We often assume that policies are built on data and evidence, yet beliefs and narratives, whether “right” or “wrong”, can have a powerful impact on policy decisions. Cecilia Ivardi shows how the belief that German skills policy is superior to that in France has had a striking impact on policy development in both countries.
As much as we would like to think that policy relies on data and evaluations, in practice, policy decisions (like any decision) are also shaped by deeply embedded ideas. Some of these ideas become so widely shared that they are no longer perceived as conscious choices: they appear as common sense.
Such ideas can create a kind of tunnel vision. For example, when a particular institutional model is widely regarded as successful, alternatives are rarely considered and reform efforts aim to emulate or approximate that model.
In the field of vocational education and training (VET), one such powerful idea concerns the relationship between skill formation institutions and economic growth. Some systems are widely believed to deliver the “right” skills efficiently and, by facilitating smooth school-to-work transitions, to generate reliable growth. Others are perceived as fragmented, inefficient or poorly aligned with labour market needs, delivering suboptimal growth levels.
The German dual vocational training system has long been celebrated internationally. It is praised for integrating employers into training provision, combining workplace learning with classroom instruction and producing industry-relevant skills for the export sector but also including youth successfully in the labour market. By contrast, the system in the United States is often criticised for fragmentation and a cultural bias toward academic college degrees with exclusionary social consequences.
When conventional wisdom misleads
France offers a striking example. For decades, French policymakers have viewed the German dual system as a model to emulate because French skill formation is portrayed as suffering from weaker links between education and employment, slower transitions and credentials that send unclear labour market signals.
This contributes to the perception that the French skill formation system delivers less economic growth than it potentially could. Combined with persistent concerns about rising (youth) unemployment, this reinforces a narrative of a policy mix that is both inefficient and exclusionary.
However, recent research challenges this conventional wisdom. Using new methodological approaches to analyse the link between educational pathways and occupational placement, scholars have found that the differences between the French and German systems are much smaller than often assumed.
While Germany today shows, on average, a stronger education–occupation linkage, this was not always the case. Around 1970, precisely when the idea of the German system as a “model” began to crystallise, the French system was actually more successful at linking education to the labour market, albeit it did so for a smaller share of the workforce.
In key sectors central to the so-called “German skills machine”, such as manufacturing and engineering, the strength of the linkage between training and occupational placement was similar in both countries. In other areas, including transportation and personal services, France even exhibited stronger linkages.
In other words, the widely shared belief that Germany’s system is inherently superior did not simply emerge from objective differences but was constructed and diffused over time. Once entrenched, it became a powerful reference point for reform debates.
Why these beliefs matter
This is not an abstract debate about policy diffusion. Taken-for-granted ideas about how well systems perform translate into institutional reforms with far-reaching consequences, as I show in a recent study.
In Germany, the prevailing belief that the dual system works well has encouraged the state to act as an active coordinator to maintain the current system, despite a history of very limited state intervention. Since 2014, through the Alliance for Initial and Further Education, the federal government has organised the commitment of employers to increase the supply of training places. The state has stepped in to secure public commitments from firms and social partners to ensure an adequate offer of apprenticeships.
Paradoxically, confidence in the system’s strengths has facilitated greater state involvement in a system that is otherwise managed through coordination between social partners. Because the system is viewed as fundamentally sound and essential for pursuing economic growth, the priority is to preserve and stabilise it at all costs. This approach has supported inclusive arrangements, helping to maintain pathways into training for young people, including those from less advantaged backgrounds.
In France, by contrast, the widespread belief that the system underperforms relative to Germany has justified a very different reform trajectory aimed at dismantling the system. The 2018 Professional Future Law marked a culmination of this process. It reduced the role of regional actors in overseeing the allocation of VET financing and allowed French firms greater autonomy to open apprenticeship centres and access public funding, channelled through the apprenticeship tax, without coordination.
Additional subsidies, notably through the One Youth, One Solution programme, further incentivised firm-based training provision for the immediate needs of employers. While these measures boosted the number of apprenticeships, they also altered the composition of participants, as shown in an evaluation by the Court of Auditors.
To train quickly for specific skill needs, firms increasingly recruited higher-education students. Young people with low or no qualifications, the group for whom vocational training is often a crucial entry point into the labour market, thus benefited less than expected from the reforms.
Thus, in France, scepticism about the system’s effectiveness led to reforms that shifted control to firms and prioritised their uncoordinated needs over inclusiveness. In Germany, confidence in the system underpinned a strategy of negotiated expansion and public commitment that enhanced the system’s inclusiveness.
Rethinking skills and growth
The broader lesson is that skills policy (or any policy for that matter) is not shaped by evidence alone. It is structured by ideas about what works, what does not and which institutional arrangements are compatible with growth. These ideas influence how policymakers interpret problems, which actors they empower and which reforms they pursue.
If the underlying beliefs are only loosely connected to objective differences in performance, then reform trajectories may reflect perception as much as reality. In turn, these reforms shape opportunities for workers, and in the case of VET, especially of those from disadvantaged backgrounds whose life chances often depend on access to training.
Understanding how these ideas emerge, solidify and travel across borders is crucial if we want to design reforms that are not only growth-enhancing but also inclusive. It is worth scrutinising not just the adopted policies but the assumptions that underpin them. Sometimes, what everyone “knows” about successful models deserves a second look.
For more information, see the author’s recent study in the Journal of European Public Policy.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of LSE European Politics or the London School of Economics.
Image credit: Torben Knauer provided by Shutterstock.
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