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Vocational education and training (VET) systems are currently confronted with extensive reforms. Teacher commitment and active participation play an important role in the achievement of policy objectives. Contemporary education reforms therefore seek to shape the conduct of teachers not only through strict regulations but also by subtle and persuasive means. The aim of this paper is to shed light on these indirect forms of governance and to show how they influence the professional behaviour of VET teachers. Foucault's governmentality perspective is used as an analytical framework for investigating education policies and their impact on teacher professionalism in VET. It allows a systematic exploration of the powerful reform mechanisms that structure teachers' possible field of action. In the narratives of teachers working in full-time vocational schools in Austria, who face comprehensive reform measures within the scope of the Austrian VET Quality Initiative, the 'conduct of conduct' of teachers is exemplified. The analysis suggests that governmental power mechanisms in VET operate 'at a distance' and include expertise, professional responsibility and inscription, which shape teachers' conduct in various ways. In part, teachers integrate these practices and procedures into their professional self-conceptions. At the same time, critique and other forms of resistance are apparent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the recent policy reform of occupational qualifications in South Africa is not substantially different from previous qualifications composed of unit standards and learning outcomes. The transition to democracy in the 1990s saw the introduction of a National Qualifications Framework (NQF) for post-school education. The framework adopted a model similar to competency-based training (CBT), where qualifications used unit standards and learning outcomes as a design template. Many problems ensued; amongst other concerns, researchers demonstrated that unit standards fragment learning by focusing on task performance at the expense of knowledge. Substantial changes were made in 2009, including the introduction of the Occupational Qualifications Sub-Framework of the revised NQF. Occupational qualifications are designed using a template to standardise the format of occupational standards and knowledge, practical skills, and work experience modules for the curriculum framework. For policymakers, occupational standards represent broad notions of competence based on occupational practice. The development of an occupational qualification is guided by a template for the process of deriving the curriculum framework from occupational standards. However, my research suggests that occupational qualifications based on occupational standards are further elaborated work tasks that are then used to develop curriculum framework contents, which further entrenches CBT approaches and their associated problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occupational expertise has always been constituted and afforded recognition and status in work contexts, however, these contexts are becoming increasingly interconnected and interrelated, underpinned by, 'intangible assets'. To explore this complex process and its implications for vocational education and training (VET), this article uses the concept of expertise as a 'capacity for action' and its emphasis on the communicative dimension of expertise. It explores the implications of these ideas by identifying, firstly, the ways in which knowledge is produced, consumed, adapted, and discarded through work practices and, secondly, how the valuing of expertise arises from the contexts in which its deployed and shaped. The paper concludes with a framework to show how the necessary components for the development of expertise as a 'capacity for action' within VET programmes could be portrayed. It argues that this could offer the means to strengthen the capacity of VET learners (at whatever stage) to both utilise their expertise and understand how it is being recognised and valued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, which takes the form of a dialogue, we discuss the possible directions that vocational education might take in the contemporary social, economic and technological context of the early 21st century. Taking account of the unresolved debates around vocational education internationally and future global economic demands for expertise we discuss tensions and dichotomies that continue to shape the character of vocational education by questioning definitions of the 'vocational' historically and in current policy. These include: the relation between 'vocational' and 'academic' pathways and the possibility of their integration, the meaning of technical education, the purpose of vocational qualifications, the role of trade unions and employers, and whether there should be a 'skills route' for 'low attainers'. The principal focus is on the English context, although the discussion draws on comparative examples where relevant, as well as broader factors likely to be significant in any country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vocational education and training (VET) is linked to many social and economic goals. Yet despite the high policy ambitions, it often remains a sector with a low(er) social standing. This paper is based on empirical data collected through interviews and focus groups with over 250 young women and men aged 16–18 in 34 VET schools in Romania. It aims to gain a better understanding of their perceived reasons for being in VET and seeks to find out the extent to which VET involved an element of choice. The paper explores a large array of circumstances that bring young people into VET, which are not limited to the need to acquire skills. These issues include localism, family obligations and the priorities of powerful 'others': schools, employers, etc. It argues that, despite young people actively searching for elements of choice, VET in Romania is more a story of capability deprivation. This paper questions a policy discourse that prioritises the need for skills at the expense of engaging meaningfully with young people's social worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil faces complex challenges regarding the need to pursue economic growth coupled with the inclusion of diverse segments of society, including people with disability. This paper seeks to highlight historical aspects about the insertion of people with disability in the Brazilian labour market, to secure the need for public policies to guarantee the rights of persons with disability, to reveal some steps the country has taken in this direction, especially in the intersection between vocational training initiatives, mainly in apprenticeship programmes, and the labour market. The paper also highlights some contradictions and obstacles in this path as well some measures adopted for a possible overcoming and development in the inclusion of people with disability in the labour market through vocational education. Adopting bibliographical research regarding people with disability and apprenticeship programmes, we concluded VET programmes for this group helps everyone involved, promoting diversity among the labour market and improving organisational culture of companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An apprenticeship levy was introduced in England in 2017 to help the government meet its target of 3 million apprenticeships between 2015 and 2020. Training levies have been, until recently, something of an anathema in public policy circles in England with most having been abolished by the mid-1980s as the government moved