Search Results for
"Vocational education"

A major policy goal for many governments in their vocational education and training (VET) systems is to make them more confident of employer facing. This article reviews the influence of business and industry on VET systems. The extent to which supporting structures facilitate or impede the effectiveness of industry's influence on the VET system is considered. Specifically, the article examines the use of employer-led sector bodies responsible for shaping training strategies in their occupational area; and the ability of employers to gain real purchase on VET systems through their relationship with VET providers, including the qualifications system. Finally, the article considers the role of employers in raising the demand for skills development. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Protracted armed conflict and violence leads to widespread destruction of already fragile education and training systems in developing countries and hampers their chances to participate in and benefit from globalization. Young people take up arms instead of learning employable skills. Once the conflict is (or at least seems to be) over, refugees and internally displaced people return home hoping to establish themselves in paid jobs or as self-employed. However, gainful employment is in short supply and the skills available do not suit the job opportunities that do exist. Some countries try to take the low starting point as a window of opportunity (a clean slate) to embark on ambitious reform of the education and training sector, but their success depends inter alia on the degree of security and stability that has been established, and the level of international investment for reconstruction available. The new systems tend to address the needs of a small formal sector and ignore development of skills in the informal sector in which the majority of people work. This article describes post-conflict developments in South Africa after apartheid, and Afghanistan after 23years of war. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This article reviews an important but neglected area of the science curriculum: connections with work and the workplace. The first section offers some historical background, arguing that economic and practical relevance has from the beginning been an important theme within science education. The article then undertakes a broader exploration of the intellectual background, usage and meaning of the term vocationalism within education, before turning to vocational themes as they are represented more specifically within research on science education. It then examines the development and contemporary policy significance of vocational provision across the world. This is followed by an account of a specific case: the innovative version of school science currently under development in England, which is occurring under the rubric of ‘applied science’. Finally the article sketches a research agenda for vocationalism within science education, drawing on the themes and issues that have been identified. It suggests that greater attention to this area will contribute to a broadening of the intellectual compass and relevance of science education research. © 2009 Taylor & Francis.

The development of the European Qualification Framework (EQF) as a means of assessing the relative status of qualifications across the EU is described, together with its fundamental design characteristics, particularly the adoption of a ‘learning outcomes’ approach. Ways in which it may be implemented, and possible difficulties in this, are explored through a discussion of Zones of Mutual Trust (ZMTs). Convergence and divergence between the vocational education and training (VET) and qualification systems of selected occupations in England, Germany, France and the Netherlands are highlighted, and their implications for establishing and regulating cross-national equivalence of qualifications, including through the EQF, are explored. © 2009 Taylor & Francis.

One of the features of foundation degrees (FDs) is the incorporation of work-based learning (WBL) into the curriculum. WBL is seen as an important part of vocational programmes and is described by Foundation Degrees Forward (FDF) as a potentially radical approach to connecting work with learning. The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), in its benchmark for FDs, stated that WBL is an integral part of FDs that enables learners to take appropriate roles in the workplace in order to learn and apply skills they have learned on the programme. This paper presents findings of a large evaluation study of the development and delivery of FDs at Kingston University in south-west London, UK. As part of this evaluation data were sought from FD course directors and from students about WBL in their particular programmes. Findings from the evaluation showed variation in course directors' and students' understanding of WBL with emphasis on ‘work-based’ and little emphasis on ‘learning’. As a result, a variety of diverse models of WBL are being used. The findings from this evaluative study are compared with the literature on models and definitions of WBL, as well as the literature on how students on vocational programmes learn. Conclusions are drawn about the use of WBL in vocationally-orientated programmes, the consequences of mixed understandings and interpretations of WBL, and a pedagogy of WBL is proposed. © 2009 The vocational Aspect of education Ltd.

