By 2030, Denmark will need approximately 99.000 skilled workers. This is not news. In fact, in 2010 several stakeholders pointed out the problem and it has been part of the political agenda ever since. The lack of vocationally trained students is not the only problem Denmark is facing. Several reports claim that more and more students are failing to complete their vocational education with fewer students getting an apprenticeship at the same time. Therefore, the Danish government made It a priority to make sure that more vocational students get an apprenticeship earlier. In 2020 the Danish ministry of education formed a new labor settlement called: Trepartsaftalen 2020, in which they gave the vocational schools full responsibility for securing all future apprenticeships for the students. Until now this has been the student’s responsibility. Along with the responsibility, the ministry changed the reward system for all vocational schools. Before the settlement, every school got rewarded for the number of students that finished their education but now the schools only get rewarded for the number of students who has an apprenticeship before the 12th week of the second main semester. In Trepartsaftalen 2020, the ministry labeled 121 million Dkr. for this task, but instead of giving these resources to the schools, they have been giving them to the social partners. Normally the social partners' main task is to develop and qualify teaching materials, but now they have been assigned the task of deciding which schools should receive resources for the apprenticeship-enhancing task.
Stakeholders in the vocational schools have questioned the division of responsibility, the change of the reward system, and the distribution of the resources. This research project examines what the employees of a vocational school think about these questions. It does so by interviewing 6 employees from TECHCOLLEGE which is one of the largest vocational schools in Denmark. Among the interviewed is the director of TEHCOLLEGE, five leaders of education, and a chief consultant. The purpose has been to describe how they feel about the changes of the Trepartsaftalen 2020 and especially if their relationship with the social partners has been affected by it. The research project's hypotheses aim to examine the effect of increased use of NWS and NPM management (through the settlement), on the employee’s opportunities for action.
It was found that the increased performance and responsibility management (NWS) affected the organization's culture, and if the employees found it controlling. Likewise, the change in the reward system, which can be seen as NPM management, raised concern among the education leaders. Therefore, it can be concluded to some extent that the labor settlement deprives the employees of the opportunity to act.
According to the relationship between the social partners and the vocational schools, the conclusion is not so clear. The research has found that the social partners' number of resources has a big say in the relationship with the schools – before and after Trepartsaftalen 2020. The relationship between the school and the social partners with enough resources has not been affected by the settlement. However, the research finds that the relationship between the school and the social partners that lack resources has indeed been damaged by the settlement.