towards creating a flexible, de-regulated labour market. So why would an apprenticeship levy now produce better results? In this paper, we analyse in-depth employer interviews carried out in 2016 to identify possible impacts of the levy on businesses' approaches to apprenticeships. We consider whether, ex ante, the levy was expected to result in: more apprentices being trained; reconfiguration of existing training structures into apprenticeships; employers 'gaming' the system, with levy funds being used but not producing real gains in training; or, employers writing off the levy. These findings are presented alongside data on apprenticeship starts since the levy's introduction. We discuss the dramatic fall in apprenticeship starts relative to pre-levy numbers. Given the latest figures and our ex ante study of employers, it appears as though even such wide-sweeping change to the programme may do little to overcome longstanding, low levels of employer demand for apprenticeships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The marked and persistent gender segregation in apprenticeship has been well documented. The social construction of 'male' and 'female' jobs is a key factor in the gendered patterns evident in career choice. Research on young women who have chosen careers in male-dominated occupations risks constructing them as 'Other', typically concluding that rather than challenging the gender binary, the women would reinforce it, echoing 'tomboy' identities according to which girls are aligning themselves with boys whilst devaluing femininity. Based on biographical interviews, this paper explores the role of gender in the career decision-making of one German and one English woman motor mechanic apprentice. It illustrates the strongly normative but highly contextual nature of gender as the two women negotiate identities in their quests to live 'liveable lives'. It will be argued that the rich and multi-faceted experiences of these two young women belie stereotypical accounts of gender, suggesting acceptable ways of being in male workspaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition from vocational education and training to regular employment is an important step in the occupational biography of apprenticeship graduates. In the last decade, the retention rate of apprenticeship completers has remained stable at a high level, and graduates face good job opportunities in Germany. Despite these positive circumstances, not all apprenticeship graduates succeed in the direct transition from vocational training to regular employment and are affected by unemployment. My paper offers deeper insights into training establishment-specific, individual and external regional characteristics that influence the transition process at this crucial point in the employment career. I consider the employment status of apprenticeship graduates by estimating multinomial logit models at three time points after the end of training, namely, one month and one and two years later. Using linked employer-employee data, I find evidence not only that sociodemographic characteristics and training establishment-specific determinants affect the transition at the second threshold but also that regional factors influence the probability of becoming unemployed or remaining with the training establishment after the end of the apprenticeship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many countries, the contours of skills formation systems are traced back to early struggles over control of apprenticeship. This paper uses a curriculum lens to examine two distinctive policy moments in the history of formal apprenticeships in South Africa and to trace the legacy imprint of direct and indirect race-based exclusion as well as the imprint of educational deprivation in social class terms. The policy trajectory shows how an apprenticeship curriculum that had to cater for White working-class youth with low educational credentials led to a steady erosion of the formal knowledge component of the curriculum in favour of practical workplace experience. Alongside race-based exclusion, a neglect of science-based knowledge emerges as a lasting curriculum legacy of apprenticeship trajectories under conditions of segregation, Apartheid and their colonial precursors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper chronicles and analyses the expansion and contraction of the Australian apprenticeship system from 1985 to 2020. The system expanded from a small number of occupations, mainly in craft and manufacturing areas, to include many other occupations, notably in the different types of service sectors. The expansion was achieved primarily through a new type of apprenticeship, known as a traineeship, to augment the existing more traditional apprenticeships. Since 2012, the system has contracted considerably, and the participation rate of women has been affected disproportionately. The period of expansion of the system was book-ended by two major government-instigated documents, in 1985 and 2011. In 1985 a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into Labour Market Programs proposed the introduction of traineeships, and in 2011 an Expert Panel on Apprenticeships sought to reduce numbers through the application of specific criteria for government support, which primarily affected the occupations served by traineeships. Two sources of evidence are used to examine the expansion and contraction of the apprenticeship system: data from the national apprenticeship statistics collection maintained by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) and key government reports over the 35 years. A brief overview of COVID-19-related developments in 2020 is included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Referring to historical debates and theories on vocational education and training (VET) since the 19th century and developments up to the present day, this paper considers the cultural conditions that were relevant for the emergence and legitimisation of vocational education and training and, in particular, the dual principle of apprenticeships in Germany and Switzerland. With reference to the theories of German Vocational Education Theory that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century and the concept of vocation (Beruf), i.e. the merging of occupation-based work and education, as it was propagated in particular by Georg Kerschensteiner, the development and establishment of dual vocational training in Germany and Switzerland is reconstructed, in line with what became the institutional framework of apprenticeships in the two countries. It is above all the focus on education in schools through Bildung as a pedagogical concept reaching beyond what may technically be associated with skill formation for jobs, but also the understanding that VET should be given a reliable institutional framework, that were crucial for the emergence and establishment of the modern VET system in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturing in advanced open economies has experienced significant disruption. Rapid technological change, outsourcing and off shoring have beset manufacturing resulting in a general and steady decline in manufacturing employment. Despite this turbulence, there remains a strong nostalgia for manufacturing resulting in frequent public policy discussion about how best to revitalise the industry. A popular view is that a strong manufacturing industry relies upon an equally strong vocational, education and training (VET) system to provide requisite skill needs. Given the dramatic pace of change in the manufacturing industry do such arguments still hold true? This paper considers this question through an examination of what the