Search Results for
"education"

Purpose – The study examines how governance structures and systemic factors undermine technical and vocational education and training (TVET) workforce development, addressing key research gaps and offering actionable insights for reform. Design/methodology/approach – Utilizing a qualitative approach, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with 28 key stakeholders across Malaysia’s TVET landscape, including public and private sector representatives, policymakers, training providers, and industry experts. Findings – Findings indicate that fragmented governance and overlapping mandates hinder coordinated TVET efforts. Industry-academia collaboration remains weak, limiting alignment with labor market needs. Workforce readiness is affected by soft skills gaps and limited practical training. Policy implementation challenges include gender disparities and slow career progression. Originality/value – This study offers a unique contribution by critically examining how governance structures and systemic challenges undermine TVET workforce development, addressing gaps in the literature that often overlook these complexities. Unlike previous research focused on curriculum alignment or skills development, it highlights fragmented administration, equity concerns like gender disparities, and limited industry engagement as key barriers. Drawing on diverse stakeholder perspectives within Malaysia, the study provides actionable insights for reform, aiming to enhance the responsiveness, inclusivity, and effectiveness of TVET systems. Its governance-centric approach and focus on equity issues present valuable implications for global TVET discourse and policy development. © 2025 Emerald Publishing Limited

Background and Context: The rapid expansion of computer science (CS) as a mandatory subject in K-12 education has created an urgent need for qualified teachers. Alternative certification pathways have led to a diverse CS teaching workforce with varied educational and professional experiences. Teachers’ beliefs–encompassing their attitudes, assumptions, and perceptions–are pivotal in shaping classroom practices and student outcomes. However, little research explores how diverse certification pathways influence these beliefs. Objective: This study investigates subject- and educational related beliefs of German CS teachers from diverse professional backgrounds, examining how career pathways shape belief profiles and identifying key belief aspects in CS education. Method: Twenty-three German CS teachers from traditional teacher training, advanced training programs, and lateral entry pathways participated in semi-structured interviews. Beliefs were analysed using a content-structuring form of qualitative content analysis based on Mo’s (2020) framework, categorizing them into theoretical, action and contextual dimensions. Findings: Eight belief aspects were identified, including programming, thinking skills, practical orientation, and holistic understanding. Teachers exhibited three belief profiles: traditional degree holders emphasized thinking skills and holistic understanding; advanced training participants showed diverse profiles, often prioritizing media literacy; lateral entrants focused on practical applications and content matter. Implications: The findings highlight how different teacher training pathways shape beliefs and instructional approaches, underscoring the need for integrative teacher training that combines technical, pedagogical, and socio-cultural competencies. Such efforts are crucial for addressing teacher shortages and ensuring a balanced, comprehensive approach to CS education. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Our era calls for purposeful teachers to reimagine a sustainable and just society. This study investigated the influence of volunteer teaching, a form of service learning, on teachers’ purpose development in the context of teacher education in China. The life purpose of volunteer student teachers was examined and compared with that of their non-volunteer peers using the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (N = 601) and two open-ended questions (N = 524). Student teachers also reported how their purpose was connected to their teaching career. The findings revealed that volunteer teachers exhibited a higher sense of purpose, and the nature of this purpose differed from that of non-volunteers. Volunteer teachers were more capable of incorporating their professional purpose into their personal purpose. This study suggests that service learning has the potential to strengthen student teachers’ life purpose and identity as moral teachers with a beyond-the-self orientation in teaching. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The integration of digital fabrication technologies such as 3D modeling and 3D printing (3DMP) remains limited in vocational teacher education, despite their growing relevance in modern manufacturing and engineering industries. Pre-service vocational teachers (PSVTs) often lack structured opportunities to effectively develop the competencies needed to teach these technologies. This study investigates PSVT’s perceptions of a 3DMP-integrated instructional module designed for automotive component prototyping. Thirty-two students enrolled in the Vocational Automotive Technology education program at Universitas Negeri Semarang participated in hands-on activities using Shapr3D for modeling and 3D printing automotive components. Employing a mixed-methods design, this study combined pre- and post-surveys with qualitative reflections to evaluate changes in technical competencies and perceptions of the learning experience. Qualitative reflection in this study focuses on challenges and experiences related to 3DMP. The findings demonstrate significant improvements in students’ knowledge and skills related to 3D modeling and printing and positive perceptions of the experiential, practice-based approach. The integration of 3DMP enhanced students’ understanding of design processes, fostered collaboration, and increased their readiness to deliver industry-relevant instruction. These results highlight the importance of incorporating digital fabrication technologies into vocational teacher education to support innovation and prepare future educators for Industry 4.0 environments. Implications for vocational teacher education include embedding 3DMP across methods courses and investing in laboratory resources and faculty development. Programs should also foster partnerships between schools and industry to sustain practice-oriented training aligned with Industry 4.0. © The Author(s) 2025.

