Examining barriers to internationalisation created by diverse systems and structures in vocational education and training

In a global society, all educational sectors need to recognise internationalism as a core, foundational principle. Whilst most educational sectors are taking up that challenge, vocational education and training (VET) is still being pulled towards the national agenda in terms of its structures and systems, and the policies driving it, disadvantaging those who graduate from VET, those who teach in it, and the businesses and countries that connect with it. This paper poses questions about the future of internationalisation in the sector. It examines whether there is a way to create a VET system that meets its primary point of value, to produce skilled workers for the local labour market, while still benefitting those graduates by providing international skills and knowledge, gained from VET institutions that are international in their outlook. The paper examines some of the key barriers created by systems and structures in VET to internationalisation and suggests that the efforts which have been made to address the problem have had limited success. It suggests that only a model which gives freedom to those with a direct vested interest, students, teachers, trainers and employers, to pursue international co-operation and liaison will have the opportunity to succeed. (DIPF/Orig.)

Vocational education for the development of knowledge system in fisheries sector

The paper aims to give the concept and functional approach of knowledge system with reference to the fisheries sector. The background and strategies to develop knowledge workers by translating the concept of knowledge system are presented. The job opportunities given in the paper strengthen the need of the development of knowledge workers through vocational education and training. The Vocational Education Programme in the backdrop can be effective both in the formal system of education through different models suggested and through the non-formal system. The modular courses varying from 50 hours and 2-3 weeks to 6 months or one year can be introduced in the formal system as pre-vocational modules (50-h duration) in IX-X classes in vocational institutions, and the non-governmental organizations/Krishi Vigyan Kendras/Indian Council of Agricultural Research may offer occupation-based modules (2-3 weeks to 6 months). The strategic approach for the development of knowledge system highlighting various issues is also suggested.

ICT in vocational education and training: a view of information and communication technology in vocational education in New Zealand

This report looks at opportunities in relation to what is either already available or starting to take off in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). ICT focuses on the entire system of information, communication, processes and knowledge within an organisation. It focuses on how technology can be implemented to serve the information and communication needs of people and organisations. An ICT system involves a combination of work practices, information, people and a range of technologies and applications organised to make the business or organisation fully functional and efficient, and to accomplish goals in an organisation. Our focus is on vocational, workbased education in New Zealand. It is not about eLearning, although we briefly touch on the topic. We provide a background on vocational education in New Zealand, cover what we consider to be key trends impacting workbased, vocational education and training (VET), and offer practical suggestions for leveraging better value from ICT initiatives across the main activities of an Industry Training Organisation (ITO). We use a learning value chain approach to demonstrate the main functions ITOs engage in and also use this approach as the basis for developing and prioritising an ICT strategy. Much of what we consider in this report is applicable to the wider tertiary education sector as it relates to life-long learning. We consider ICT as an enabler that: a) connects education businesses (all types including tertiary education institutions) to learners, their career decisions and their learning, and as well, b) enables those same businesses to run more efficiently. We suggest that these two sets of activities are considered as interconnected parts of the same education or training business ICT strategy.

Residential heat pump installations: the role of vocational education and training

Meeting European emissions targets is reliant on innovative renewable technologies, particularly ‘renewable heat’ from heat pumps. Heat pump performance is driven by Carnot efficiency and optimum performance requires the lowest possible space heating flow temperatures leading to greater sensitivity to poor design, installation and operation. Does sufficient training and installer capacity exist for this technology? This paper situates the results of heat pump field trial performance in a socio-technical context, identifying how far installer competence requirements are met within the current vocational education and training (VET) system and considers possible futures. Few UK installers have formal heat pump qualifications at National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) level 3 and heat pump VET is generally through short-course provision where the structure of training is largely unregulated with no strict adherence to a common syllabus or a detailed training centre specification. Prerequisites for short-course trainees, specifically the demand for heating system knowledge based on metric design criteria, is limited and proof of ‘experience’ is an accepted alternative to formal educational qualifications. The lack of broader educational content and deficiencies in engineering knowledge will have profound negative impacts on both the performance and market acceptance of heat pumps. Possible futures to address this problem are identified.

