Search Results for
"human"

This chapter focuses on how international VET programmes have been adopted and adapted in Vietnam, an area of limited research in Vietnam. As an illustration of this complex process, the chapter draws on data from a study of VET pedagogical practices across three sites in Central Vietnam, including a Vietnamese VET college, a foreign-funded VET college and a family workshop. The Vietnamese government has embarked on modernisation and industrialisation reform programmes to enhance its standing in ASEAN and enhance Vietnam’s competitiveness in the process of international economic integration. These initiatives aim to develop a more qualified workforce by facilitating the expansion and diversification of educational training programmes suitable to local and regional human resource needs. A major contribution to this approach has not only been the international adoption but also the adaptation of international VET programmes and reforms. The chapter commences with an overview of government initiatives in VET as part of the current push for modernisation and the current provision of international VET programmes in Vietnam. It then explores a number of historical influences on VET in Vietnam (Confucian, French and Soviet), from feudal, colonial and post-colonial times, and how ‘Vietnamisation’ and adaptation to the ‘Vietnamese character’ has been preserved. An illustration is then provided of a foreign-funded college in order to highlight ongoing effects of foreign VET programmes on the Vietnamese national curriculum and the college pedagogical practices while maintaining ‘the Vietnamese character’. The chapter concludes by discussing the ways VET in Vietnam has ‘Vietnamised’ the foreign programmes and the implications for VET internationalisation. © 2017, Springer International Publishing AG.

UK policies for post-school education and training have continued to focus, in the twenty-first century, on the significance in modern societies of human capital, lifelong learning and work. The competence development of individual workers is expected to play a crucial role in employability and adaptability to economic shifts and changing demands in extended working lives. The nature of competence and its various configurations, as well as the contexts where it could be developed and exercised, continue to be debated as research evidence accumulates on the processes and practices of competence development in large-scale programmes that have been implemented nationally. Because of its complexity and strong dependence on the context where it is applied, the concept of competence has been interpreted and conceptualised in a variety of ways. The meanings given to competence in everyday life, in vocational education and training settings and in academic settings are quite different. What is more, the meaning is likely to change over time. This chapter critically reviews developments and identifies some enduring challenges in the interplay of policies and practice in competence development and workplace learning in the United Kingdom, drawing on examples from contrasting occupational fields. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017.

Competence-based vocational and professional education and training aims at changing the perspective from the input into professionals’ preparation for workplaces to the outcome of such preparation. The theoretical implication behind this change focuses on professionals’ competences and, hence, their capability to cope with today’s work demands. This chapter follows the approach of expertise research which reflects the development from novices to experts on a cognitive basis. It discusses the crucial component of professional competence from an expertise point of view: excellent performance, intuition, and their underlying knowledge structures. Within educational research, those qualities of human mind are considered to prepare best for recent and future work demands. However, since excellent performance – as this chapter argues – crucially is based on unconscious mental processes, challenges arise for considering such processes in educational practice. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017.

This chapter adheres to a broad definition of professional development including pre-service education and in-service lifelong formal and informal learning. Thus far the professional development of teachers in vocational education has not gained overwhelming attention, but there are signs this issue is becoming highly prioritized on the vocational education agenda. Characteristic of the Netherlands is that specialized teacher education programs preparing new teachers for a career in vocational education hardly exist. As a consequence, many new teachers do not possess any teaching certificate when they are entering vocational education. Learning the ropes of the teaching profession is blended in with the first years of working for newly hired teachers, since it is mandatory for them to participate in a program that provides them the basic instructional and pedagogical competencies. Afterwards, they are obliged to continue to work on their professional development, since it is established in collective labor agreements (higher professional education) and legal acts (regional colleges) that a percentage of the working hours needs to be reserved for professional development purposes. Thus far human resource policies have been acknowledged as important for safeguarding teachers’ employability and professional growth, but institutional policy plans have not been implemented fully in practice. As a consequence, it remains unclear, also due to a lack of research, what teachers actually do and what the effects of their professional development activities are on their performance and identity as teacher, and on their careers. Research is needed for further insights into, for example, the contribution of informal learning and the integration of professional development with school innovation strategies. © Springer International Publishing AG 2017.

This title was first published in 2003. Seeking to demonstrate a high level of insight, this is an analysis of the characteristics and advantages of Japanese human resource management. It describes the situation and the main trends in the transformation of the Japanese human resource management and employment practices, and investigates the possible options for the future. The work should be useful to academics and policy makers dealing with Japan and courses on human resource management and economics. © Philippe Debroux 2003.

