اثرات بازار کار اصلاح آموزش و پرورش پلی تکنیک: تجربه فنلاندی

This paper evaluates the labour market effects of the introduction of the polytechnic education system in Finland. The polytechnic reform gradually transformed former vocational colleges into polytechnics. Since the timing of the reform differed across schools, we can compare the performance of polytechnic graduates to the performance of vocational college graduates controlling for both the year and the school effects. The results are somewhat sensitive to how the selectivity issues are treated but generally suggest that both the earnings and the employment levels of post-reform graduates are higher in the field of business and administration. The effects are much smaller and usually insignificant in other fields.

This paper evaluates the labour market effects of the introduction of the polytechnic education system in Finland that took place in the 1990s. The polytechnics constitute a new non-university sector in Finnish higher education and they were established side-by-side with the existing universities. Important non-university higher education sectors exist in most OECD countries. Typically these programmes offer a wide spectrum of vocational education that qualify for specific occupation or prepare for a profession. A distinguishing feature compared to the universities is that the studies are more practically oriented thus fulfilling specific needs of local economies (Kyvik, 2004). In some countries these institutions have a long history. Fachhochschulen in Germany were created in the 1960s. Also UK had a large polytechnic sector between 1965 and 1992 ( Pratt, 1997). In the US a quarter of post-secondary college students enrolled community colleges already in 1970 ( Gill & Leigh, 2000). In other countries non-university higher education sector has expanded more recently. The Dutch Hogescholen were created out of secondary schools in 1986 ( OECD, 2005) and University Colleges in Norway by merging a large number of vocationally oriented colleges in 1994 ( Kyvik, 2002).

This paper examines the effects of the polytechnic education reform on the labour market outcomes by taking advantage of the quasi-experimental setting that emerges because of the gradual implementation of the reform. According to the results the polytechnic reform that upgraded vocational colleges to polytechnics had some positive effects on the employment and earnings of the polytechnic graduates. However, these effects are only present in the field of business and administration. Even in business and administration the results are somewhat sensitive to how the selectivity of students into different schools is accounted for. The reform had no effect on the labour market outcomes in either technology and transport or social and health care. This pattern is consistent with the fact that the polytechnic reform extended the length of education and changed its content mostly in the field of business and administration.