Summary
More market, more State Intervention or both for Continuing Education? — A legal-economic analysis
To answer the question on whether the state should introduce learner-orientated initiatives of encouragement and support for continuing education besides or in place of institutional encouragement and support, it is important to analyse the deficiencies of current practice. It might be argued that market failure justifies more state intervention, even in the form of encouragement and support for institutions offering continuing education programmes, ie. state intervention for “more market”. On the one hand, initiatives appear justified, which reduce underfunding through a new funding pool into which each enterprise pays and from which it can fund its continuing education programmes. These funds could be increased through tariff-agreements. On the other hand, learning accounts for continuing education could be established for every citizen of a country, with which he or she could receive state-sponsored credit for participation in courses and postpone payment until successful completion of the course. This mechanism generates a market based on the learner’s decision to utilise this credit and in turn, it encourages improvement in the efficiency of the institutions offering continued education. Credit systems are preferable to voucher-based systems, because, amongst other things, they are not transferable and do not expect the participants to provide supplementary funding. Core funds for institutions offering continuing education should, however, not be reduced but increased to enable planning security for the institution and reliability of provision.