Search Results for
"Vocational education"

The globalisation along with the interdependence of various economies has resulted in creating extra dimension to the employability skills requirements. Various socio-economic indicators have increased the pressure on vocational education sector and changed it from supply driven to demand driven by the labour market requirements to minimise the existing employability skills gap. The paper presents a study that has been conducted to identify the existing skills gap between School Based Learning (SBL) and Work Based Learning (WBL) in Technical and vocational education (TVE) System in Bahrain by asking teachers, Human Resources departments from industry, and industrial supervisors to complete questionnaires. Their answers have been analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Based on these drawn conclusions, an improved employability skills model has been developed which shows the importance of the required skills. This model will be the basis for suggested modifications in SBL and WBL structure in TVE in Bahrain. © Common Ground, Rakesh Mishra, Mohamed Alseddiqi, Crinela Pislaru.

To examine pedagogic practices and vocational education and training (VET) in three categories of growing small firms. The panel data used in the study are drawn from the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Business Longitudinal Surveys. The results indicate on-the-job training provided by owner/managers is the most prevalent training method regardless of growth category. The results also show the proportion of firms adopting formal pedagogic practices increases with enterprise growth. Although there is an increase in the proportion of firms using the widely recognised providers of accredited VET with firm growth, only the minority of lower growth firms use these providers. Again, there is a positive association between firm growth and the implementation of VET; however, less than half of the firms in the three growth categories provide apprenticeship training and traineeships. Taken together, the results demonstrate small business engagement in structured VET, particularly at the lower end of the growth continuum, is, at best, minimal. © Common Ground, Janice T. Jones, All Rights Reserved, Permissions.

Australia's higher education and vocational education and training (VET) systems have undergone major structural change over the last 30 years with significant ramifications for horticultural education and training. Unlike at higher education levels, where the presence of horticulture students and programs are on the decline, Australia's VET sector has experienced growth in program diversity, provider and student numbers. Significant changes that have occurred within this sector include: (i) evolution of a national curriculum framework, (ii) shift to a competency-based model of education, and (iii) an expansion in organizational profile of education and training providers. This paper focuses on structural changes to the VET sector with emphasis on the Victorian education and training system. Trends indicate that VET horticulture, in the current form of the Amenity Horticultural Training Package, will continue to evolve and grow particularly in the private sector. Employees and institutions appear to accept the overall sense of order achieved by VET sector reforms, although there are specific concerns on the adequacy of industry competency standards themselves that include issues of duplication, the practicalities of providing practical work placements and workplace assessments on a large scale, their ability to service recognition-of-prior learning (RPL), and concerns over quality control.

Background/Context: Much research is being done on Turkish immigrants and their children in Germany and the Netherlands, but almost always from a national perspective. To compare the situation, for example, regarding educational outcomes across the two countries has proved to be very difficult because of different sets, selection criteria, and time periods for statistical data on immigrant populations. However, those data, which are actually available and comparable to at least some degree, already show how strongly the differences in educational attainment and labor market integration of Turkish immigrants depend on structural and systemic differences in the ways that education is organized in Germany and the Netherlands. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: The article analyzes available data on young Turkish immigrants and native-born second generations and their educational success in the two countries with the major Turkish populations in Western Europe. It aims to direct the focus away from group background characteristics, which are actually quite similar, to the influence of institutional arrangements and the way that the educational system facilitates (or not) the educational integration of Turkish youth. Research Design: The article is based on publicly collected and available data on the Turkish populations in Germany and the Netherlands. This mainly refers to the Dutch SPVA surveys and the German micro-census and Integration Survey. Conclusions/Recommendations: The findings show that more than group characteristics, systemic and institutional factors can have a decisive role in promoting or hampering the educational and labor market integration of young immigrants and the native-bom second generation. The greater openness of the Dutch school system to provide "long routes" and "second chances" shows its effect in significantly higher shares of Turks in higher education. On the other side, the dual system of vocational training in Germany seems to be better suited for labor market integration, especially because apprenticeships are more practice oriented and do count as work experience for later application procedures. The Dutch system also offers better opportunities for girls than does the German system. Yet, the polarization effect between "high achievement" and "failure" of only partial integration success is greater in the Netherlands, whereas the overall advancement is slower, but also less polarizing, in Germany. In this sense, each country could learn something from its neighbor regarding those aspects of the institutional and systemic setting that apparently fail to do the job well enough. © by Teachers College, Columbia University.

