Search Results for
"Vocational education"

Over the last decades educational researchers and politicians have shown a growing interest in the concept of learning in practice, i.e. learning in the workplace. Learning in practice plays an important role in connection with lifelong learning, as the workplace is an obvious setting for realizing this aim. Theories about learning in practice often include a critique of school-based learning by seriously questioning the idea that learning in school can be transferred to action and by emphasizing the context dependence of learning and acting. This article contributes to the debate by pointing out some advantages of combining school-based and workplace-based learning. The results of a study of learning in a vocational education and training (VET) programme for sales assistants show that both the theoretical training in the VET school and the practical training in the workplace are necessary to develop competency. Furthermore, the results indicate that a careful matching of specific parts of the curriculum with the learning setting (the workplace or the school) may improve the trainees' achievements. The matching is not only useful in improving VET programmes but is also generally useful in planning lifelong learning as work-related education. © 2005 Tayior & Francis Ltd.

In recent years the provision of out-of-hours training for general practice (GP) registrars has become a difficult issue in the North Western Deanery and across the United Kingdom. The nature of out-of-hours care has changed, with a diminishing personal commitment by general practitioners (GPs) in favour of out-of-hours centres and co-operatives. Out-of-hours care now requires different skills and competencies from doctors providing it and there is less opportunity for GP registrars to gain experience if their trainers are undertaking less out-of-hours work. Similarly, the style of educational supervision for out-of-hours training has also changed. The New GMS Contract creates new challenges; it allows many GPs, including trainers, to Opt out' of out-of-hours care, with primary care trusts (PCTs) becoming the responsible organisations. The challenge for the deanery is how to ensure that provision of training and assessment of competence. A qualitative survey was conducted in the North Western Deanery, taking views from GP trainers and GP registrars about the provision of out-of-hours training and their concerns about that process. The purpose of the survey was to assess the most important objectives for out-of-hours training, checking the level of concordance of views between GP trainers and GP registrars; to determine current levels of activity in training and supervision by GP registrars and trainers, defining the level of exposure necessary to gain the desired competencies; and, using a qualitative method, identify themes and issues of importance and concern to be addressed by organisations involved in the provision of out-of-hours training. The results suggested that the average activity for out-of-hours duty for trainers was one to two sessions per month. This was matched by the level of duty by registrars as one to two per month, although there were difficulties matching sessions and supervision. Most trainers will opt out of out-of-hours care with the introduction of The New GMS Contract, and there are concerns from both GP trainers and GP registrars as to how out-of-hours training and supervision will be provided post contract. Both GP trainers and GP registrars favour a standardised model of out-of-hours training, with a clearly denned curriculum and competency assessment as opposed to the current 'number of sessions' approach. However, many GP registrars question the relevance of out-of-hours training given the changing agenda for primary care. The themes identified as important aims and objectives for out-of-hours training will provide a useful starting point for curriculum and assessment development. Managing emergencies; telephone communication and triage skills; gaining experience and expertise were ranked highly by both GP trainers and GP registrars. The higher skills, such as problem solving, negotiation, managing risk and uncertainty, were ranked more highly and identified more often by GP trainers than by GP registrars. As a result of the survey, areas of need have been identified across the deanery; there is widespread approval for the development of a standardised competency-based curriculum and assessment package. Key objectives have been identified and ranked and will form the basis of the curriculum. We propose to offer a model of competency-based training and assessment in those co-operatives where training and education is well developed, which could be commissioned by out-of-hours providers locally. This work was done to give guidance for a deanery policy on out-of-hours training for GP registrars. Its findings correlate with work done for the Committee of General Practice education Directors (COGPED) on key competencies, developing a competency-based log and implications of The New GMS Contract on out-of-hours training for GP registrars. The results from both papers have been used to develop a COGPED Out-of-hours Training Workbook, co-ordinated by Kent, Surrey and Sussex Deanery, setting standards nationally (in committee stage at time of writing). © 2005 Radcliffe Publishing Limited.

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The high rates of injury among young workers are a pressing public health issue, especially given the demand of the job market for new workers. Young and new workers experience the highest rates of occupational injuries of any age group. Incorporating occupational safety and health (OSH) information into the more than 20000 vocational and other workforce preparation programs in the United States might provide a mechanism for reducing work-related injuries and illnesses among young and new workers. We assessed the status of including OSH information or training in workforce preparation programs and found there is an inconsistent emphasis on OSH information.

