In this article, the author presents the ACTE's award winning educators for 2007. They are: (1) Leslie Watkins, 2007 ACTE Teacher of the Year; (2) Mike Gillispie, 2007 ACTE Outstanding Career and Technical Educator; (3) Sandy Hume, 2007 ACTE Outstanding New Career and Technical Teacher; and (4) Joline Dunbar, 2007 ACTE Outstanding Teacher in Community Service. Also honored are: (1) Verlyn Velle, 2007 ACTE Arch of Fame Award; (2) Walter Woodhull, 2007 ACTE Award of Merit; (3) Katherine Cliatt,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Recognition (Achievement), Vocational Education, Profiles, Rewards, Teachers, Change...
Increasing people's ability to solve complex problems is more and more often being seen as an integral part of vocational education. While there have been numerous empirically-based approaches to the didactic structuring of teaching and learning arrangements by which students' ability to solve problems can be increased, knowledge of how to evaluate a person's ability to solve problems is far more limited. There is a lack of testing instruments that are inexpensive to implement and evaluate and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Problem Solving, Followup Studies, Vocational Education, Teaching Methods, Thinking...
This article provides a brief review of recent developments and problems in adult training of the employed and unemployed in Bulgaria. It is presented in three parts: information on legislation and the institutions; information on current problems with vocational training of the employed and unemployed; and some future measures for improving training efficiency. The findings are based on data from the National Statistical Institute (NSI), a survey on vocational training of employed at...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Unemployment, Adult Vocational Education, Foreign Countries, Vocational Education,...
On the assumption that education in values and moral education are necessary, moral competence (to make judgments) and the structure and development of the faculty of moral judgment should not be disregarded, even in the vocational education system. The main features of Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development are described as a basis for this before empirical results enable the author to make statements on the status of the moral competence to make judgments among business trainees....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Moral Values, Ethical Instruction, Vocational Education, Theories, Foreign Countries,...
The Romanian system of initial vocational education and training is examined from three different points of view: its relevance to the labour market; its relationship with other parts of the national education system; and its evolution from the past to the future. While there are some major current mismatches between the school system and the labour market, the longer-term perspective seems reasonable as there is a surplus of highly qualified graduates which may prove useful if skill...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Vocational Education, Labor Force Development, Futures (of...
Despite a fall in the percentage of young people choosing this course between 1993 and 1994 (58.17%) and 2003 and 2004 (55.23%), vocational training remains the main path chosen by young people in Bulgaria. The national programme for developing pre-school, school education and training (2006-15), adopted in 2006 due to major public interest in this issue, aims to reform initial vocational training. This article presents the main pillars of this reform based on European strategic guidelines. The...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Trend Analysis, Foreign Countries, Vocational Education, Guidelines, Employment...
The training received by workers depends predominantly on the organisational choices and funds allocated by businesses. It is therefore justifiable to ask whether public policy should either endorse the spontaneous distribution of training or take measures to correct it. This paper analyses the motivations and limitations of public intervention, focusing on the Italian case in which, in recent years, the system has changed radically as a result of opportunities offered to social partners to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Public Policy, Foreign Countries, Vocational Education, Work Environment, Resource...
This article reviews active labour-market policies (ALMP), of which training is prominent. For about 20 years now, they have been one of the most important measures to combat unemployment and exclusion from the labour market. But is training a successful and efficient policy to reduce unemployment, compared to other types of ALMP? We draw some conclusions based on a review of evaluation results. We then make recommendations for designing as well as evaluating training. We underline the need for...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Unemployment, Labor Market, Vocational Education, Foreign Countries, Outcomes of...
On the basis of the author's experience in coordinating a number of EU research projects aimed at improving the transition from school to vocational training for disadvantaged young people, the following paper focuses on problems in comparing support measures in Europe and on the practical relevance of comparative EU research. The first section sets out the dilemmas in this type of European comparative transition research and provides an overview of research to date. Welfare state and youth...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Young Adults, Foreign Countries, Guidance, Vocational Education, Comparative...