INTRODUCTION: Australian medical education is increasingly influenced by rural workforce policy. Therefore, understanding the influences on medical graduates' practice location and specialty choice is crucial for medical educators and medical workforce planners. The South Australian Flinders University Parallel Rural Community Curriculum (PRCC) was funded by the Australian Government to help address the rural doctor workforce shortage. The PRCC was the first community based medical education program in Australia to teach a full academic year of medicine in South Australian rural general practices. The aim of this research was to identify what factors influence the career choices of PRCC graduates. METHODS: A retrospective survey of all contactable graduates of the PRCC was undertaken. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS 14.0 for Windows. Qualitative data were entered into NVIVO 7 software for coding, and analysed using content analysis. RESULTS: Usable data were collected from 46 of the 86 contactable graduates (53%). More than half of the respondents (54%) reported being on a rural career path. A significant relationship exists between being on a rural career pathway and making the decision prior to or during medical school (p = 0.027), and between graduates in vocational training who are on an urban career path and making a decision on career specialty after graduation from medical school (p = .004). Graduates in a general practice vocational training program are more likely to be on a rural career pathway than graduates in a specialty other than general practice (p = .003). A key influence on graduates' practice location is geographic location prior to entering medical school. Key influences on graduates choosing a rural career pathway are: having a spouse/partner with a rural background; clinical teachers and mentors; the extended rural based undergraduate learning experience; and a specialty preference for general practice. A lack of rural based internships and specialist training places is influencing both urban- and rural-origin graduates to practise in urban locations. Further analysis of graduates' career pathway choices (rural or urban) and geographic background (rural or urban) was conducted. This resulted in the development of a new model, 'The Four Qs Model'. This model consists of four quadrants derived from the variables career pathway choice (rural or urban) and geographic background (rural or urban). Clustering of consistent demographic and qualitative trends unique to each quadrant was demonstrated. The distinctive clustering that emerged from the data resulted in the quadrants being renamed 'The True Believers', 'The Convertibles' 'The Frustrated' and 'The Metro Docs'. CONCLUSIONS: The PRCC is influencing graduates to choose a rural career path. The PRCC program affirms the career preferences of rural origin students while graduates with little rural exposure prior to the PRCC report being positively influenced to pursue a rural career path. The Four Qs Model is a useful model in that it demonstrates consistent themes in the characteristics of PRCC graduates and assists understanding of why they choose a rural medical career. This could be relevant to the selection of medical students into rural medical education programs and in the construction of rural curricula. The model also offers a useful framework for further research in this field.

In this article, we examine the extent and the causes of ethnic inequalities in access to apprenticeship training positions within the German system of vocational training. Analyses are based on pooled data from three surveys of high school graduates conducted at the German Federal Institute for vocational education and Training (BIBB). The role of the following differences between German and applicants with an immigrant background for vocational training positions is analyzed: their preferences for certain occupational fields, their endowment with resources relevant to the integration of the individual in the labor market, and the opportunities available in the vocational training market. We can show, first, that the chances of finding a vocational training position are substantially lower for young - especially male - adults with an immigrant background even if their occupational preferences, their human capital endowment, and their first language are taken into account. Furthermore, there is no evidence that German and immigrant background youths differ substantially in terms of their job-search strategies. Our analyses show, secondly, that even those immigrant background youths who did manage to find a vocational training position are only half as likely as young Germans to be trained in their preferred occupational field, The large gender differences within the immigrant background group in particular suggest that ethnic discrimination processes on the part of potential employers may play a more important role in explaining ethnic inequalities in the access to vocational training positions than in other dimensions of labor market integration. This is probably related to specificities in those vocational training sectors that are characterized by a comparatively low productivity of applicants and by a shortage of vocational training positions. © C Lucius & Lucius Verlag Stuttgart.

Those who educate medical students and physicians work in a world suffused with the concept of competency. This article examines the intellectual origins and hidden assumptions of this concept and argues that it is an inadequate, and even harmful, concept to use as a guiding motif for professional education. The competency model-which tends to be top-down and prescriptive-does not provide the framework for objective educational assessment that it claims to provide. The alternative apprenticeship model is more appropriate for professional education and is more consistent with what psychological research has shown about the acquisition of expertise. © 2009 by The Johns Hopkins University Press.

The pharmaceutical consultation offered to liver transplant patients is one of the components of therapeutic education. The content of this consultation has been designed on the basis of research results led in the field of health communication. This research has highlighted the need to clarify to the patient the aims and format of the consultation, to obtain patient approval, and to elicit patient participation in the elaboration of the treatment plan. Studying and taking into account patient representations of transplantation, of transplant treatment and rejection is indispensable to the design of an efficient communication plan. Setting up this consultation requires initial training or continuing vocational training of the pharmacist - this training will address issues in psychology, cognitive science and health communication. No such training is currently available in universities and needs to be set up. It should be followed by practice and training during internships in hospitals and community pharmacies. © 2008 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

The humanities offer great potential for enhancing professional and humanistic development in medical education. Yet, although many students report benefit from exposure to the humanities in their medical education, they also offer consistent complaints and skepticism. The authors offer a pedagogical definition of the medical humanities, linking it to medicine as a practice profession. They then explore three student critiques of medical humanities curricula: (1) the content critique, examining issues of perceived relevance and intellectual bait-and-switch, (2) the teaching critique, which examines instructor trustworthiness and perceived personal intrusiveness, and (3) the structural/placement critique, or how and when medical humanities appear in the curriculum. Next, ways are suggested to tailor medical humanities to better acknowledge and reframe the needs of medical students. These include ongoing cross-disciplinary reflective practices in which intellectual tools of the humanities are incorporated into educational activities to help students examine and, at times, contest the process, values, and goals of medical practice. This systematic, pervasive reflection will organically lead to meaningful contributions from the medical humanities in three specific areas of great interest to medical educators: professionalism, "narrativity," and educational competencies. Regarding pedagogy, the implications of this approach are an integrated required curriculum and innovative concepts such as "applied humanities scholars." In turn, systematic integration of humanities perspectives and ways of thinking into clinical training will usefully expand the range of metaphors and narratives available to reflect on medical practice and offer possibilities for deepening and strengthening professional education. © 2009 Association of American Medical Colleges.

In the realm of reconfiguring Chinese vocational education and training (VET) the country is collaborating with Germany which provides guidance and support for the development of a dual system in China. The article outlines the circumstances that need to be considered in such a policy transfer and possible scenarios for the development of a modern VET system. The VET systems in both countries are explained and compared before the authors examine implications for a policy transfer. © 2009 British Association for International and Comparative education.