revitalisation of US manufacturing means for employment and skills needs and the extent to which US's decentralised and largely eroded VET system serves as a barrier to the industry's revitalisation. Drawing upon a mixed method approach that includes primary and secondary data collected in three US cities, the paper argues that the focus on needing to have a strong VET system overlooks the emergence of flexible micro-skill ecosystems that evolve to address local skill needs. These micro skill eco-systems open the prospects for skills and training innovations to meet changing workforce needs in a changing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective training systems are based on the cooperation of multiple public and private stakeholders in order to work. However, such cooperation is not self-sustaining and depends, for instance, on public policies, capable intermediary organisations and shared logics of action. In this conceptual paper, we first review the political economy literature on cooperation in collective skill formation and find that it has given insufficient attention to the systematic comparative analysis of cooperation at the decentralised level as well as the actual social practices of cooperation. The paper then develops a multidisciplinary analytical framework that allows future research to examine decentralised cooperation at the regional, sectoral and occupational levels more systematically. This framework is grounded in a synthesis of three strands of empirical research on vocational education and training, namely the comparative political economy literature on governance, corporatism and coordination, institutional labour and societal economics as well as the educational science literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary education reforms that draw ideas from the political and economic fields are said to be altering the nature of vocational education. While there are substantial policy studies on the effects of marketisation reforms, fewer analyse the perspectives of vocational educators on such reforms. How vocational educators negotiate the potential clash of values when marketisation reforms are enacted within the sector remains relatively unexplored. This paper aims to incorporate these perspectives in order to explore and help explain the responses of vocational educators to such changes. To do so the paper draws on concepts from Legitimation Code Theory, a sociological framework for analysing practices and beliefs. Specifically, it enacts 'autonomy codes', which reveal how external forces impact upon the internal practices of a social field. These concepts are used to analyse the beliefs and perceptions of a group of vocational educators in Australia who are undergoing marketisation reforms. The analysis suggests that many educators are experiencing a growing 'code clash' between the goals they attribute to reforms and their own beliefs about public education and the expectations of their students, one which problematises their capacity to reconcile these sets of values and colours their views of changes in the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

England’s Further Education (FE) sector is in permanent flux with policy interpretations and translations taking place at multiple levels within increasingly large and complex multi-site organisations. Devolved responsibility gives managers considerable influence in policy enactment processes which can lead to within-college tensions between vocational and mathematics teachers. This paper examines two within-college policies affecting students’ mathematics learning opportunities: (1) subject choice, and (2) examination entry levels. These policies have produced inequitable opportunities for students on different vocational study programmes. Given the strategic importance of improving mathematics education, this paper explains how multiple actors and structures interact in the enactment of policy in complex FE college settings. Such understandings are needed to inform better policy design and implementation that in turn can improve mathematics education in Further Education colleges in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptualisations about teachers and teaching have important implications for teachers' practice, expectations of their practice, their initial education and continuing professional development. This paper presents empirical data from a qualitative multiple case study to discuss conceptualisations of good teaching in Australia's Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. It argues that the sector's contemporary discourse, influenced by neoliberalist reforms and accompanied by the development of a culture of performativity, reflects a predominantly 'reductionist' approach to conceptualising teaching – one which seeks to atomise teaching to produce a prescriptive list of capabilities VET teachers need in order to teach well. There exists, however, an alternative, more holistic approach which focuses on the personal, recognising the importance of the individual teacher, and while reductionist approaches may help to identify some of the capabilities required by VET teachers and adequately serve some instrumental and performative purposes, they largely overlook the importance of the unique characteristics of the individual teacher. Developing ways to describe VET teaching using a holistic approach may help to provide an even more insightful and comprehensive understanding of 'good' VET teaching, which may in turn inform strategies for the education and development of VET teachers in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyse the effects of workers' self-rated attitudinal skills and their performance on vocational skills tests on their wage. The survey was conducted with garment workers who had experience of less than three years in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The constituting elements of attitudinal skills were examined using the questionnaire for the workers. Meanwhile, a vocational skills test was conducted with the same population and graded by the employers and the vocational schools' teachers. We found that the attitudinal skills, i.e. the desire to maintain a clean and tidy workplace and to follow the rules, are associated with higher earnings. Vocational skills, which are more likely to be rewarded by higher salaries, include sewing and patternmaking. We also found that the interaction between patternmaking, sewing, and attitudinal skills yielded higher returns. Interestingly, our results show that at higher levels of attitudinal skills, workers with high sewing skills, and high patternmaking skills earned a higher wage. Our results are robust to alternative measures of attitudinal skills that correct for reference bias and different specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide, educational policies increasingly focus on students' intercultural competency development (ICD). But educational institutions struggle with its implementation due to difficulties concerning 1) explicating educational goals for ICD and 2) developing teaching, learning and assessment activities that foster this development. The paper describes the development of the Rubric ICD and two interlinked studies aimed to explore how this tool can help to explicate intercultural competence development in (higher) vocational curricula in the Netherlands. The first study, combining five teacher group interviews (n = 15), explores how the Rubric ICD helps to identify challenges and possibilities for explicitly integrating ICD in vocational curricula. The second study, involving 116 students going on international internships, examines if the Rubric ICD helps to explicate and examine