From global advocacy to local resistance. Benin's experience of competency-based school curriculum

In the vein of the "Education for All" campaign to promote access to education, a wave of curriculum revision along the competency-based approach has swept francophone countries in sub-Sahara Africa, thus Benin. The current study documents local actors' various interactions with the curricular reform in the course of its implementation. Secondary data supplemented with qualitative research techniques such as semi-structured interviews with teachers, and focus group discussions with parents enable to relate the patterns of change, the challenges and resistance to change. The actors spectrum generated illustrates advocacy on one hand and resistance on the other. Advocacy of local actors reflects the global optimistic discourse on education and resistance is favoured by disappointing policy outcomes as well as contextual constraints. (DIPF/Orig.)

Three-capital approach to the study of young people who excel in vocational occupations: A case of WorldSkills competitors and entrepreneurship

This paper examines the entrepreneurial inclinations of young people who achieved excellence in vocational occupations. We propose a three-capital approach to the study of entrepreneurship. Relying on the existing theories and original qualitative and quantitative data analyses, findings from interviews with 30 entrepreneurial and 10 non-entrepreneurial WorldSkills competitors show that psychological capital, social capital and human capital can be combined to explore how young people who excel in vocational occupations develop entrepreneurial mindsets. We show that training for and participation in the largest vocational skills event globally - WorldSkills competition - develops selected aspects of three capitals. However, we also discover that the entrepreneurial motivation precedes competitors' involvement with WorldSkills. (DIPF/Orig.)