditional project models: The concept of agile projects was originally developed for software development. Its principles can, however, also be put to use in other developmental activities. Agile and traditional project models can be distinguished as follows:
Agile projects:
Traditional projects:
»»individuals and interaction
»»processes and tools
»»functional applications
»»precise documentation
»»cooperation
»»contract negotiations
»»reacting to change
»»following plans
Development question: Which of these two models is better suited for developing the Youth Guarantee and why?
Tool for development: Must-win Battle The concept of a “must-win battle” entails that the leadership chooses a few objectives and focus areas that are important for putting the strategy into practice, and all developmental measures and required resources focus on achieving these objectives. The leadership and other persons in charge actively monitor and evaluate the progress of these objectives.
Development question: What are the “must-win battles” with regard to the Youth Guarantee in your own organisation/operating environment?
WE HAVE A DREAM: Fulfilling the Promise of Youth Guarantee
Radical innovations – To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before In this subsection, we move to uncharted territory. As the name suggests, radical innovations are new and unconventional proposals for solving challenges related to the Youth Guarantee. Their effectiveness is not guaranteed in advance. Similarly, actors may have different views of the significance of these or other similar proposals and the benefits that they may help achieve. The risks posed by radical innovations and the resistance to change that results from testing them are also likely to be significantly greater than for the actions proposed in the previous subsections. Radical innovations also easily evoke strong political, professional or even personal passions in those participating in the discussion. In light of these factors, we must ask ourselves whether it is worth it to go poke the beehive? Be as it may, there are strong indications that some Youth Guarantee and social exclusion challenges cannot be solved by conventional measures. This leaves us no choice but to be brave enough to try out new and innovative solutions, even if they are risky.
Action
Reasons and description
Establishing an open vocational college in Southwest Finland and developing its operations
An open vocational college would allow cooperation between educational institutions to be carried out to an unprecedented degree. This would also apply to the forming of study modules and the completion of studies outside the educational institution and even prior to registering at the institution. The open vocational college model has not yet been established at a national level; instead, the model has been implemented in varying ways across Finland. This is another opportunity that would make it possible to try out new and unconventional solutions.
Revising the youth apprenticeship model on the basis of similar models from Germany and the Netherlands by e.g. establishing separate apprenticeship salary levels outside those dictated by collective bargaining agreements. The term “apprenticeship” may have to make way for a new one (e.g. “training agreement”).
18
According to critics, finding apprenticeship placements for young people who have only completed comprehensive school is not possible to the extent desired at the ministry level. This is because even with government-provided subsidies, apprenticeship training is too expensive for many companies. The problems in the current model are highlighted during the second year of the three-year study programme, when the company receives less financial support than in the previous year. There has also been discussion about the large government subsidies provided to the companies, as this makes apprenticeships relatively expensive for the taxpayers.
19 In Germany, for example, apprentices are paid a minimum of EUR 400–500, depending on the industry, and this amount increases as the student’s studies progress and his/her skills increase. Trying out and adopting new types of reward systems in the public sector in such a way that the sectors/actors/employees who produce significant savings by reducing the social exclusion of young people also receive a financial reward for their actions
Everyone knows that the social exclusion of young people is expensive at all levels. Regardless, the work carried out to prevent the social exclusion of young people rarely fully benefits the organisation carrying out this work, much less the actual employees. Let us take an example: The youth services in city X invest heavily on guidance and workshop activities in the post-comprehensive education transition phase and beyond. As a result, the social exclusion and marginalisation of young people is reduced, more young people enter upper secondary education, and fewer of them drop out of school. All of this produces significant benefits to the city’s social and health care services and upper secondary education (which is not necessarily maintained by the city), but not to the sector that funded the activities or its employees. This example raises several questions: Would it be possible to significantly increase productivity and create new and more efficient operating models if we adopted a new way of thinking and distributed some of the money saved to the sector and even the employees who made the savings possible? Should these types of models be tried out with an open mind? Would they not be more encouraging and fair than the current models in many respects?