students' thinking about ICD before and after their international internships. The studies showed that ICD is still mostly implicit in vocational curricula and students' learning. The Rubric ICD was found helpful for explicating ICD in various elements of vocational curricula and for reflecting on and coaching students' intercultural learning. The studies also revealed that teachers' professional development regarding ICD is needed and that the Rubric ICD could be helpful in that respect as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vocational universities are increasingly becoming susceptible to pressures associated with the phenomenon known as 'academic drift'. Yet the specific influence of such pressures is experienced differently at various institutional levels and by different stakeholders in such universities. Exploring lecturers' understanding and perceptions of student academic writing can make visible the ways in which these pressures are realised, for example, in the types of writing given value and writing pedagogies deemed suitable in the context of the vocational university. In this paper, we report on an ethnographically shaped study exploring lecturers' writing pedagogies and perceptions of students as academic writers at a South African vocational university. The study analytically illustrated how wider socio-political, regulatory and ideological framings of these universities were implicated in lecturers' writing practices and pedagogies. The study found that lecturers and students were generally constricted by narrow vocationalist agendas, which reinforced negative conceptions of students as academic writers. Our findings suggest that while the explicit impact of academic drift drivers was minimally felt at the undergraduate diploma level of study in our research site, this appeared to close off the potential for writing to act as a means to facilitate students' epistemic access to their disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the realisation of competence-based education (CBE) in vocational education in Indonesia. It examines the extent to which CBE design principles of the Comprehensive Competence-Based Education Framework developed in a Western context exist in Indonesian policy documents and school practices. This study reviews educational policy documents and collects cross-sectional survey data from 41 school principals, 453 teachers, and 2219 students from 41 agricultural vocational schools in five provinces of Java, Indonesia. Results showed that the ten CCBE principles listed in the framework exist to large extent in Indonesian policy documents. School principals, teachers, and students noticed the realisation of CCBE principles in the study programme to differing degrees, except for the principle of flexibility that was largely absent. The level of CBE implementation varied, from the level of starting competence-based to that of largely competence-based education. The findings contribute to the discussion of CCBE design principles and lesson learned of CBE implementation in a non-western perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews literature that explores the role of judgement in professional practice. It discusses how workplace decisions, work activities and reflection on these activities may contribute to the development of wise judgements, or 'wisdom', and how workplaces can leverage these activities for induction and transition to work programmes. This review of the literature is prompted by survey results inviting engineering graduates and professionals to identify the capabilities they believe are most significant to success in the engineering workplace. The requirement for sound professional judgement resonates in participant responses. The paper summarises views of expertise, the relationship between experience and the development of professional judgement and the broader contribution of expansive and participatory learning environments to developing professional judgement. It concludes that the organisation of work and job design can facilitate the articulation of new engineers to professional practice, and that organisational learning programmes can leverage workplace activities to foster wise judgement in graduate engineers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights troubling patterns within the Australian School-based Apprenticeships and Traineeships (SBATs) by analysing statistical data of 21,000 of 15–19 year old apprenticeship/traineeship learners engaged in Vocational Education and Training in School (VETiS). It confirms the alignment of social groups to certain qualification fields and levels and provides a compelling picture of the learner profile of SBAT including the type of occupations and qualifications being undertaken at school level. In a complex policy environment, where VET in Schools has been assigned the important task of preparing ‘workforce job-ready’ students for the ‘high skill and high earning roles our economy demands’, we argue that the SBAT pathway is not yet adequate to meet these high expectations. It is not an effective apprenticeship pathway as it potentially ‘locks-in’ already disadvantaged young people to precarious pathways, and reinforces the nature of an already highly gender-segregated Australian labour market. The paper helps to focus attention on endemic weaknesses in the Australian VET system that serve to entrench disadvantage in Australian society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the experiences and perceptions of a little-known category of in-service trainee teachers in the Further Education (FE) and Skills sector in England: those who meet the practical teaching requirements of their course mainly through unpaid teaching as ‘volunteers’. The paper reports findings from mixed-methods research which used surveys, interviews and focus groups involving trainee teachers within a large FE–HE partnership. Themes relating to motivations to volunteer, the development of teacher identity within marginal roles, and the risks associated with unpaid teaching are discussed. For increasing numbers of trainees, unpaid teaching provides an opportunity for career entry. However, the quality of teaching experience gained is mixed, with some trainees receiving high levels of support, whilst others experience marginalisation and limitations on their developing teacher identities. The paper highlights the specific challenges to professionalism posed by unpaid teaching within the FE and Skills sector, and relates these challenges to a broader context of insecurity and risk. As work experience becomes an increasingly valuable commodity, this paper illustrates the pressures individuals face as they exchange payment and security for the opportunities volunteering provides. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The poor outcomes in education, training and employment achieved by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia have been well documented. The transition from a traditional Indigenous society to the statuses of mainstream Australian society has been, and continues to be problematic for Indigenous Australians. The participation in vocational education and training (VET) and employment outcomes for Indigenous Australians has been historically much lower than for non-Indigenous Australians. The aim of this paper is to undertake a targeted review of the existing literature and research into the participation and engagement of Indigenous Australians in VET through a content analysis of three VET based journals, nationally funded VET research and a VET database. The findings point to the publishing of very little research in academic journals however research funded through the National Centre for Vocational Education Research appears to be a prime source of published grey literature. The paper proceeds to discuss the findings in the light of a proposed future research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses experiences of racism and racial discrimination of seven refugee immigrants attending different courses at two Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institutes in South East Queensland, Australia. In doing so, the paper draws from two studies that focused on resettlement of refugee immigrants in Australia. A transformative psychosocial approach is used to explore the students’ experiences of racism and racial discrimination at the TAFE institutes. Acknowledging the historical constructions of racism in Australia, the paper proposes an anti-racism framework to buttress the students against experiences of racial discrimination at the TAFE institutes. The proposed anti-racism framework has three components; theNational Anti-Racism Strategy, the vocational and education system and TAFE institutes and individual refugee immigrant students. TheBubalamai Bawa Gumadais suggested as a possible anti-racism strategy that could enable the refugee immigrant students challenge racial discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black and minority ethnic students (BME) are a significant constituency in vocational education and training (VET) and FE in England. Despite this recent research on race and VET has become a marginal concern. Insofar as current VET research addresses social justice, race appears to be a supplementary concern. Although there is a substantial literature addressing race and education, this focuses primarily on schools and higher education. This paper examines why there is a need to develop a research agenda that analyses participation, outcomes and experiences of BME VET students, particularly those on ‘non-advanced’ programmes (equivalent to European Qualification Framework Level 1–3) with uncertain labour market outcomes and who are arguably being ‘warehoused’ in low status courses. The paper reflects on the historically specific reasons for the dearth of research on race and VET, drawing on a scoping exercise of the literature to evidence this. We conclude by offering a provisional analysis that identifies recent shifts in participation among BME groups, locating this in its socio-economic and historical context. Our analysis reaffirms that VET remains a significant educational site for BME groups, but it is a complex racialised site which makes the current neglect of race and VET in academic research deeply problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing volume of international students enrolled in the vocational education and training sector in many countries. However, questions of ethnicity and identity in VET have not been explicitly examined in relation to this group. This paper offers some valuable insights into the complex and varying ways in which ethnicity is interrelated to the issues of identity of international students who have non-citizen status in the host country. It draws on a four-year qualitative study funded by the Australian Research Council that includes 105 interviews with international students and fieldwork in VET institutes across three states of Australia: New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. The research highlights forms of injustice including non-recognition of skills due to skin colour, disadvantage with regard to employment opportunities, being positioned as deficient in the classroom and workplace, unjust stereotypes and violation of rights. The research also reports international students’ specific strategies in exercising both individual and collective agency to seek a ‘space’ for comfort, mutual support and communal strength and to confront injustices. The paper concludes with some practical recommendations for institutions to support international students’ agency and build an inclusive environment for international students in VET. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to common indicators such as the prestige of vocational education and training (VET), enrolment rates in initial VET (IVET) programmes, or the involvement of private partners, the Swiss VET system enjoys a high standing. In this paper, we took a different approach and examined the effects of educational resources (educational degree) and personal resources (core self-evaluations, CSE) on graduates' job resources (learning opportunities, job control, social relations) and career success (career satisfaction, salary). The study included 1507 persons who were allocated to three groups: 1) IVET graduates without higher education degrees (N = 585), 2) IVET graduates with a higher education degree (N = 395), and 3) graduates from general education with a university degree (N = 527). We found that IVET graduates who did not pursue any higher education had fewer learning opportunities in their jobs and lower salaries than university graduates. The job resources and salary levels of IVET graduates with a higher education degree only differed a little from those of university graduates. Higher levels of CSE were related to more job resources, higher salaries and greater career satisfaction. The study underscores the importance of fostering employees' personal resources and providing learning opportunities to all workers independent of the level of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to ascertain the factors by which Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) affect the employability of graduates in Mumbai, India. The ITIs are major providers of VET in India. Presently, India is part of a skilling revolution with the goal of providing superior quality formal skill training to 400 million people by the year 2022. Consequently, the ITIs are receiving a great deal of attention at the national level. Applying a qualitative approach, data were collected from 15 students, 21 staff members (teaching and non-teaching) and 13 employers associated with the ITIs in the city and suburban area of Mumbai. The findings show a distinct set of six factors by which ITIs affect the employability of graduates—by imparting knowledge and skill, affecting students' attitude and expectations, providing apprenticeship, signalling favourable characteristics, acting as an intermediary between the industry and the graduates and helping build social networks. The conclusion is that ITIs can incorporate strategies to actively enhance the employability of graduates by leveraging these factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, high school career and technical education (CTE) is the primary source of vocational training at the secondary level, and is similar in goal if not form to vocational education and training (VET) worldwide. CTE has evolved in the past decade to place greater emphasis on programmes in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), mirroring parallel changes in the economy. Little is known, however, about how the rise of STEM CTE programmes have affected participation for students of different backgrounds, and how changes in participation interact with changes in programme offerings. In this paper, we use administrative data from the state of Massachusetts to first document the expansion of CTE and STEM CTE programmes over a decade. We then estimate what student-level factors are associated with participation, including gender, race, socioeconomic status, first language, and disability. We identify important variation in programme participation, particularly among groups historically overrepresented in CTE, and underrepresented in STEM. Leveraging Massachusetts as a case study, we discuss implications for the