Curricular alignment strategies between skills training and informal labor markets in Latin America

Abstract

This article explored, through a systematic review based on the PRISMA protocol, the state of knowledge regarding curricular alignment strategies between competency-based university education and informal labor markets in Latin America. The analysis integrated 39 academic articles from indexed databases such as Scopus, SciELO, Redalyc, and Dialnet, as well as six normative documents from the Executive Committee of the Bolivian University (CEUB, 2025-2026). The results revealed that most current curricular alignment models operate under the implicit assumption that the productive sector to which graduates are directed is, fundamentally, formal and classifiable using standard occupational taxonomies. This premise is particularly problematic in Bolivia, where the informal economy represents more than 80% of total employment, and throughout the Latin American region, where the informal sector continues to be the main employer of undergraduate university graduates. Three major families of emerging strategies were identified: bottom-up skills mapping with the participation of informal actors, problem-based learning in the real socioeconomic context, and participatory forecasting of expanded occupational families. The findings suggested that the SUB (Bolivian University System) has a sufficiently robust regulatory framework—especially through the Methodological Bases for Context Studies (CEUB, 2026) and the Modular System Regulations (CEUB, 2026)—to incorporate these strategies, but highlighted the need to obtain prospective data on the Bolivian labor market that goes beyond formal occupational classifications.