This article provides an overview of recent developments in EU vocational education and training (VET) policy, and of the issues and challenges faced by VET systems in the Western Balkans, Turkey, and other countries covered by the "wider European neighbourhood" policy. The purpose is to emphasise the relevance for these countries of the EU messages, instruments, benchmarks and principles that are part of the Copenhagen process, but also the interest expressed in the process by the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Learning Strategies, Lifelong Learning, Foreign Countries, Vocational Education,...
In 1996, a new curricular framework for vocational education in schools called "Lernfelder" (learning arenas) was implemented in Germany. In the concept of learning arenas learning situations in schools have to be related to work activity in a particular occupation. For this reason work process orientation currently plays a significant role in German curriculum development. However, there is not just one approach on how to transform work activity into vocational curricula, but various...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Curriculum Development, Vocational Education, Training Methods,...
The concept of competence is increasingly the basis for (re)designing VET. In competence-based VET academic disciplines are no longer starting points for curriculum development. Competence needed for working in practice, however, is. Competence-based learning is a dominant trend in VET in several countries because of fewer expected problems in the transition from school to work. In this study, by means of a focus group session and a Delphi study, a model for competence- based VET is developed....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Curriculum Development, Focus Groups, Delphi Technique, Vocational Education,...
The work-oriented change in the didactics of vocational education (VET) identifies "significant" vocational work situations and the associated work process knowledge as the pivotal factor in the design of vocational curricula and processes. What is dramatic about this change of perspective is not merely the departure from academic, discipline-based teaching methods, but also the formulation of vocational teaching methods for VET practice and VET design that are predicated on...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Methods, Vocational Education, Theory Practice Relationship, Rauner, Felix
This article presents the results of research into the impact on individual skill levels of the variables traditionally represented by human capital. The discussion is centred around the way in which education and vocational experience contribute to the process of producing useful skills in the job market or, conversely, of making them obsolete. The data comes from a survey of five banks in which we asked supervisors to assess the skills of 600 employees (counter staff and customer managers)....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Labor Market, Human Capital, Competence, Vocational Education, Surveys, Salary Wage...
In this article the popularity of the concept of competence in higher vocational education is explained and the most important issues in this field are discussed. In particular, the vagueness of the term and the problems in defining job and training profiles are explained. Then the design of competence-based education is discussed. The paper ends by mentioning some subjects that are relevant to the future of competence-based education. Competence-based education is a catch-all word concealing...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Vocational Education, Competency Based Education, Instructional Effectiveness,...
Socio-emotional skills are highly prized on the labour market these days; many writers say that competencies of this type help to increase individuals' employability, but educational institutions consistently forget their responsibility for providing training in them. Most jobs call not only for knowledge and specific technical competencies, but also for a certain level of social and emotional skills enabling workers, for example, to work in teams, to motivate themselves when confronting...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Emotional Development, Interpersonal Competence, Social Development, On the Job...
As a consequence of findings and theses on the change in demand for qualifications, the debates on lifelong learning and a large number of articles on the theory of didactics, since the mid-1980s the concept has become established that traditional methods of teaching and learning in vocational education are dysfunctional and should be replaced or complemented by methods which are more activity-or problem-oriented, as well as being of a self-regulated nature. However, as concerns vocational...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Lifelong Learning, Vocational Education, Methods Research, Teacher Qualifications,...
The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has greatly affected the current status of career and technical education (CTE). Since the implementation of NCLB, there has been increased course-taking in science, math, and the other traditional academic subjects by high school students in this country. Research shows that the consequence has been a loss of opportunity for many students to enroll in CTE--resulting in declines in CTE enrollments at the secondary level. A 2002 study found that over the coming...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Federal Legislation, Technical Education, Teacher Education Programs, Vocational...
Career and technical education represents an important and understudied educational option for high school students. This qualitative study utilized data from one exemplary career and technical education (CTE) center to address the question of how talented and general education students' part-time CTE experiences differed from their traditional high school experiences. The secondary students in this study simultaneously attended both the CTE center and a traditional high school. Through...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Vocational Education, Educational Experience, Student Attitudes, High School...
Chapter 5 of DETYA's volume "The Impact of Educational Research" (Selby-Smith 2000) begins with an examination of the peculiarity of decision making in the VET sector, followed by an examination of the idiosyncratic consequences for the function of research in the sector. Having established the distinctiveness of VET in relation to these two key factors (decision making and research), the chapter then proceeds to explore the linkages between them. The study on which the chapter is...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Research, Vocational Education, Theory Practice Relationship, Decision...