STEM pipeline and other state and local contexts. Similarly, as VET programmes across many nations consider who has access to what programmes, lessons from Massachusetts may inform policies to ensure equitable access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a Probit regression model to empirically examine the characteristics of participants in upper-secondary technical and vocational education (TVE), relative to upper-secondary academic schools. Using a nationally representative dataset from China, this study finds that compared with academic schools, participants of upper-secondary TVE tend to come from relatively disadvantaged family backgrounds, particularly in terms of parental education levels. Given TVE enrols a significant proportion (38%) of students at the upper-secondary level, these findings call for government policies aimed at improved equality in education access. This study also finds that students of secondary specialised schools, the most selective type of TVE schools, are more likely to be females. This first empirical study on TVE enrolment in China, the largest developing country, significantly adds to the literature on vocational education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the effect of a secondary job on the intention to quit an apprenticeship in Germany. For the empirical approach, the representative German, firm-level study 'BIBB Survey Vocational Training from the Trainees Point of View 2008' conducted by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) is used. In this study, 5901 apprentices were interviewed during their second year of apprenticeship. To date, literature on early contract cancellation in Vocational Education and Training uses income itself as a determinant, but neglects the consequences of low income during apprenticeship, such as the need for a secondary job and possible secondary-job-related burdens. The probit regressions show a higher intention to quit if apprentices require a secondary job to cover their living costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although vocational education and training (VET) is often sidelined in policy debates about innovation and how to promote it, some research and theory highlights ways the sector does contribute. VET can be, for example, positioned as an instrument of 'knowledge diffusion' and thereby an active element in so-called 'innovation systems'. But the role of work placement students in the overall contribution of VET to innovation has not been directly considered. This paper presents research into the possibility that VET placement students may indeed play such a role. This qualitative project involving an exploratory phase and four case studies indicates that placement students can, in some circumstances, play a discernible role in knowledge diffusion. The research also suggests that there are cases where students can play a direct role in small-scale innovation in the practice of organisations. At the same time, the research suggests employers, training provider staff and students themselves are influenced by stereotypes that may make it difficult to anticipate and acknowledge such innovation. With some work on stakeholder attitudes, it may be possible to tap into a hidden source of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper brings together concepts drawn from Actor Network Theory and data generated in a research project that was conducted across the island of Ireland. Using surveys and interviews with school staff, that research explored the limits and possibilities for workplace learning as a valued component of the senior school curriculum. The current paper works with the data from the Republic of Ireland only and brings into focus the full range of actors – both human and nonhuman – that generate, or constrain, productive workplace learning opportunities for students. In the wake of the Great Recession, it is suggested that such opportunities have gained increased importance. The analysis suggests attention to the full range of actors highlights areas for intervention, and the possibilities for alliances that may be beneficial for students and their schools, for employers who provide workplace learning placements, and for vocational learning itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The links between vocational qualifications and occupational destinations are weak in many Anglophone countries, even though the explicit purpose of vocational qualifications is to prepare individuals for occupations. Using Australia and Canada as case studies, this is explained at three levels of analysis: at the national level by systems of skill formation and student transition; at the meso level by skill ecosystems; and by whether qualifications are used as a signal in regulated occupations or as a screen in unregulated occupations. The paper outlines three roles for qualifications in providing pathways to enter and progress in work, transition to higher level studies, and support social mobility. The paper concludes that improving links between postsecondary qualifications and occupations depends more on the structure of the labour market than on the nature of qualifications: it is mainly an issue of the demand for qualifications rather than their supply. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Canadian society is characterised by a plurality of immigrants and Canadian migration policy and corresponding recognition approaches are strongly geared to economic criteria, qualifications and skills. This paper addresses the question how immigrants who have acquired their highest qualification outside Canada are able to use their foreign qualifications and skills in their current job. The analyses are conducted to verify the assumptions of human capital theory as well as the lack of transferability of human capital across country borders. To answer these questions a labour market success index is developed, which is used as a dependent variable in regression models. The results show that traditional operationalisations of human capital (years of education, years of work experience and skills) have a positive effect on individual labour market success. At the same time, being born abroad and having acquired one's highest qualification abroad in comparison to Canada, especially in a Non-Western country, has negative effects on the overall labour market success of an individual. Detailed comparisons regarding different indicators of labour market success also prove these comparatively negative effects. The results demonstrate the limited explanatory power of human capital theory and the necessity to complement it with Bourdieu's concepts of social and cultural capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vocational educators cross boundaries between practices in schools, colleges and workplaces, renegotiating their identities as professionals in a particular vocation and as educators. In order to support learners to enter the global workforce, they also require opportunities to cross boundaries through international practices. However, opportunities for international and intercultural learning are often limited, particularly for trainee vocational educators. This paper highlights an online collaborative process (COLIGE) designed to develop competencies for global education. The COLIGE process has been evaluated through the lens of boundary crossing. Participants were trainee vocational educators undergoing their professional teaching qualification in Scotland and Finland. Action research was undertaken during this three-year project to explore participants' experiences and evaluate the learning mechanisms observed during the activities. Findings suggest activity though all four learning