Language and power in vocational education and training

In this paper I explore the way language is used in Training Packages, and the impact this language has when Training Packages are used to support work-based vocational programs. Training Packages are a fundamental component of the regulatory framework of the national vocational education and training (VET) system [in Australia]. The national strategy for VET places employers and individuals at the centre of VET, and policy commitments to access and equity are enshrined in the auditable standards of the Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF). Yet Training Packages and related official VET texts are written in an abstract, generalised and complex language form which acts as an insurmountable barrier to many people at the front line of VET. My PhD research (a work in progress) explores the proposition that this language form is representative of, and constructive in, unequal power relationships. Early data analysis suggests that VET practitioners and training participants talk about their experience of this language in terms of power and exclusion. In contrast, the official VET response generally leaves the official language form above challenge, and instead largely focuses on the presumed deficient language and literacy skills of those who are excluded by these texts.

The positioning of practitioners in vocational education and training research

What is the status and role of research in VET reform? How are the views of practitioners positioned in VET research and reform? What access do VET practitioners have to research that empowers them to critique current policy and practice? This paper explores the sequestions drawing on literature and also on my experience as a VET practitioner and researcher. The national VET research strategy supports a substantial research effort to inform policy and practice. However, in a complex and unstable VET environment, funded research focuses on implementation, rather than critique, of current directions. I argue that the complexity of the VET system gives rise to new research problems, and that VET practitioners have knowledge and insight to offer in exploring these problems. But I question the extent to which current VET consultation and research processes incorporate the views of practitioners. I illustrate these issues by providing a brief overview of my PhD research project, currently being conducted through the Faculty of Education, Deakin University. This project explores the proposition that the language form typically used in official national VET texts is representative of, and constructive in, unequal power relationships.

A Foucauldian strategy for vocational education and training research

Vocational education and training (VET) is an area of research dominated by positivist approaches. Such approaches complement the behaviourist educational philosophy known as 'competency-based training' (CBT) that underpins Australia’s VET system. This paper reflects on a quandary encountered by researchers examining the history of competency based education at a TAFE institution in South Australia. The issue was how to account for a series of mutations in the way CBT was understood and practised that subverted the largely unquestioned expectation of progress. The researchers found that Foucault’s 'genealogical' approach allowed for the construction of a mode of intelligibility that lends the history a disturbing cogency. At the centre of this construction is an understanding of CBT as a highly permeable system whose configurability supports the reticulation of multiple forms of power.

Language, power and ruling relations in vocational education and training

This thesis uses institutional ethnography to explore the text-based regulatory framework of the Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. Training Packages are national competency standards used to assess local workplace practice. The Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF) is a national compliance framework used to audit local learning and assessment practice. These texts operate in a ‘symbiotic relationship’ to achieve a policy goal of national consistency. The researcher explicates the social relations of VET starting from her disquiet as a practitioner. The thesis argues that Training Packages and the AQTF socially organise the content and delivery of local learning and assessment activities. VET practitioners struggle to use these texts to support good practice, and their hidden work maintains an unstable VET system. Yet the extralocal mode of ruling offers no room to challenge VET policy. The thesis explicates three themes. Interview data is used to explore the contrast between the institutional language of Training Packages and the vernacular of workplaces in which these texts are activated. Many practitioners and participants simply do not understand Training Package competency standards. Using these texts to judge employee performance shifts the policing of workplace practice from local sites to external VET authorities. A second theme emerges as the analysis explores why VET practitioners use this excluding language in their work with participants. Interview data reveals that local training organisations achieve different readings as they engage with ruling VET texts. Some organisations use the national texts as broad frameworks, allowing practitioners to create spaces for meaningful learning. Other organisations adopt a narrow and rule-bound reading of national texts, displacing practitioners’ authority over their own practice. A third theme is explored through examination of a sequence of VET texts. The review and redevelopment of the mandatory qualifications for VET practitioners identified the language of the competency standards as a significant accessibility issue. These concerns were reshaped and subsumed in an official response that established the use of this language as a compulsory assessable requirement and a language and literacy benchmark. The thesis presents a new understanding of VET as a regulatory framework established through multiple levels of ruling texts that connect local sites to national government agendas. While some individual practitioners are able to navigate through this system, there is an urgent need for practitioners as a profession to challenge national hegemony.

