A Study On The Reform Practice Of Dual Apprenticeship In Benin

Benin technical and vocational education underwent a profound reform in the 1990s. In order to meet the need of national macro-economic development, to improve people's technical skills, as well as to get rid of employment crisis of the youth, Benin government,with the help of international aid agencies, implemented the dual apprenticeship plan to reform national technical and vocational education system. Remarkable achievements have been made after over ten years of development. But at the same time, many problems envolved. So the reform practice needed to be traced and reflected. This paper applies such approaches as historical analysis and sociological function analysis to probe into the reform measures, achievements and problems on the basis of literature analysis, so as to explore useful experience for reference.This paper consists of five parts. In the first part, with the analysis of research background, it puts forward the topic of study, sets up the appropriate research approaches, introduces the theoretical basis of this study, and makes a brief analysis of relevant literature both at home and abroad.The second part provides the analysis of the reform background, including national macroeconomic condition, the youth employment situation, the status quo of technical and vocational education and traditional apprenticeship development, and expounds the dual apprenticeship reform goals.The third part discusses the reform from four aspects, namely, the national government, the trade organizations, international aid agencies, technical and vocational institutes and corporations from the perspective of stakeholder theory. It displays the role and influence of different organizations during the reform progress. The government promotes the reform by transforming administrative institute, setting up Benin Continuing Vocational Training and Apprenticeship Development Fund, constructing national dual qualification system; the trade organizations push the reform by the way of constructing FENAB, representative for artisans to involved in making decisions on national reform, curriculum development, dual apprenticeship program; international aid agencies offer suggestions on reform, finance dual apprenticeship system program and provide venture capital to promote the reform; corporations and technical and education institutes cooperate together to execute the reform.The fourth part analyzes the achievements of the reform from the perspective of sociological function on the basis of field survey report. The achievements of the reform include the promotion of youth employment, the improvement of technical and vocational education, and the enhancement of social justice. Then the paper discusses the obstacles of the reform which include material guarantee, supply of teacher resources and harmonization of the reform stakeholders.In the fifth part, the paper summarizes the experience of the reform to enlighten technical and vocational education reform in China.