Search Results for
"Vocational education"

Purpose – This introduction to the special edition aims to focus on the issues that surround putting work-based learning into practice in the UK. Design/methodology/approach – The introduction is a brief survey and commentary on the issues surrounding work-based learning. A selection of papers is drawn from the timely 2006 University vocational Awards Council (UVAC) Annual Conference. UVAC, an international membership organisation has championed higher level vocational learning, particularly higher education (HE) engagement with employers and the workforce, and the selection of conference papers demonstrates the seriousness with which HE educators are taking this work forward. Findings – The introduction finds that a rebalancing of the priorities of HE institutions to make available relevant, flexible and responsive provision that meets the high skills needs of employers and their staff has arrived which requires us to reevaluate the university offer and as Waterhouse argues, “it is not that they can teach, nor even that they can sell research, but that they can assess: they accredit learning and are awarding bodies. It is this social certification of successful learning that individuals, employers and ultimately society pay for.” The next reinvention for the sector is contemporary vocationalisation and responsiveness to economic imperatives rather than learning. Research limitations/implications – A wider survey of practice, particularly the use of employer standards, is now required to establish a common language between industry and HE. Practical implications – Implications are a progressive change to HE offering and an increased engagement with workforce development which requires changes to assessment and a greater use of accreditation and validation in the workplace. Originality/value – The introduction provides a succinct analysis of the work based learning and employer engagement in HE. © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

The establishment of the European Higher education Area has involved specifying lists of professional competencies that programs are expected to develop, and with this the need for procedures to measure how every course within a higher education program is aligned with the program's competencies. We propose an instrument for characterizing this alignment, a process that we call assessing the relevance of a course. Using information from the course syllabus (objectives, contents and assessment scheme), our instrument produces indicators for characterizing the syllabus in terms of a competence list and for assessing its coherence. Because assessment involves quality, the results obtained can also be used to revise and improve the course syllabus. We illustrate this process with an example of a methods course from a mathematics teacher education program at a Spanish university. © 2007.

OBJECTIVE: To report the ethical stances taken by newly-qualified dental graduates working in the south-east of England and how these changed over their first two years in practice. METHODS: A longitudinal self-completed questionnaire-based study using scenarios and closed questions was completed by an initial group of 135 vocational dental practitioners at the very beginning of their vocational training year, at the end of the year, and, finally, at the end of the subsequent year. Their answers were then analysed to see whether or not their views had changed during this period. RESULTS: At the commencement of the study in 2003, 133 (99%) newly-qualified dental graduates completed the questionnaire and answered the closed questions. The following year, 129 (96%) completed these documents and in 2005, at the end of the study, this figure was 97 (72%). There was considerable variation in the attitudes taken by the responding dentists. Reported attitudes changed over the study period in seven of the nine scenarios. Responses to the scenarios used could be grouped into three categories: those in which there was no change; those in which the change happened following completion of vocational training; and those in which there was a continual change. Answers to the four closed questions indicated a growing negativity to practice within the National Health Service over the study period. CONCLUSIONS: Dental educators need to be aware of the findings from this study. The importance of the ethical attitudes held and the reasons underpinning them should be explored if problems with delivery of care are to be avoided in the future.

[No abstract available]

Enrollment at America's community colleges has exploded in recent years, with five times as many entering students today as in 1965. However, most community college students do not graduate; many earn no credits and may leave school with no more advantages in the labor market than if they had never attended. Experts disagree over the reason for community colleges' mixed record. Is it that the students in these schools are under-prepared and ill-equipped for the academic rigors of college? Are the colleges themselves not adapting to keep up with the needs of the new kinds of students they are enrolling? In After Admission, James Rosenbaum, Regina Deil-Amen, and Ann Person weigh in on this debate with a close look at this important trend in American higher education. After Admission compares community colleges with private occupational colleges that offer accredited associates degrees. The authors examine how these different types of institutions reach out to students, teach them social and cultural skills valued in the labor market, and encourage them to complete a degree. Rosenbaum, Deil-Amen, and Person find that community colleges are suffering from a kind of identity crisis as they face the inherent complexities of guiding their students towards four-year colleges or to providing them with vocational skills to support a move directly into the labor market. This confusion creates administrative difficulties and problems allocating resources. However, these contradictions do not have to pose problems for students. After Admission shows that when colleges present students with clear pathways, students can effectively navigate the system in a way that fits their needs. The occupational colleges the authors studied employed close monitoring of student progress, regular meetings with advisors and peer cohorts, and structured plans for helping students meet career goals in a timely fashion. These procedures helped keep students on track and, the authors suggest, could have the same effect if implemented at community colleges. As college access grows in America, institutions must adapt to meet the needs of a new generation of students. After Admission highlights organizational innovations that can help guide students more effectively through higher education. Copyright © 2006 by Russell Sage Foundation. All rights reserved.

This book provides a fresh account of the changing nature of work and how workers are changing as result of the requirements of contemporary working life. It explores the implications for preparing individuals for work and maintaining their skills throughout working life. This is done by examining the relations between the changing requirements for working life and how individuals engage in work. An analysis that engages the psychological, sociological, philosophical and anthropological literatures as they relate to work as well as recent empirical research that examines and elaborates perspectives of work and work practice as social institutions and as a vocation that individuals exercise with intentionality and agency. So a key basis for considering changing work and changing workers is the relationships between the social institutions and cultural needs and practices that necessitates and constitutes paid work and how individuals engage and elect to participate and learn in that work. Implications for vocational education, professional development and on-going learning throughout working life are addressed. These include developing skills in educational institutions, workplaces, and combinations thereof and in times when both government and employers are looking for others to sponsor that development and maintaining the competence and engagement of older workers. © 2006 Springer. All rights reserved.