This article describes how students learn invaluable job-readiness and academic skills by setting up and running their own businesses in a virtual world. Virtual Enterprises (VE) International is a high school career and technical education (CTE) program that teaches students about business by having a class create and operate its own virtual firm. In the VE network, there are many different types of firms--including law offices, insurance companies, specialty bicycle shops, and even a hotel in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High Schools, Educational Technology, Vocational Education, Active Learning, Student...
The human capital emphasis in recent economic planning is leading to new pressures on the post-compulsory education sector where work-readiness is emerging as a major focus. With concerns about the impact of demographic change as the population ages, there is a renewed emphasis on greater productivity from and less wastage of human capital. Hence retention of young people in the education and training system to at least Year 12 and the development of explicit vocational pathways has become an...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Human Capital, Vocational Education, Education Work Relationship, Labor Force...
This paper examines theoretical issues arising from technical and further education and training reforms over the last few decades. It illustrates how these reforms have been dominated by particular knowledge concerns assumed to be central to specific areas of human activity. It then examines the reforms in terms of theoretical relationships among knowledge, skills, activity and meaning, as advanced by Piaget (1980a, 1980b) and Vygotsky (1934/1986); and discusses the implications for this and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Adult Education, Educational Change, Technical Education, Vocational Education,...
While vocational subjects have always been part of the school curriculum, formal vocational education and training (VET) in the last two years of secondary education has been a policy focus for the last decade. In the Australian context, "VET in schools" is defined as courses that lead to industry recognised qualifications under the Australian Qualifications Framework while at the same time contributing to the standard Year 12 certificate. The number of students doing such courses has...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Labor Market, Vocational Education, School Holding Power, Qualifications, Guidelines,...
The fourth recommendation in ACTE's postsecondary reform position statement is to ensure portability and transferability of credits and skills attained. All postsecondary learning has value that should be recognized. Students' progress toward completion of postsecondary credentials can be improved with clear, consistent policies that ensure full transfer and articulation of postsecondary learning. Successful strategies include common course-numbering systems, articulation agreements, and the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Credentials, Postsecondary Education, Articulation (Education), Credits, Education...
Massachusetts, home to some of the most prestigious institutions of higher education, has also been a leader for decades in the delivery of career and technical education (CTE). Across the state of 351 cities and towns, there are 26 regional CTE school districts and dozens more technical wings in comprehensive high schools. CTE institutions such as Blue Hills Regional Technical School, located in Canton, take students from grades nine through 12 and attract students from the towns in their...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High Schools, Interdisciplinary Approach, Tech Prep, Vocational Education,...
For juvenile offenders across the state, the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections (ADJC) is the last resort. Faced with limited academic and technical skills, these incarcerated students face a future that is very uncertain. The state recognized that educating this population is a key not only in reducing the dropout rate, but providing the community and businesses with students who have job and academic skills for immediate employment. So it shifted its focus to a hands-on learning...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Dropout Rate, Correctional Education, Vocational Education, Institutionalized...
This article describes a school where at-risk students get an opportunity to finish their secondary education in a smaller learning environment that embraces hands-on learning, one in which each student's strengths and weaknesses are known, and teachers work with their wards to give them an academic and technical education that will help them succeed post high school. Chana High School is a continuation school located approximately four miles north of downtown Auburn near Sacramento,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Classroom Techniques, Federal Legislation, Educational Finance, High Risk Students,...
While admission to a community college is simple--"apply and you're in!"--the institution itself is quite complex. Community colleges serve several purposes: transfer, vocational, recreational, and remedial. Community colleges see students through many lenses. Can we bring clarity and focus to the picture of the community college student? What should counselors know in order to help their community college-bound students make the successful transition from high school? This article...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Community Colleges, College Admission, College Transfer Students, Remedial...
Tech Prep is a high school program of study. The student outcome objective is to prepare students to make the transition from high school to postsecondary pre-baccalaureate technical education, complete the postsecondary program without the need to take remedial academic courses, and then transition to commensurate employment. While the concept is not necessarily new--2+2 programs were around in the 1950s--the present day Tech Prep model can be traced to the writings of Dale Parnell (1985), who...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High Schools, Grade 10, Tech Prep, Vocational Education, Academic Persistence,...