Significantly increasing the role and responsibilities of young people by letting them take charge of important projects
A requirement that often came up in the seminars, surveys and interviews conducted by the Youth Guarantee NOW project was that young people should personally take more responsibility for their own lives. This naturally also requires that young people are given the chance to do so. One possible experiment would be a developmental project fully carried out by young people. After the objectives were approved and the funding granted, they would have free reign regarding the measures for the entire duration of the project (monitoring and evaluation only in conjunction with the publishing of the results).
Creating new guidance and pedagogical practices and learning environments
Much has been done, but there is still much left to do. What portion of teaching and learning activities can take place outside the classroom and the school’s facilities? Can the entire degree be completed through play or by utilising social media? What will be the next great leap in pedagogic development? The questions abound and only one thing is clear: increasingly innovative solutions are required in the future and the funding for developmental work should make it possible to not only carry out safe, basic developmental activities but also try out entirely new and even extremely risky types of innovations (see the DARPA tool later in this subsection).
WE HAVE A DREAM: Fulfilling the Promise of Youth Guarantee
20
Making it mandatory to complete comprehensive school
Particularly among the youth in special education, there are individuals who turn 17 during their final year of comprehensive school. They can then drop out of school if they wish. Instead of raising the compulsory age for participating in education, the people who responded to the surveys and interviews considered the best solution to this problem to be a general obligation to complete comprehensive school.
Opportunity for persons with partial work capacity to receive wage subsidies for their entire life
At the moment, young people with partial work capacity can receive wage subsidies for a maximum of 24 months. However, an opportunity to receive wage subsidies for a longer period – possibly even for life – could be a more sustainable solution both financially and humane. Far too many of the people who are employed with wage subsidies for 24 months are forced to retire afterwards, despite having both the capacity and the desire to work.
21
Tool for development: DARPA DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is a research organisation that is a part of the United States Department of Defense. DARPA has provided funding for the development of such innovations as the Internet, GPS tracking, and stealth technology. The key element of their developmental model is setting the objectives so high that up to 85% of projects fail. Despite this, even unsuccessful projects provide a great deal of new information and results that can be utilised elsewhere. The model emphasises the idea that easily achieved, safe goals only tend to yield mediocre results.
Development question: How daring are the ideas and innovations that you or your organisation would be willing to try out?
Tool for development: Black Swans A Black Swan is an event that has the following characteristics: 1. The event is surprising 2. The event has an enormous effect 3. Afterwards, people will come up with rationalizations and reasons why the event could have been predicted if only enough data were available. The concept was first introduced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book The Black Swan: The impact of the highly improbable. According to Taleb, trying to predict Black Swans is either difficult or impossible. It is, however, possible to prepare for them. This requires that projects are built to be robust enough to endure negative Black Swans but also agile enough to make the most of positive ones.
Development questions: Which surprising events have had a negative/ positive effect on the development work in your own operating environment within the last five years? Would it have been possible to prepare for them in advance? What can you learn from them for the future?
WE HAVE A DREAM: Fulfilling the Promise of Youth Guarantee
Catch 22 – Don’t Try This at Home Catch-22 is a satirical novel by the American author Joseph Heller, published in 1961. The novel depicts American bomber pilots during World War II. Catch-22 is a rule observed in the squadron that grounds a pilot, thus saving him from highly dangerous bombing missions, if he is provably insane. The problem lies in the fact that applying for a release from life-threatening missions is something a sane person would do. Applying thus proves that the pilot is sane and will have to fly more missions. Similarly, a pilot who does not apply for a discharge proves that he is crazy, but he will have to keep flying because he did not apply. The novel introduced the term catch-22 to the English language. It is used for describing a problematic situation in which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule. The workshops, surveys and expert interviews conducted in the Youth Guarantee NOW project continuously attempted to identify and bring up discrepancies, problems and negative mental blocks related to various laws, decrees, practices, ways of thinking etc. that could hinder the implementation of the Youth Guarantee. Luckily, we are far from the practices of the unlucky American squadron, but the notion still came up several times that better results could be reached by using more flexible operating models that were more in tune with the needs of the target group.