In addition to dental hospital clinical activity, dental students at Paris Rene Descartes University have the opportunity in their final year of study to practise clinically in a dental office, as associates. This paper outlines a pilot, experimental study designed to assess student reaction to this vocational Clinical Activity (VCA) in order to identify relevant weaknesses of the undergraduate programme. Using questionnaires, data were collected for each of the following clinical or management skills: clinical difficulty, therapeutic decision-making, patient/ practitioner relationship, time management, administrative matters and technical problems. Students were asked to rank each item in order of difficulty (1, high level to 6, low level). A high response rate was observed (90%) among the 50 undergraduate VCA students. The results pointed out three main difficulties encountered by undergraduate students during the VCA: time management (90% of the students), administrative matters (85% of the students) and clinical decision-making (80% of the students). These preliminary results need further investigation. However, they give us the incentive to carry on with this type of assessment and to extend it to young, qualified colleagues' perceptions and to other French Universities. © Blackwell Munksgaard 2006.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, work-related learning has(again) been receiving a great deal of interest from trainers and alarge number of researchers from various disciplines. Fenwick(2002), for example, remarks that sociologists, organisationtheorists, economists and cultural researchers are joiningeducators and are increasingly engaged on this subject. At thesame time there is '(-) a growing concern within anthropology,psychology, communications (-), and cognitive science forredefining the methods and topics that constitute the study ofwork' (Engeström & Middleton, 1998). The main reason for thisbroadly-based interest is, in Fenwick's opinion, the 'massivechanges in the nature of work and its meaning for twenty-firstcentury workers', which have led to 'significant challenges totraditional models of learning and the role of the educator'1.This widespread interest, according to Heikkila and Makinen(2001), is also reflected in the 'numerous theoretical views oflooking at the process of learning at work'. In a number of thesetheoretical views, learning processes occupy a central role, whilein other views, work processes receive greater attention. In thefirst group of approaches, the emphasis is sometimes placed onthe development of the organisation and sometimes on that ofindividual learning processes (see, for example, Russ-Eft, 2001).In the second group, the focus is sometimes directed at societyand sometimes at the actual work processes. Common tovirtually all these approaches, however, is the conviction thatprocesses of learning and working are intertwined and that thecontext of learning is important.The large number of diverse theoretical ideas, which have,moreover, been developed from various disciplines, have led tovarious terms which denote the relationship between learningand work. Some authors speak of workplace learning, others ofwork-based learning and still others of work-related learning.The differences (and any similarities) between the terms are notentirely clear. In publications on work-related learning, usuallynone of the other terms are used. Heikkila & Makinen (2001)make clear that 'Work-related learning can be divided into twocategories: a) informal learning at a workplace and b) a periodof working as a part of formal education'. This term includeslearning that was initiated by regular education, regularvocational education (placements) and by 'forces' in and atwork. Work-based learning and workplace learning are used byseveral authors (for example, Fenwick, 2002; McIntyre, 2000;Sadler-Smith & Smith, 2001) side by side or interchangeably.Sadler-Smith & Smith (2001), like Raelin (in Sadler Smith &Smith), see work-based learning as 'a broad term thatencompasses many conceptualisations of learning and may bedefined in terms of learning for work at work and through work'.McIntyre (2000) appears to put a restriction on this by statingthat: 'Work-based learning, as distinct from workplace learningin general, refers to the formalisation of learning at work'. Hethus regards the first term as a sub-category of the second. Thisprobably also explains why authors (Streumer &van der Klink,2004; Sadler-Smith & Smith, 2001) speak of an umbrella term,which includes many forms of learning. The problem ofdefinition outlined here is further substantively elaborated inSection 1.3. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.

vocational training in dentistry in Ireland was first established in 1999 to introduce new graduates to the practice of dentistry and to provide general dental training. The vocational Dental Practitioner (VDP) spends two days per week in private practice, two days in the health board and one day on day-release attending lectures. Their salary is paid by the Health Service Executive (HSE). The VDP completes a portfolio book throughout the year to demonstrate their progress. vocational training is not currently mandatory in Ireland. However it does come highly recommended as an excellent start to any dental career.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the extent and nature of vocational education and Training (VET) vis-à-vis other forms of training in three size categories of small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from two industry sectors. Design/methodology/approach - The longitudinal panel data employed in this paper are drawn from the Business Longitudinal Survey (BLS) conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) over the four financial years 1994-1995 to 1997-1998. Findings - The results indicate that less than half of the enterprises in the three-size categories provide apprenticeship training and traineeships - and in the case of micro- and small business, VET in any other field for that matter - or used any of the widely recognised providers of accredited VET. While there is a positive association between enterprise size and the implementation of VET, nonetheless, the results demonstrate that small business investment in structured VET is minimal. The results also show that significant size-related and industry differences exist in training provision, methods, fields and providers in small business, with substantive differences occurring between small and medium-sized firms. Research limitations/implications - This paper relied upon a secondary data source, and is limited by the VET variables available in the BLS. Practical implications - The findings in the paper indicate that, at the micro-end of firm size, only the minority of firms provide training, suggesting that no matter what definition of VET is adopted, the majority of micro-businesses do not provide training. Originality/value - The paper focused exclusively on VET in SMEs in Australia, adding to the very few longitudinal inter-industry studies conducted to date that have explicitly examined the nature and extent of VET relative to other forms of training in small business. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.