mechanisms (identification, coordination, reflection, transformation), although they were not universally experienced. Difficulties faced by learners are discussed and point to the potential for transformation of practice without sequential engagement with all learning mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a journey undertaken by literacy tutors who were caught between incompatible values and needs in building apprentices' literacy. The highly literate tutors were committed to teaching critical literacy. They believed that improved literacy could support learners' aspirations to advance their prospects at work, build their connections within their community and improve their health. Hence, the tutors aimed to guide their learners into membership of an imagined community of fluent readers. They found, however, that the apprentices, along with their managers and training coordinators, saw literacy as instrumental rather than a desired outcome in its own right. Essentially, achieving a sufficient level of literacy was needed for the apprentices to become members of workplace communities of practice. Tutors then questioned their prior assumptions about the intrinsic importance of literacy, slowly accepting a dichotomous way of thinking where industrial ways of learning and knowing were predominant. Tutors' realisation that apprentices already possessed embodied and oral literacies helped them to support the apprentices in escaping (though not leaving) workplace contexts that were becoming increasingly document-driven in character and featuring rising expectations of improved print literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The uptake of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has been substantial and they continue to flourish as an educational delivery model. Much of the available literature regarding student retention and completions in MOOCs comes from university-designed courses. The Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector has lagged behind its university counterparts as VET pedagogy relies heavily on skills acquisition and does not lend itself as easily to MOOC delivery. This paper analysed the attributes of 366,099 enrolled learners and 132,867 learners that were designated as ‘starters’ from 263 Australian universities, 27 transnational universities and 73 VET MOOCs to compare the differences in learning environments and to build a VET MOOC learner profile. The findings indicated that higher levels of VET MOOC learners were retained when compared to university MOOCs. It also revealed eight course design factors that may contribute to increased learner retention and completions for VET MOOCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around the world, governments, educators and employers have expressed growing interest in German-style methods of technical and vocational education and training (TVET). In such countries, schools and firms share responsibility for providing technical and vocational education, a model often called the ‘dual system of vocational training and education.’ The dual system means that occupational training occurs at two linked sites, educational institutions and workplaces. Dual education aims at matching the demands of a dynamically changing economy with the skill profiles of those graduating from educational institutions. To a large extent, dual education systems enable young people to acquire not simply technical and occupational skill, but broadly defined competencies that serve as the foundation for rewarding careers and social esteem. Little wonder that many countries have turned with renewed interest to the dual TVET system. However, actual implementation of the dual system outside the core Germanic countries in Europe has proven to be extremely challenging. Successful examples of institutional transplantation are rare. However, in some countries, local partnerships embracing elements of dual education have formed, uniting educational institutions, government entities and firms in partnerships to upgrade TVET. This paper discusses some of the characteristic patterns of such partnerships in the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fostering the skills necessary for self-directed learning is an important endeavour of vocational education and training in many contexts internationally. However, there is a distinct lack of studies that investigate the extent to which facilitation of self-directed learning is present within vocational education and training in different contexts. An exploratory thematic qualitative analysis of inspectors’ comments within general Further Education college Ofsted inspection reports was conducted to investigate the balance of control of the learning process between teacher and learner within vocational education and training of young adults in England. A clear difference between outstanding and inadequate provision is reported. Inadequate provision was overwhelmingly teacher-directed. Outstanding provision reflected a collaborative relationship between teacher and learner in directing the learning process, despite the Ofsted framework not explicitly identifying the need for learner involvement in directing the learning process. The present paper offers insight into the understanding of how an effective balance of control of learning between teacher and learner may be realised in vocational education and training settings and highlights the need to consider the modulating role of contextual factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effectiveness of vocational education and training (VET) depends on the quality of interactions between the actors from the education and employment systems, which ensure the correspondence of skills supply and demand. This paper develops an instrument to measure education-employment linkage (EEL) by capturing EEL in each sub-process where these actors can and should interact. Surveying VET experts from 18 countries suggests that countries with dual VET have the highest EEL, while the included Asian countries score lowest in terms of EEL. The analysis further reveals that the three most important sub-processes are employer involvement in the definition of qualification standards; employer involvement in deciding the timing of curriculum updates; and the combination of workplace training with classroom education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on some of the findings from a study of new technology and training in shipping. It identifies the key significance of motivation in the learning process and identifies potential factors that motivate or demotivate seafarers when undertaking training about new equipment. It shows that seafarers’ motivation is likely to be impacted by confidence that training is good for the job as well as for promotion. It demonstrates that companies can facilitate and encourage individuals to initiate learning activities but that they may equally adopt strategies which discourage learning. Enabling factors include: establishing a positive learning environment; adopting clear policies; allowing seafarers to identify their own training needs and allowing seafarers to request support for specific courses. Conversely, companies may demotivate some seafarers in relation to training by shifting the burden of training ‘costs’, such as time and money, onto them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This literature review engages with a diverse and sometimes contradictory body of work, employing an analytic stance rooted in policy scholarship. It discusses rhetorical constructions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4th IR), locating these in understandings of the economy rooted in a neo-liberalism which