This chapter addresses the complementarity issue and presents a rationale for the anticipated change in the policy formulation model applied at present in the Arab countries. It discusses the labour supply and demand indicators selected in order to display the situation in some Arab countries. The chapter considers capsulated information on the success story of the Asian tigers in developing integrated policies and identifies the lessons learned from them and from other countries. For the Arab region, the World Bank focuses on the need for such integration of policies to achieve real growth; 'the region's future lies in making productive use of these resources—human, financial and physical—to take advantage of the opportunities that globalization brings'. Integration of the national policies to promote investment and develop the economy, on the one hand, and those to optimise the utilization of the human capital, on the other, is increasingly becoming a 'make or break' approach. © Belkacem Laabas 2002. All rights reserved.

In response to policy initiatives calling for the implementation of evidence-based classroom practice, instructional coaches are frequently utilized as providers of professional development (PD). Despite the demand for instructional coaches, there is little empirical evidence that coaching improves teacher practice. We address this limitation by conceptualizing instructional coaching within a research-based framework for PD consisting of 5 key features synthesized from cross-sectional studies, longitudinal studies, and literature reviews of experimental and quasi-experimental studies: content focus, active learning, sustained duration, coherence, and collective participation. When examining understanding instructional coaching through the lens of the 5 empirically predictive elements of effective PD, the model presents itself as a powerful tool for improving teacher knowledge, skills, and practice. It is imperative that future researchers define the next set of questions to further refine the understanding of coaching and how it can and should be executed to leverage professional learning. © © The College of Education and human Ecology, The Ohio State University.

Background: Youth comprise 40% of the world's unemployed, a status associated with adverse wellbeing and social, health, and economic costs. This systematic review and meta-analysis review synthesises the literature on the effectiveness of interventions targeting young people not in employment, education, or training (NEET). Methods: Randomised and quasi-randomised trials with a concurrent or counterfactual control group and baseline equivalence are included. Cochrane collaboration tools are used to assess quality, and a narrative synthesis was undertaken. The primary outcome is employment; secondary outcomes were health, earnings, welfare receipt, and education. Results: Eighteen trials are included (9 experimental and 9 quasi-experimental), sample sizes range from 32 to 54,923. Interventions include social skills, vocational, or educational classroom-based training, counselling or one-to-one support, internships, placements, on-the-job or occupational training, financial incentives, case management, and individual support. Meta-analysis of three high-quality trials demonstrates a 4% (CI 0.0-0.7) difference between intervention and control groups on employment. Evidence for other outcomes lacks consistency; however, more intensive programmes increase employment and wages over the longer term. Conclusions: There is some evidence that intensive multi-component interventions effectively decrease unemployment amongst NEETs. The quality of current evidence is limited, leaving policy makers under-served when designing and implementing new programmes, and a vulnerable population neglected. Systematic review registration: PROSPERO CRD42014007535 © 2017 The Author(s).

Economic literature has widely acknowledged the growing role of firm training in the knowledge economy. Training fosters labour productivity, boosts competitiveness, and strengthens firms’ capacity to innovate. This key role of training, however, raises relevant issues in terms of the optimal level of the corresponding investment. In fact firms that bear training costs may not be able to fully appropriate the relevant benefits. In addition training may facilitate structural changes and stimulate growth nationwide. Efficiency reasons thus justify the existence of legal and/or institutional tools, either voluntary or mandatory, aimed at addressing suboptimal investments in human capital development. The purpose of this study is to draw a systematic taxonomy of the main legal and institutional devices able to address the underlying inefficiencies of training investments. Training is on the top of the political agenda in many countries. The European Union is committed to increase adults’ participation in lifelong learning and to improve the quality of training programs and institutions. However, while training is of increasing political interest, a proper tool-box for policy makers is still missing. © 2013, Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Student coaches undertake internships to develop practical skills and gain experience to improve employability prospects. The characteristics of the coaches who undertake these internships, their experiences and the nature of the work being performed are currently unknown. The purpose of this study was to report the characteristics of strength and conditioning (S&C) coaches who have undertaken internships and their experiences during their respective placements. A total of 113 men and 6 women completed an online survey. Placements generally lasted 6–12 months (66%), were unpaid (93%) and took place at professional teams (63%). All respondents had a standard of experience prior to commencement (82%); a higher-education degree (bachelor’s degree 56%; master’s degree 18%) and others were qualified S&C coaches (16%). Activities consisted largely of coaching (47%), data collection (22%) and equipment set-up (25%) but lacked provision of appropriate training. Mentors were allocated to interns; however, often developmental objectives were not discussed, meetings were rarely documented, and in some cases, no meetings took place. This study suggests that internships offer worthwhile experiences and assistance in skill development to progress in S&C. However, clearer guidelines are required to define the responsibilities of employers and interns, to maximise these experiential learning opportunities and avoid the exploitation of willing students. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.