Abstract1The employment status of trainees and its influence on labour and social security rights and working conditions is still an unresolved issue. This article analyses the employment status and rights of vocational education trainees in Finland in the light of the EÚs Quality Framework for Traineeships (QFT), and the proposals for a reinforced QFT and a Traineeships Directive. In Finland, vocational education trainees are explicitly excluded from the category of employees. It is argued that this exclusion is not in accordance with the practice of the Court of Justice of the EU or with Finland’s own definition of an employment relationship, and has negative effects on the labour rights and social protection of vocational education trainees. Non-employed vocational education trainees have only limited protection as regards their working time, health and safety, information and equality rights, and their social protection is weaker than that of employees. Nevertheless, due to the Finnish universal social protection system, vocational education trainees are covered by mandatory social protection, which fulfils the requirements of formality, effectivity, adequacy and transparency. © The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

This study examines the evolution of blended learning (BL) research in higher education, focusing on its impact on English language proficiency (ELP) and alignment with Sustainable Development Goals. Using 200 Scopus-indexed articles published from 2020 to 2025, we applied Publish or Perish and VOSviewer for bibliometric analysis. Results show a pandemic-driven research surge, followed by a decline as institutions adapted. Thematic gaps emerged in the underuse of AI and gamification in ELP contexts. Geographic disparities were also evident, with minimal contributions from Global South regions. These patterns occurred because structural inequities limit digital access and research capacity in under-resourced areas. This analysis contributes by identifying emerging research priorities, supporting inclusive blended learning policies, and promoting South-South collaboration. The study has implications for advancing equitable and data-informed language education practices within hybrid learning models in alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 4 (Quality education) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities). © 2025, Universitas Negeri Makassar- Faculty of Languages and Literature. All rights reserved.

The effective integration of practical skills with theoretical knowledge remains a significant challenge in high school agricultural education. Traditional teaching methods often emphasize the transmission of theoretical knowledge, while neglecting the cultivation of practical skills. This imbalance hinders students’ ability to apply classroom learning to real-world agricultural activities. With technological advancements, mobile devices have created new possibilities for teaching, particularly in facilitating the convergence of theory and practice. Consequently, developing effective educational frameworks and integrating them with mobile devices to leverage these technologies and enhance student learning outcomes has become an important research direction in agricultural education. This study proposes a conceptual framework and scaffolding for agricultural learning using a field environment digest system on mobile devices to help students acquire agricultural knowledge in class. The purpose of this study is to explore students’ learning performance and improve their ability to integrate real-life agricultural activities with agricultural theory, with and without using Scaffolding for Agricultural Learning within the Field Environment Digest System (SALDS) framework in visual agricultural education. The results indicate that integrating the SALDS teaching framework into high school agricultural education not only deepens students’ understanding of agricultural knowledge, but also helps them synthesize theoretical knowledge and practical activities. © 2025 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into higher education is reshaping learning practices globally, including in Indonesia, where technological advancement intersects with the need to preserve local cultural values. This study examines Indonesian university students’ readiness for AI-based project learning that reinforces local wisdom. A quantitative survey was conducted across four universities to assess students’ technological literacy, attitudes toward AI in learning, and awareness of cultural value integration. The findings reveal that although students generally possess high levels of technological literacy, their readiness to apply AI-based project learning within culturally grounded contexts varies considerably. Key influencing factors include access to technological resources, prior exposure to AI applications, and institutional support. A significant positive correlation was identified between technological literacy and readiness, indicating that strengthening digital competence may enhance students’ preparedness for culturally contextualised AI learning. The study highlights the need for context-sensitive curricula and training that simultaneously foster technological fluency and cultural awareness, supporting inclusive and future-oriented educational practices. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Modernism and postmodernism are two opposed approaches that are directly related to how each human mind sees and perceives the world and how to make it better. In the Greek educational system, in both primary and secondary education, an effort is made to general restructure the curriculum by promoting the use of new teaching methods in the educational process. Through the presentation of the two opposing perspectives the evolution of knowledge into a more complex process, which aims at learning and specialization serving the purposes and goals of a society that moves within a globalized economic environment. The study adopted a qualitative approach through document analysis. Regarding the research, the official texts-legislations from the Ministry of education and Religions were used as the primary material to ensure the validity and reliability of the data. The documents used concerned the legislation contained in the reforms concerning the education system of Greece. The successful implementation of educational technology in schools does not depend solely on accessibility or the lack of any factor. It depends on a dynamic process that includes several interrelated factors, such as adequate support from managers, the existence of forecasting and planning of the supply chain to keep pace with new technological developments, equitable digital infrastructure of schools, acceptance the usefulness of the use of technology and the continuous information and acquisition of knowledge by teachers concerning information and communication technologies, as well as their correlation with innovative teaching methods. The flow of the study of the reforms of the Greek education system recognizes a smooth transition from the period of modernism to postmodernism, albeit with a delay compared to the rest of Europe. The continuous reforms in education have brought positive results in terms of the transformation of the public good of education into a postmodern version of it. Consistency and the need for improvement are guided by ensuring the quality of education and the preservation of the participants (students, teachers, families, and society) in it. However, it is worth noting that reform changes, which did not have substantial real changes, created an unstable environment, which hurt education itself. © 2025 by Author/s and Licensed by Modestum DOO, Serbia.

This study sought to assess the extent to which the Jubail Industrial College (JIC) Coop training program effectively accomplished its goal of imparting skills to student interns, as seen by managers and supervisors. The study employed a descriptive research design. A total of 200 respondents, comprising managers, supervisors, employers, and students who finished a 3-month internship, were given questionnaires consisting of 30 items with a 5-point Likert scale. The findings indicate that managers, supervisors, and employers of JIC students at different organizations in Jubail intimated that student interns demonstrated exceptional performance in verbal and written communication, active listening, creative thinking, and problem-solving capability; further, their interpersonal and teamwork capabilities; efficacy inorganizing tasks and leadership capabilities were observed to have improved tremendously. This study is the inaugural assessment conducted at JIC to evaluate the effectiveness of the Jubail Industrial College (JIC) Coop Training Program. The study contributes to our understanding of the practical significance of internship programs for students and their prospective employers in the sector. © The Author(s) 2025