Compiles an integrated series of comparative empirical analyses of education-to-work transitions in European Union countries. Individual chapters describe the educational background of young people entering the labour market, address the scope of educational expansion over the past decades, and chart basic structures of transition patterns in European labour markets. Moreover, several chapters examine the role of individual qualifications, and also the impact of recent employment turbulences and structural change in the economy on school leavers' integration into the labour market. From these, the structure of education and training systems emerges as a key institutional factor for facilitating smooth transitions into the labour market. At the level of intermediate skills, vocational training and apprenticeships have retained their advantages, in particular with respect to youth unemployment. As devaluation trends have empirically been limited so far, tertiary level qualifications similarly continue to provide a most attractive inroad into the upper segments of the occupational structure. Youth labour markets, in particular for low-skilled leavers, clearly deteriorated during the macroeconomic turbulences of the early 1990s, however. © Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

This book looks in detail at the strong contrasts in the provision traditionally made for 'academically' and 'vocationally' minded students, and looks at differences and similarities in practice. The chapters report evidence of how students on both sides think they have been taught. They also report on how those students prefer to learn, how their teachers define the kinds of learning appropriate for particular qualifications and how the organisation of learning for 'different but equal' qualifications was observed in forty schools and colleges. The book's main focus is on the objectives and processes of learning at a stage which is certainly being transformed, but which is still powerfully shaped by myths about the sixth form and education of 'leaders'. © 1997 Tony Edwards, Carol Taylor Fitz-Gibbon, Frank Hardman, Roy Haywood and Nick Meagher.

In both paid and unpaid work contexts adults learn powerfully from their experiences. In this book, the authors argue that this should be the basis for a new perception of what is truly educational in life. Drawing on the works of Aristotle, Wittgenstein and Russell, along with contemporary conceptual work, they use both philosophical argument and empirical example to establish their view. This work will be of essential interest to philosophers of education and educational theorists worldwide. It will also interest teachers, trainers, facilitators, and all those with an interest in adult and vocational education. © 2002 David Beckett and Paul Hager.

In a period of rapid social and economic change, labour markets are undergoing major transformations. This book explores the changing fortunes of young people in Europe’s flexible and precarious labour markets and the range of policies that are being developed to help them deal with the problems they face. The book draws on recent research carried out across Europe to highlight a number of key dilemmas for youth policy: what help is needed for young people and their parents in coping with lengthened transitions from school to work? What types of training and education are most effective? Is a switch from general to vocational education needed? Is workfare the right solution? The contributors, who are all leading authorities in the field, challenge the conventional wisdom in many of these areas. The book will be of interest to those researching and studying labour markets and youth policy, and to policy-makers and practitioners in these fields. © Harriet Bradley and Jacques van Hoof 2005.

The following outline of a workplace landscape of learning is one way of charting some of the learning resources outside of the current educational system. Whereas learning in schools has been extensively researched, workplace learning has enjoyed less attention from educational researchers. The purpose of this chapter is to describe key learning resources at the workplace. vocational students tend to prefer learning their profession in the workplace rather than at school. In the dual system of vocational training in the Scandinavian countries, students spend part of their four years of training in a workplace and part of it at school. In a Danish questionnaire survey, the majority expressed a preference to learning their profession in a workplace rather than at school (Nielsen, 2003a). Similarly, a Norwegian study found that more than 90% expressed how they preferred the workplace to the school (Mjelde, 2003). © Elena Antonacopoulou, Peter Jarvis, Vibeke Andersen, Bente Elkjaer and Steen Høyrup 2005 and contributors 2005.

This article considers teaching and learning as a collaborative enterprise in the workplace. The empirical data have been extracted from a field study among apprentices engaged in electromechanical vocational training and education in a major Danish industrial company. Typically, studies of apprenticeship learning do not view aspects of teaching as decisive parts of workplace learning. In this article, I will pin down the specific character of collaborative teaching and learning in the workplace, and compare this with the features of a teaching situation in school with a teacher transmitting knowledge to the pupils. While instruction at school is organised as part of a specifically planned teaching situation, the instruction in the workplace is a more loosely organised part of the joint activity structure of the daily work tasks. The conclusions reached in the article should be useful for the conceptual understanding of instruction and teaching in workplace learning, as well as for policy makers and professionals responsible for the design of apprenticeships and workplace learning. © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.