Search Results for
"education"

This article maps the contentious question of ‘national curriculum’ in Australia. It explains both why there is no national (i.e. Australian) curriculum, and analyses the history of curriculum formation with a view to documenting the changing significance and status of ‘national’ (i.e. nation-building) curriculum. The analysis is informed by an historical sociology perspective which begins by considering curriculum in relation to the national question in Australia and then moves on to examine the role of curriculum in the contemporary re-design of education as a social institution and a regulatory device within the Australian national jurisdiction. © 2001 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

National training packages have become the mandated framework for course delivery in Australia's vocational education and training sector. Each training package contains: qualifications that can be issued, industry-derived competencies, and assessment guidelines but do not contain an endorsed curriculum component or learning outcomes. All public and private vocational education and training providers must use training packages, or industry-endorsed competencies in cases where they do not exist, if they are to receive public funding for their programs. This article describes the operation of Australia's national training packages and considers some of their strengths and weaknesses, many of which may be shared by similar systems elsewhere. Argues that training packages may result in poorer student learning outcomes, and that they may threaten the end of effective credit transfer between the vocational education and training and higher education sectors. Suggests that national training packages are not a good model for other countries and that Australia's current vocational education and training policy needs to be reviewed. © 2001, MCB UP Limited

This article explores a frequent and important practice in the ancien Régime society, namely, apprenticeship. The apprenticeship contracts of legitimate orphans (boys and girls) who were received in institutions that specialized in caring for them - such as the Trinité or the Saint-Esprit - provide the data for this study. By focusing on these two, it is possible to compare two groups of orphans, as well as differences in the intentions and accomplishments of the institutions in terms of offering instruction and preparation for the working world. This examination focuses on the transition from the institution to society. How did the orphans interpret this transition? And how did administrators perceive their roles? The example of the Trinité and the Saint-Esprit serves to rectify the common image of the hospitals as poor and highly imperfect in terms of education and apprenticeship. It shows that these were genuine training institutions for older children. © 2001 Elsevier Science Inc.

It is considered that work related learning involves learning through work; learning about work; and learning for work. This paper examines the importance of work related learning for business students in the 16-19 curriculum and how this can be integrated into an Advanced Vocational Certificate of education (AVCE) business programme via the Young Enterprise (YE) scheme. It presents findings from a small research study, which indicates that YE can enhance learning about business within a realistic scenario. YE can be integrated into an AVCE programme in business and can effectively achieve a number of the aims of such programmes. It concludes that virtual reality work within the curriculum is possible. In this respect, such a model provides a challenge for the way vocational business courses are delivered. © 2001, MCB UP Limited

Analyses of work based learning (such as that offered by Brennan and Little) have typically ignored the issue of ownership of knowledge. Here the authors consider this issue as it relates to accreditation in the UK higher education sector, arguing that the points raised have relevance for the international community. The main argument is that employing organisations are the main beneficiaries of accreditation, and as such universities need to make a much clearer case for work based learning to safeguard learners – and society – from exploitation and the universities from becoming vessels for narrowly defined performance statements, unworthy of higher education. © 2001, MCB UP Limited

Allied dental healthcare providers have been an integral part of the dental team since the turn of the 19th century. Like dental education, allied dental education's history includes a transition from apprenticeships and proprietary school settings to dental schools and community and technical colleges. There are currently 258 dental assisting programs, 255 dental hygiene programs, and 28 dental laboratory technology programs according to the American Dental Association's Commission on Dental Accreditation. First-year enrollment increased 9.5 percent in dental hygiene education from 1994/95 to 1998/99, while enrollment in dental assisting programs declined 7 percent and declined 31 percent in dental laboratory technology programs during the same period. Program capacity exceeds enrollment in all three areas of allied dental education. Challenges facing allied dental education include addressing the dental practicing community's perception of a shortage of dental assistants and dental hygienists and increasing pressure for career tracks that do not require education in ADA Commission on Dental Accreditation accredited programs. The allied dental workforce may also be called upon for innovative approaches to improve access to oral health care and reduce oral health care disparities. In addition, allied dental education programs may face challenges in recruiting faculty with the desired academic credentials. ADEA is currently pursuing initiatives in these and other areas to address the current and emerging needs of allied dental education.

In these post-Cartesian times, adult educators are retrieving the body as a significant site of learning. In this article we explore this in two linked ways: conceptually, in the light of broader perspectives in the social sciences, in policy analysis, and in philosophy; and also through empirical evidence, from adults' workplace learning experiences, and from adult literacy classrooms. We conclude that from practical embodied actions (that is, from ontology), significant epistemological claims can be generated, such as could shape adults' learning for, and in, the workplace. © 2001, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Hairdressers belong to an occupational group that is commonly affected by occupational skin disease, specifically contact dermatitis, which may be allergic or irritant and, less commonly, contact urticaria. Occupational contact dermatitis predominantly affects apprentices, and atopy is a recognized risk factor associated with a poor prognosis. Repetitive wet work leading to irritant contact dermatitis, followed by exposure to allergens and the development of allergic contact dermatitis, are the main factors contributing to occupational contact dermatitis. Once developed, it is often difficult to manage and is a cause of significant morbidity. Early education, training and prevention is the best approach to the management of this disorder that is endemic among hairdressers.

Aim of the study. This phenomenological study is aimed at illuminating nurses' lived experience of the process of preceptoring and the meaning of preceptorship in a Swedish context. Methods. Seventeen nurses from the North of Sweden with varied previous experience of preceptorship volunteered to participate. Their narratives, describing their experience of being a personal preceptor for a student nurse during practical training on a hospital ward in the third year of a 3-year diploma programme within a university college of nursing in Sweden, were transcribed verbatim. A phenomenological-hermeneutic interpretation disclosed the themes 'sheltering the students when learning' and 'facilitating the students' learning', together with eight sub-themes, which created an understanding of the meaning of preceptorship. Findings and discussion. The meaning of preceptorship was understood as reducing the risk of the students learning helplessness and empowering the students when learning in practice. The meaning of preceptorship highlighted the need for further preceptor support and development of the role of the preceptor. On the basis of the findings, suggestions were made to increase the preceptors' awareness of values in nursing practice and use of pedagogical strategies in the process of preceptoring. Through such strategies a reciprocal development of the preceptors' and the faculty's knowledge may take place, to the best advantage of the students' learning and the development of the profession.

As part of a broader research objective concerned with identifying the range of employer defined skill profiles that characterize workplace performance, this paper examines skill contexts for Application of Number, one of six UK defined Key Skills similar to Australian defined Key Competencies. Following the construction of questionnaires, grounded in the Analytic Hierarchy Process, applications of the instrument in both the UK and in Australia produced a ratio scale of priorities within the Key Skills area. This enabled a specification of the relative balance between classical competencies, e.g. facility with pen and paper calculations and emerging competencies demanded by the effective use of ICT. Relevance to workplace learning, including the transition from school to employment, and related aspects of mathematics education are discussed. Among the research outcomes is that spreadsheets are assuming a pre-eminent position and that this is an overriding priority for each defined activity and at each job level. © 2001 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.