Search Results for
"Vocational education"

This article concentrates on the question which aspects of a learning environment, directed to career development of students, contribute to the use of career competences by students in prevocational and secondary vocational education in The Netherlands. The learning environment is measured by the methods and instruments for career guidance used in schools, and by the extent in which the educational programme and the guidance provided is focused on career development. Three competences are distinguished: career reflection, career shaping and networking. The relation between aspects of the learning environment and the development of career competences is studied using a survey among 3,499 students and 166 teachers of 226 classes in 34 schools. The results show that a 'career learning environment' consists mainly of a dialogue with the student about his/her experiences in placements in relation to his/her future. This dialogue contributes to the use of career competences by students; methods and instruments do hardly show any relationship with career competences of students. Also, student centered education does not contribute to career learning, if this dialogue is absent.

Work integration social enterprises (WISE) are companies that have been known under different names in most European countries since approximately the end of the 1970s. They are run under very different legal formats and show a variety of features, and can thus be rather heterogeneous. Nevertheless, they all share a common aim: they are companies set up with the main purpose of providing jobs for people who, for several reasons, have not been able to find employment in an ordinary firm even if they have the capacity to be productive. The purpose of WISE, therefore, is to establish a working relationship with those individuals who have been already rejected by the labour market and to hire them to do the work precisely for the same reasons that they have not been able to find a job or hold it under ordinary circumstances. WISEs are in fact the last in a series of measures in Western societies to facilitate the social inclusion of people through work (Fernández, Galarreta & Martńez, 2008), a step to be added on top of other measures such as rehabilitation of drug abuse, reinsertion in society after having served a custodial sentence, vocational training courses, social aid and others. WISEs are intended not only to facilitate entry into the labour market for those persons, but also to foster their employability by continuing the socio-educational process in which they have been involved throughout their journey out of social exclusion. It is in this sense that WISEs have been established as learning organizations in which the productive activity that they foster plays an instrumental role in achieving the expected benefits: Economic survival in order to satisfy employees' educational needs until they are able to 'abandon' the organization and enter the ordinary labour market. Despite their short history,WISEs have already been studied in several European countries and some of that research has been published (Borzaga & Defourny, 2001; Castelli, 2005; Nyssens, 2006;). Several approaches have been taken in these studies, mainly economic and sociological. In this chapter I attempt to provide a pedagogical perspective, considering WISEs as learning environments in which people may experience employment relations in such a manner that they will be well equipped subsequently to experience everyday life in a positive and constructive manner. WISEs are therefore intended to act as 'schools of citizenship' for individuals with a record of failure in their lives. Also, WISEs are learning environments for those who are in charge of supporting their less fortunate workmates in companies. First, I will point to the main results of the research done on WISEs and which provide us with a background of assumptions enabling us to approach them from an educational perspective. Second, I will introduce the case of Novaterra and Iuna, two organizations which promote WISEs and which have been networking since the early 1990s, paying particular attention to the work processes they use in order to achieve their goal of social integration and to perform their related tasks. Third, I will examine the work of Iuna from different perspectives of work-based learning, work-related learning, in-company training and others that, even if produced and developed in ordinary working environments, provide us with good elements to address educational processes in WISEs.© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.

With the purpose of combining current extensive E-learning with classroom teaching, a learning content management system on Engineering Hydrology curriculum (hydro-LCMS) is introduced in this paper. Considering the engineering and practical characteristics of comprehensive training courses on hydrology and with the help of hydro- LCMS, this paper proposes a complete project which is throughout teaching process and a project-oriented teaching practice in which E-learning environment is applied as the carrier so as to fulfill project teaching tasks. The system provides students with better training in vocational awareness and the ability to solve practical problems. © 2009 IEEE.

This paper examines if and to what extent educational opportunities of immigrant and native youth are affected by the regional proportion of firm- versus school-based vocational education and training (VET) in Germany and Switzerland. As school-based VET systems, compared to training firms, select their applicants on grounds of school grades rather than ascriptive attributes, educational opportunities of immigrant students are expected to be higher in areas with a more school-based VET system. This assumption should at least hold true on condition that they provide sufficient secondary school certificates. The hypothesis is empirically tested using microcensus data from Germany and census as well as TREE data from Switzerland. The results point to complex structures of occasionally ethnic disadvantage fabricated through the VET system: Whereas immigrant students, particularly males, tend to be excluded in highly firm-based VET systems, they face problems to access more school-based VET systems because they can't provide the required school certificates. © VS-Verlag 2009.