There is limited awareness and knowledge of how teacher pedagogical reasoning and practice develops when teachers use information and communications technology (ICT). This is particularly so in the vocational education and training (VET) sector, where there is only limited awareness and knowledge of this territory. As the VET sector moves increasingly to the use of ICT to address the policy shift to flexible delivery on and off the job, VET teachers are faced with huge challenges. The question is; in what ways can teachers be best supported to meet these challenges? This paper presents a teacher profiling instrument that identifies teachers' strengths and professional development needs. The data gathered through the use of the profiling instrument was used to analyse professional learning needs for a group of trade teachers teaching in three regional areas in a public technical and further education institution. The profiling instrument is explained, and the following professional development is outlined to illustrate the value of the profiling instrument. © 2009 The vocational Aspect of education Ltd.

This paper examines the Australian phenomenon of Enterprise Registered Training Organizations (RTOs). These are organizations that do not have training as their main business but that are accredited to deliver training and award qualifications, primarily to their own workers. Although Enterprise RTOs have been in existence in one form or another for around 15 years they have not been previously examined in the scholarly literature. The paper uses qualitative and quantitative data from two recent research projects to describe the nature and experiences of these RTOs and their workers. The findings are analysed using a framework recently used in an evaluation of the pilot of a similar English scheme: quality concerns, resource intensiveness, impact on the training market, and restriction to larger firms. The paper concludes that enterprise RTOs have been beneficial to workers and companies alike, although not without problems, and that the Australian system appears to present fewer risks than the proposed English system. © 2009 The vocational Aspect of education Ltd.

Much is expected from the new learnership system implemented in South Africa a mere seven years ago as a key component in putting a multi-pronged National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS) into operation. The learnership system is expected to foster skills development in the formal economy, as well as assist new (young) entrants into employment. There is debate as to whether the priority for the system should be to function as a demand-led formal labour market tool to fill the need for critical and scarce skills, or as an employment-creation mechanism, and whether it is possible to do both effectively. The research analyses a newly created population database that covers enrolments since the inception of the learnership system. In practice, the learnership system is increasingly prioritising an employment-creation function, focused on providing skills development for young Africans registered at Level 4 or below. Recognising this shifting profile is an important step for enhancing the effectiveness of the system, whether in terms of funding, focus of programmes, workplace placements or support offered. © 2009 The vocational Aspect of education Ltd.

Tangaza College in Kenya, Mekelle University in Ethiopia and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands are working together in a new format of teaching and learning, namely the so-called Intercultural Virtual Seminar. By means of virtual communication, e-mail, MSN, Skype, SMS and a common website for shared documents and forum discussions students from the three partner institutions work together on sociotechnical problems, taking into account differences of culture and context. Despite low connectivity to Africa and the need to overcome cultural misunderstandings the experience is tremendous and very motivating for all parties involved. The Intercultural Virtual Seminar is being embedded in an innovation system in which technological expertise mainly from Delft University of Technology (but in exchange with the other partners) and contextual demands mainly from Africa (but in exchange with ideas from the Netherlands) are explored, new technological devices, and social institutions, procedures, skills are developed which can find their way into vocational training and small businesses and NGOs. Such an innovation system functions as an incubator for technology transfer and exchange. Internships, master theses, common research by the staff and in cooperation with third parties can make a difference.

“… inappropriate wage structures contribute to labor shortages … compressed wage differentials depress the incentive not only of workers to take training in higher skills, but of management to offer such training.” (Ulman 1968: 372) INTRODUCTION A noteworthy feature of the history of both vocational training and industrial relations in the United Kingdom is the high strike propensity of apprentices (i.e., young people engaged in work-based learning for craft occupations) in the metalworking industry during the middle of the last century. Between 1937 and 1964, seven actions launched by apprentices were sufficiently large and protracted to be termed strike movements, in that they spread across various districts, drew in many thousands of young people, and lasted for several weeks. In all cases, the apprentices acted largely autonomously, primarily in pursuit of higher pay for young males, the employment category that they dominated. The strikes were exceptional in that, although they had antecedents, they were largely confined to metalworking, and they had few counterparts in other sectors and countries with apprenticeship training, including the United States. Although some of the apprentice disputes have been discussed by social historians, they have been largely ignored in the literature on industrial relations, industrial training and vocational education. One reason for their neglect may be that their interpretation is not straightforward. From an economics–industrial-relations standpoint, the strikes may be viewed as just another category of industrial dispute, involving standard reciprocal threats of economic damage. © Cambridge University Press 2010.