Social partnership is a complex social learning context that is one of the key components of the lifelong learning system, together with other forms of inter-institutional and education partnerships, such as school-family, school-community and school-company relations. Research16
shows that the main internal and external influences on the development and optimisation of social partnership as an inter-institutional network are those that affect cohesion, effectiveness and organisational features. In the absence of known systematic studies of the relationship between social partnership and social capital,
15 Though ‘planned economy’ and ‘command economy’ are often used synonymously, some make the distinction that under a command economy the means of production
are publicly owned. As such, a planned economy is an economic system in which the government controls and regulates production, distribution, prices, etc., whereas a command economy, while also having this type of regulation, necessarily has substantial public ownership of industry. Therefore, command economies are planned economies, while the reverse is not necessarily true. In both cases, the role of government and its stakeholders remain equally relevant.
and between governance and values of participatory democracy in the current ETF partner countries, the ETF decided to capitalise on its intimate knowledge of and experience with similar contexts in transition countries where it has worked earlier. This experience was used as a reference for the development of social partnership and social dialogue.
Torinet was proposed as a form of inter-institutional organisation, which retains:
+ its own collective identity; + its own organisational culture;
+ a set of prescriptive rules, which are generated in social interaction.
The effectiveness of social partnership is measured by the performance achieved by members of the partnership-based group (in our case Torinet) when performing common specific work tasks (in our case generating evidence or carrying out policy analysis and/or policy formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation).
Partnership effectiveness increases as work tasks are solved that are common to all members of the partnership group. Work tasks can be a common action or a common project formulated in close correspondence with the common interest shared by all members of the partnership-based group. Later we will discuss the common projects agreed with some partner countries that started their Torinet journey in 2011.
For a partnership-based group, achieving the targets set by the work task is a social learning process. With the purpose of supporting a directed learning process, tailored interventions for the Torinets therefore aim at improving learning effectiveness. As a consequence, social partnership effectiveness will be optimised through different interventions. The gradual improvement of social partnership effectiveness, the careful analysis of its causality and the conditions supporting or hampering increased effectiveness will be considered.
It is important at this stage to underline, in connection with the development of the inter-institutional network of social actors, the cyclic nature of social interaction and learning processes and their iterative character. This vision is centred on the reflective practitioner concept, which
Schön (1983) describes as the capacity to reflect on action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning. This is a crucial aspect of the model of shaping and increasing the effectiveness of Torinets.
The Torinet initiative is rooted in constructivist approaches to learning and an understanding of the learner as someone who is able to actively construct his or her own knowledge and competence. Learning is seen as a holistic, complex process which is closely connected to experienced meaning and motivation. Meaningful learning is characterised by personal involvement. It must be self-initiated (but supported) and evaluated by the learner. The learner knows best whether or not it meets the needs and whether it leads to what the learner wants to know or wants to be able to do. The most important element in learning is its point of departure: previous experience. Experiential learning is a type of learning that demands a combination of action and reflection. It is cyclic and iterative in nature. Its point of departure is that knowledge exists in action, not in theory. This is reflection in action. We learn by doing, discovering and reflecting, and by integrating what we have brought about. Experiential learning refers to learning as a person’s knowledge development rather than knowledge
acquirement. The learner is an active subject and learning is a process.
Based on this theory and earlier experience and practice, at the ETF we have now learned and recommend that: 1. It is important to carry out training and capacity
building for multiple social actors. Moreover, among all activities, training seems to be the most effective intervention for activating social partnership, in particular when the composition of the group is decided on administrative criteria by the management of the concerned institutions rather than more strategic criteria.
2. It is important to ensure capacity building at all decision making levels provided that there is a common vision. On the one hand, decentralisation is a priority in making governance more efficient. On the other, it is important to also consider the contribution of social partnership to building up and assuming a
coherentsystemic vision, when adopting,
implementing and assessing education and training policies in a multi-level governance environment.
3. THE TORINET CASE 37
TABLE 3.1OVERVIEW OF THE THREE MODES OF EU GOVERNANCE
Mode of governance Means of regulation Objective
The Community Method Hard law/sanctions Realising the economic community
The Programme Method Funding through action programme/practice learning/ bureaucratic procedures
Creating a European identity and European communities of practice
The Open Method Soft law/policy learning/’naming and
shaming’
Achieving the Lisbon goals: economic competitiveness and social cohesion
Our experience shows that besides national and sectoral partnership, we must now focus on local partnership by empowering social actors for change from the bottom up, to help inform and better balance existing efforts. Multi-level governance requires effective participatory institutions at all decision making levels. These principles are at the heart of Torinet.