In this ever-changing economy, young adults must remain flexible and adaptable as they transition from school to work and plan their future life courses. It is difficult for today's youth to choose training programs which will guarantee them secure, long-term employment. As the future grows less predictable, greater uncertainty and risk are involved in each career decision. This study concerns young adults enrolled in vocational education and training programs. The study sought to investigate...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Technical Institutes, Focus Groups, Young Adults, Education Work Relationship,...
Reforms in education and training are the order of the day in the spirit of maintaining relevance in this changing world. This paper looks at the development of vocational education and training (VET) in Kenya at three levels: the past, the present and the future directions. A brief historical discussion forms a basis for understanding the trends in Kenya's VET. A discussion of the current state of affairs highlights the main issues that are at play in Kenya's VET sector. From the issues that...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Change, Foreign Countries, Vocational Education, Educational History,...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the objectives of roadside mechanic apprenticeship programs in mid-western Nigeria. Seven statements of objectives were derived for the study, and respondents were required to score each of the seven statements between "1" and "7" in their order of importance and representative of the objectives. The instrument was administered to 150 master craft trainers and 750 apprentices. Four out of the seven statements were rated the most...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Apprenticeships, Foreign Countries, Employment Opportunities, Educational Objectives,...
The German dual apprenticeship system has traditionally been viewed as an effective system for generating a highly skilled workforce in the trades, crafts and service sectors. In addition, countries and systems looking to improve their own approaches to vocational education and training (VET) have considered as exemplary the main features of the "dual system" (that is, two learning sites and shared responsibility between private employers and public vocational schools). Nevertheless,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Comparative Analysis, Vocational Education, Competency Based...
This paper explores participation in social partnerships as a space for learning. It analyses interview data about participation in social partnership from partnerships involved in vocational education and training (VET) to argue that social partnerships constitute a form of learning space. Partnership participants engage in new learning through the interactions and activities inherent in partnership work, and relational learning is the kind of learning most supported in these learning spaces....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Vocational Education, Educational Change, Interviews, Learning Processes,...
The Leventis Foundation (Nigeria) Agricultural Schools (LFNAS) are schools established to train youths to develop their state and their nation in the area of food production. This study sought to assess the trainability of enrollees in the three operating LFNAS. Five research questions were posed. The CIPP evaluation model was adopted. The population and sample for the study consisted of a total of 247 enrollees. Questionnaires, structured interviews and observational techniques were used to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Career Development, Economic Development, Developing Nations,...
In this example from the human services field, project-based learning is used to connect theoretical knowledge and practice skills by taking a project from industry and completing it within the peer supported learning environment of the classroom, returning the project product to industry. The theoretical ideal of participation was the project's goal and the way "Snapshot of a generation" fulfilled this goal on several levels is discussed. The benefits of project-based learning are an...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Theory Practice Relationship, Active Learning, Student Projects, Human Services,...
Government-provided services are caught in the jaws of a "cost-tax vice". On the cost side, the long-term trend of rising relative prices of services, including education, seems set to continue. The other jaw of the vice is the high efficiency cost of raising additional taxes. Recent research making the case for public provision of post-compulsory education has concentrated on the difficult task of quantifying its economic and social benefits. However, given the effects of the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Compulsory Education, Community Education, Vocational Education, Adult Education,...
The adult and community education (ACE) sector is consistently responsive to changing community needs and government priorities. It is this particular function that has drawn ACE into the lifelong learning debate as one model for sustaining communities. The responsiveness of ACE means that the sector and its programs continue to make valuable contributions to the quality of social and economic life, particularly in local communities. Although a major focus of ACE is on non-vocational outcomes,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Human Capital, Community Needs, Community Education, Lifelong Learning, Adult...
The ideologies underpinning public/private partnerships (PPPs) have been much contested in theory, but what does promulgating a social partnership mean in practice? This qualitative research study has been "critiquing" a construct of "ecologies of learning" or "capacities of capital" for social partnerships between industry, vocational education and training (VET) and a regional community. This paper critiques one of these ecologies by exploring the discourses of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Qualitative Research, Industry, Ideology, Foreign Countries, Social Capital,...