The diffusion of policy in contexts of practice : flexible delivery in Australian vocational education and training

Significant changes have occurred over the last decade within the Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) system. Not least amongst these has been a shift from a predominantly traditional face-to-face classroom model of programme delivery to more flexible models informed by the needs of clients. To lead this revolution, in 1991 the Australian Commonwealth and State Ministers for Training established the Flexible Delivery Working Party. A series of reports followed that sought to develop a policy framework, including a definition of flexible delivery, and its principles and characteristics. Despite these efforts, project funding and national staff development initiatives, several difficulties have been experienced in the ‘take-up’ of flexible delivery; problems that we argue are related to how the dissemination of innovative practice is conceived. Specifically, the literature and research on the diffusion of innovations points to the efficacy of informal social networks ‘in which individuals adopt the new idea as a result of talking with other individuals who have already adopted it’ (Valente, 1995, p. ix). Following a discussion of these issues, the article concludes by arguing the need for research of innovative practice transfer within VET in Australia, using qualitative case study in order to develop an in-depth and rich description of the process, and facilitate greater understanding of how it works in practice.

Gender Segregation in Vocational Education: Introduction

This introductory chapter develops the overall research focus and the aim of the present special issue ‘Gender segregation in vocational education’. Against the backdrop of strong horizontal gender segregation in vocational education and training (VET), we ask how institutional arrangements affect gendered (self-)selection into VET, and to what extent the patterns of the latter vary by context and over time. In order to expand our knowledge about the impact of educational offers and policies on gendered educational pathways and gender segregation in the labour market, we have gathered comparative quantitative studies that analyse the relationship between national variations in the organization of VET and cross-national differences in educational and occupational gender segregation from an institutional perspective. Following a review of the core literature within the field of gender segregation in VET, this introduction presents a discussion of education system classifications and institutional level mechanisms based on the contributions made in this volume. We then discuss gendered educational choices at the individual level, with particular emphasis on variation across the life course. Finally, we conclude our introductory chapter by commenting on the main contributions of the volume as a whole, as well as addressing suggestions for further research.

A comparison of the vocational training system of Britain and West Germany as experienced by minimum-age school leavers.

The sectoral and occupational structure of Britain and West Germany has increasingly changed over the last fifty years from a manual manufacturing based to a non-manual service sector based one. There has been a trend towards more managerial and less menial type occupations. Britain employs a higher proportion of its population in the service sector than in manufacturing compared to West Germany, except in retailing, where West Germany employs twice as many people as Britain. This is a stable sector of the economy in terms of employment, but the requirements of the workforce have changed in line with changes in the industry in both countries. School leavers in the two countries, faced with the same options (FE, training schemes or employment) have opted for the various options in different proportions: young Germans are staying longer in education before embarking on training and young Britons are now less likely to go straight into employment than ten years ago. Training is becoming more accepted as the normal route into employment with government policy leading the way, but public opinion still slow to respond. This study investigates how vocational training has adapted to the changing requirements of industry, often determined by technological advancements. In some areas e.g. manufacturing industry the changes have been radical, in others such as retailing they have not, but skill requirements, not necessarily influenced by technology have changed. Social-communicative skills, frequently not even considered skills and therefore not included in training are coming to the forefront. Vocational training has adapted differently in the two countries: in West Germany on the basis of an established over-defined system and in Britain on the basis of an out-dated ill-defined and almost non-existent system. In retailing German school leavers opt for two or three year apprenticeships whereas British school leavers are offered employment with or without formalised training. The publicly held view of the occupation of sales assistant is one of low-level skill, low intellectual demands and a job anyone can do. The traditional skills - product knowledge, selling and social-communicative skills have steadily been eroded. In the last five years retailers have recognised that a return to customer service, utilising the traditional skills was going to be needed of their staff to remain competitive. This requires training. The German retail training system responded by adapting its training regulations in a long consultative process, whereas the British experimented with YTS, a formalised training scheme nationwide being a new departure. The thesis evaluates the changes in these regulations. The case studies in four retail outlets demonstrate that it is indeed product knowledge and selling and social-communicative skills which are fundamental to being a successful and content sales assistant in either country. When the skills are recognised and taught well and systematically the foundations for career development in retailing are laid in a labour market which is continually looking for better qualified workers. Training, when planned and conducted professionally is appreciated by staff and customers and of benefit to the company. In retailing not enough systematic training, to recognisable standards is carried out in Britain, whereas in West Germany the training system is nevertheless better prepared to show innovative potential as a structure and is in place on which to build. In Britain the reputation of the individual company has a greater role to play, not ensuring a national provision of good training in retailing.