Action
Reasons and description
Improving the flexibility and motivational properties of support systems
Several comments received in the surveys and interviews mentioned that in some situations the current system downright punishes people for certain types of productive activities. Many gave the example that it would make more financial sense to enter non-degree oriented labour market training than the degree-oriented Skills Programme for Young Adults, even if the latter provides a much greater boost to employment prospects than the former. It was also considered to be a problem that regular unemployment subsidies are not granted to young people who study in workshops if they have not applied to upper secondary education, even if secondary education is still not a feasible alternative for them due to their personal situation. Criticism was also directed at the fact that only customers of the Employment and Economic Development Office may participate in labour market training. This practice particularly excludes 16-yearolds and long-term asylum seekers from these services.
Increasing the flexibility of wage subsidies and work try-outs
22
As of 1 June 2014, before Finnish employers can apply for a wagesubsidy for a young person or give him/her a work try-out, they are first obliged to offer (full) employment to people whose employment contract has been terminated, who have been laid off, or who work on a part-time basis. The requirement pertaining to part-time employees in particular has made it increasingly difficult
23
to arrange work try-outs in municipalities and the third sector. The provision regarding work try-outs that prohibits the participants from gaining work experience in their own field is also considered counterproductive. Promoting actual long-term saving
Although the economic situation is difficult in the public sector in particular, the long-term effects of budget cuts should still be taken better into account. Some of the young people who were excluded from education and the labour market on a long-term basis during the early 1990s recession were marginalized permanently and did not benefit from the years of strong economic growth. We should now strive to prevent this kind of long-term development, as it is tragic to an individual and will cause expenses to the society for decades. For now, the rate of long-term unemployment among young people has remained relatively low in Finland, which indicates that the actions taken under the Youth Guarantee do have an effect. We must ensure that this situation continues by taking sufficient action to guide and activate young people and find employment for them.
Changing the data security regulations to make it easier to exchange information regarding young people at risk
When the Youth Act was amended, some changes were made to the stipulations that concern the exchange of information. These make it easier to provide guidance to young people. Despite these changes, however, many experts think that the data security regulations still contribute to the social exclusion of young people, particularly in transition phases (from comprehensive school to the secondary level, or from the secondary level to working life) or when dropping out of school.
Replacing sector-based thinking with cross-sector development and cooperation
Although Finland has continued to successfully increase cooperation across sectors, more work is still required to completely dismantle these boundaries and improve the cooperation and joint efforts that are based on the perspective of actual customers.
Removing the “can’t be done� attitude and increasing courage
One idea that often came up in the surveys, workshops and interviews was that a way of thinking that only concentrates on problems and challenges hinders the implementation of the Youth Guarantee and developmental activities in general. Thoughts and actions should focus on finding and trying out opportunities and working towards the desired goal: we should not concentrate on reasons why something cannot be done, but instead look for solutions and ways to accomplish the goals that have been set. Of course, this change in thinking requires us to take a leap into the unknown, into a world where we may and are allowed make mistakes and learn from them.
Tool for development: Nudge The concept of nudge was created by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in the early 2000s. A nudge refers to an operating model that subtly persuades people to act in the desired manner. A nudge does not limit anyone’s freedom, but simplifies the decisions that are good for the individual and the community. A classic example of a nudge comes from the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, where the idea to paint a fly in men’s urinals reduced cleaning costs by 80 percent.
Development question: What types of nudges could support the realisation of the Youth Guarantee? Who should be the target(s)?
24
WE HAVE A DREAM
Fulfilling the Promise of Youth Guarantee The Youth Guarantee guarantees that every young person under 25 and every recent graduate under 30 gets a job, a work try-out or a place in education, workshop, or rehabilitation within three months of becoming unemployed. The initiative was adopted in Finland at the start of 2013, a couple of months before it became an EU-wide recommendation. In 2014, the Youth Guarantee NOW -project mapped various Youth Guarantee-related issues in the Turku region in Southwestern Finland by conducting extensive surveys and interviews and bringing experts together in seminars and workshops. This publication contains the Youth Guarantee vision as well as the action and implementation plan that was born out of these activities. The vision and the action and implementation plan were initially intended as regional. However, the ideas and suggestions in both should prove useful in developing and adopting Youth Guarantee anywhere in the European Union and elsewhere.