Although the phrase "holistic approach" is increasingly used in reference to vocational education and training (VET) in Australia, there appears to be a paucity of literature which extensively conceptualises or details its practical application. Existing references to an "holistic approach" appear indicative of an integrated model seen as a vehicle for the achievement of a broad range of vocational and social capital outcomes, particularly in Indigenous contexts. This paper...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Constructivism (Learning), Curriculum Development, Community Needs, Holistic...
In the Australian vocational education and training (VET) context, attention is often given to what youth work training programs should consist of, resulting in less attention on how youth work education and training programs might be imagined, constructed and implemented. In this paper, a particular South Australian youth work training program is explored with the purpose of investigating the particular educational methodology employed and its impact in the structuring and delivery of a VET...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Youth Programs, Vocational Education, Competency Based Education, Theory Practice...
This article attempts to trace the origins of competency-based training (CBT), the theory of vocational education that underpins the National Training Framework in Australia. A distinction is made between societal and theoretical origins. This paper argues that CBT has its societal origins in the United States of America during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Public debate and government initiatives centred on the widely held view that there was a problem with the quality of education in the United...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Systems Approach, Foreign Countries, Vocational Education, Educational History,...
The article presents a comparative analysis of educational policy and provision in Sweden and Australia, with particular emphasis on the relative investment in continuing and further education in both countries. The authors investigate the extent to which further education opportunities provide a "second chance" at learning for adults and contribute to social and economic capital. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)
Topics: ERIC Archive, Adult Education, Foreign Countries, Comparative Analysis, Educational Opportunities,...
This paper explains my choice of narrative inquiry as a methodological approach in my recently completed PhD study. My research investigated learning experiences of mature women learners in VET. Notions of learning as negotiated lived experience called for a methodological approach that privileged the learner's perspective and opened space in which alternative notions of learning might emerge. From interviews with twelve mature women, I explain how I use stories of learning to understand how...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Females, Ethics, Womens Education, Interviews, Vocational Education, Adults, Personal...
This cross-sectional study was conducted with the aim of examining the relationships between smoking behavior and leisure physical activity habits of adolescents (n=170, 85F & 85M, mean age= 15.42 [plus or minus] 0.58, age range=15-17 years) attending vocational health schools in Turkey. Participants were randomly selected from four provinces of the country and classified into two groups according to their participation in leisure physical activity. The logistic regression analysis of the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Physical Activities, Smoking, Adolescents, Foreign Countries, Case Studies,...
This article seeks to describe briefly various initiatives taken to ease recognition and comparison of formal qualifications across borders in the EU. It takes a political angle, from binding legal instruments such as directives and decisions to policy instruments such as recommendations and voluntary action and covers 27 Member States with very different education and training systems and labour market structures. What characterises the various initiatives; what premises are they based on;...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Labor Market, Vocational Education, Policy Analysis, National Standards, Standard...
In the debate on the draft European Qualifications Framework and the possible development of a German Qualifications Framework (GQF) great interest is being shown in Germany in a qualifications framework that promises transparency and permeability and is based on competences. There has also been opposition on the basis of the fundamental principles of the German system, which has had an impact on some public statements about the EQF. The aim is to create a GQF that can be linked to the EQF, and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Quality Control, Credits, Foreign Countries, Vocational Education, Guidelines,...
In this paper, the issues involved in aligning national and meta-frameworks are explored and analysed. The exploration is timely, given that two qualifications meta-frameworks are currently being developed and implemented in Europe: the question is now how relationships should be established between these new reference tools and national qualifications structures and systems. Drawing on recent experiences in Ireland of comparing the national framework of qualifications with the Bologna...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Metadata, Standard Setting, Qualifications, Regional Cooperation,...
The SCQF is one of the longest-established comprehensive qualifications frameworks and is often perceived as one of the most successful. This article describes the main features of the SCQF and outlines its progress, drawing on recent studies and evaluations by the authors. It draws lessons for the EQF and for further development of national frameworks to respond to it. These lessons concern the specific requirements of meta-frameworks and comprehensive frameworks, the need for realistic...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Postsecondary Education, Foreign Countries, National Standards, Quality Control,...