rests upon a capitalist terrain. The 4th IR is an ideological construct which reflects specific material interests and has particular implications for education and training. The 4th IR’s association with digitalisation and artificial intelligence is ambivalent. For some writers, this leads to technological unemployment while for others, even though there is labour market disruption, there is no employment crisis that cannot be resolved. The strong connection between the 4th IR and labour market requirements is softened by those writers who adopt a qualitative analysis of advanced manufacturing work. These scholars suggest that the relationship between technology and skill is rather more complex than the protagonists of technological unemployment describe. Neo-Marxist writers develop a qualitatively different account of the current conjuncture to the imaginary of the 4th IR. In this instance, the analysis turns towards the elimination of labour from paid employment, together with the falling rate of profit and bypasses the former arguments. This review concludes by arguing that technology and artificial intelligence are entwined with social relations, being sites of class struggle. How this is played out is an outcome of the balance of power, not only within the social formation but also globally. How far the development of the forces of production is compatible with capitalist relations is a moot point, as this is also a site of struggle. The paper draws out the implications for VET and considers progressive educational responses. However, such a practice needs to be set within a broader politics that is committed to the development of a socially just society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most initial teacher preparation (ITP) programmes, learning in teaching placements is considered to be an important component for providing workplace learning experiences to develop the skills of being a teacher. This paper is based on a bigger qualitative study which explored the learning experiences of a group of in-service student vocational teachers prior to and during their one-year ITP programme in Brunei. The study examined these student teachers’ dispositions to learning as revealed through their experiences on different placements during their training. The findings of this paper highlight the importance of the student vocational teachers’ roles and positions relative to their teaching placements. Theoretically, the findings also extend Bourdieu’s thinking, where existing cultural capital in the form of subject knowledge which is valued in one context does not necessarily help the learning of individuals in becoming a vocational teacher in another context. In addition, the paper argues for a need to reconceptualise in-service teacher education, more specifically, the workplace learning aspect. Lastly, it concludes with recommendations to support these student teachers in their placements through creating more expansive learning environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides support for the idea that school engagement is a central concept when trying to understand the dropout process. One of the strengths of this concept is that it involves understanding dropping out as a process, rather than as an event. However, the concept of school engagement also presents a number of problems. It tends to be functionalistic in nature: Processes of students’ school engagement and disengagement are partly the consequences of institutional initiatives – for example, how teachers act or how the school environment is organised. Furthermore, mainstream dropout researchers formulate the concept of engagement both simplistically and mechanistically by seeing engagement as something that the students possess to varying degrees. Inspired by critical psychology, this study includes a different concept of student engagement: We must take the students’ life conduct as the point of departure when approaching their school engagement and decision to drop out. The theoretical claims in the paper are substantiated by empirical results from 160 interviews with vocational educational and training (VET) students in the Danish VET system, and this paper will show how school engagement is closely related to the events in the other contextual settings of students’ lives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the expansive–restrictive continuum of apprenticeship learning in the context of different education and training systems. It compares the English state-funded apprenticeship programme for young people with the Finnish and the French programmes with a specific focus on access to learning through the programmes. These three countries represent three types of Western and Northern European education and training systems. The paper argues that there are country-specific meanings of apprenticeship that influence how access to learning along the expansive–restrictive continuum is typically characterised. These country-specific meanings of apprenticeship arise from their context in differing education and training systems. The paper concludes that the English conceptualisation of apprenticeship as training lends itself to more restrictive approaches to apprenticeship than the Finnish and the French programmes in terms of access to learning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The political importance of mathematics in post-16 education is clear. Far less clear is how mathematics does and should relate to vocational education. Successive mathematics curricula (e.g. core skills, key skills) have been developed in England with vocational learners in mind. Meanwhile, general mathematics qualifications remain largely disconnected from vocational learning. Following a brief historical survey of mathematics within vocational education, the paper presents findings from a nested case study of student groups in three large Further Education colleges in England. The primary unit of analysis herein is student groups learning Functional Mathematics in two vocational areas: construction and hairdressing. We show how approaches to organising teaching, developing connected curricula and classroom pedagogy tend toisolateorintegratemathematics from/with the vocational experience.Integratedapproaches are shown to impact positively on student engagement and attitudes to learning mathematics. The paper concludes by discussing the potential impact of academic qualifications displacing vocationally relevant mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This small-scale, highly original study connects themes which are rarely explored in relation to each other, particularly in a European context: vocational education and training (VET), refugees and race equality in order to explore how VET policies impact on racial equality, and the ways racial structures in Europe impact on VET. It begins to fill important gaps in cross-European research, firstly around VET and race, and secondly around refugees and VET. The paper is based on a study which examined the meso-social benefits of, and barriers to VET for adult refugees to European countries, commissioned by CEDEFOP, the agency funded by the European Commission to promote the development of VET in the European Union. In the paper, we argue that a key factor in shaping refugees’ experiences of VET, are the racial structures integral to capitalist societies. Innovatively drawing on key literature which analyses white privilege in the labour market to contextualise our findings, we suggest that barriers faced by refugees are potentially related to structures of white privilege which shape notions of work and workers in Europe and sustain racial hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]