Maurer, Markus: Skill Formation Regimes in South Asia, A Comparative Study on the Path-Dependent Development of Technical and Vocational Education and Training for the Garment Industry (Komparatistische Bibliothek; Bd. 21). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang 2011 [Rezension]

Rezension von: Maurer, Markus: Skill Formation Regimes in South Asia, A Comparative Study on the Path-Dependent Development of Technical and Vocational Education and Training for the Garment Industry (Komparatistische Bibliothek; Bd. 21), Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang 2011 (449 S.; ISBN Skill Formation Regi)

The sources of inequity in the education system of Serbia and how to combat them

The concept of equal opportunity for all students is deeply embedded in the Serbian constitution and in education laws. On that level, there is no doubt that everyone is ensured an opportunity to receive quality education. Many measures in education policy have been created specifically to achieve this objective and make the system fair and inclusive. The Coleman Report was linked to a wave of optimism that certain educational measures would help in achieving these noble goals. This aim is a high priority in education in a democratic country, and due to its importance needs to be re-examined. Thus, the present research examines the equity of students in the Serbian education system, detecting areas on all educational levels that could be (or already are) systemic sources of inequity (e.g., criteria for preschool institution enrolment, the system of student awards, rationalisation of the school network, the concept of entrance exams to secondary school or university, etc.). A number of measures have already been taken in the system specifically to deal with inequity (e.g., the Preschool Preparatory Programme, dropout measures, inclusion, scholarships, etc.). The effects of these measures in particular are analysed in the present work. In addition to an analysis of the systemic sources of inequity in the Serbian education system, the article also makes recommendations for their overcoming. (DIPF/Orig.)

Driven entrepreneurial education in vocational schools

Vocational Education and Training (VET) is offered throughout the world to students of various educational backgrounds and career aspirations in an effort to create a skilled workforce. The structure of VET varies greatly across different fields and countries with high-growth, low-growth, and transitional economies. However, a common critique of many vocational institutions is that they focus on skills training without addressing related business systems. Thus, students may not understand the business strategies related to their field, which stifles job readiness and entrepreneurial potential. To counter this, a more context-driven and integrated entrepreneurial approach is proposed for VET. Benefits, disadvantages, and exemplars of various types of vocational and entrepreneurial programs are evaluated to determine how their strengths might be leveraged. Such integrated entrepreneurial and vocational training would more suitably address context-specific market needs via both practical and transferrable skills, thus helping to reduce unemployment, particularly among youth in sub-Saharan Africa. (DIPF/Orig.)

How should a vocational education and training course be evaluated?

The course evaluation process used by a large VET provider was evaluated using guidelines suggested by the course evaluation literature and feedback obtained from multiple stakeholders. A modified model is presented as an exemplar for course evaluation in the VET sector.