The education of health professions students is rooted historically in time-honored and silo-bound traditions of pedagogy and content not easily influenced by outside forces. However, the quality chasm work of the Institute of Medicine, Institute of Healthcare Improvement, Quality and Safety education for Nurses, and other groups has led to a remarkable willingness to change at one academic health sciences university. This article describes one university's strategies, challenges, and successes in delivering interprofessional educational programs. Four interprofessional learning activities, developed using a plan-do-study-act model and focused on teamwork, quality, and safety, are presented. Challenges and successes encountered are described as well as a curricular framework to enhance sustainability.

The basic aim of this paper is to investigate the impact that educational level of individuals and participation in training programmes (apprenticeship, intra-firm training, continuing vocational training, popular training) have on their job prospects in Southern Greece (namely the regions of Southern Aegean and Crete) during the implementation of the first Community Support Framework (1989-1993). We also research the differences between the two regions under study and the entire country. We try to see whether the educational level itself and participation in training programmes increased the chances of finding a job. More specifically, we research what are the social and demographic characteristics that increase the chances of someone in the examined population finding a job, how those chances change (if they do) after the introduction of training courses and, also, whether University graduates, in contrast to most of the rest of the EU member states, face greater difficulties in finding a job than non-University graduates, as a series of studies for Greece conclude. To the author's knowledge, this is the first attempt to analyse individual anonymised records (micro-data) from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) for both employed and unemployed in those two regions at NUTS 2 level.

Over the last quarter of a century, much attention has justifiably been given to the closure of long-stay hospitals and the subsequent community-based experiences of people with learning disabilities.This has inevitably led to debate regarding how best they might continue to be supported, and by whom. Having identified a range of accredited provision currently available to prepare or develop staff working with adults with learning disabilities in the United Kingdom, this article reviews a range of contemporary literature relating to education in learning disability health and social care that is typically produced and viewed in isolation. Four themes are identified: training social carers, user involvement, (inter)professional practice and work-based learning. Key messages emerge from these themes to form recommendations for the future education of learning disability practitioners across the workforce. © The Author(s), 2009.

In Finnish VET, students' work experience is explicitly defined as workplace learning, instead of the practice of already learnt skills. Therefore, vocational students' learning periods in the workplace are goal-oriented, guided and assessed. This paper examines the characteristics of students' workplace learning and compares them with the characteristics of employees' workplace learning. The data were collected with an Internet questionnaire from final-year vocational students (N = 3106). In total, 1603 students (52 %) answered the questionnaire. The data were analysed using quantitative methods. The results indicate that features typical of employees' workplace learning can also be found in student learning as well. However, VET-related workplace learning has a number of characteristics that have not been brought to light in research on employees' workplace learning thus far. We suggest that in developing educational practices it would be useful to draw on some of the features of workplace learning such as the use of collaboration and shared practices; conversely for workplace practices it would be useful to draw on some of the features of educational practices. For example, by utilising the structures of students' workplace learning system presented in this study, learning at work could be transformed towards more goal-directed, guided and assessed activity. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.

Students' social psychological adjustment to school is an important determinant of achievement growth as well as school continuation and post-secondary educational attainment. Yet many students begin high school with low levels of efficacy and self-worth, and low levels of identification with and liking of school. In this study, we investigate the hypothesis that vocational education in high school provides disengaged students with an educational clean slate, leading to a recovery of engagement for at-risk students. Using propensity score models, we assess the relationship between vocational course taking and changes in effort, extracurricular participation, sense of belonging, interest in school, attitudes toward school and teachers, educational expectations, career aspirations, locus of control, and self-concept with the NELS:88 database. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

CDIO is a new mode in modern engineering education distinguished from traditional modes, which is project-based. CDIO stands for conceiving, designing, implementing and operating. It has been proved effective in engineering education. After the steps of CDIO analyzed, an example using CDIO is presented to show how CDIO works, and how traditional courses are changed into CDIO courses as well. The experiments show that CDIO does work on higher vocational education in China. Finally, the paper gives discussion on how to use and how to promote CDIO in China. ©2009 IEEE.