Change and Intervention: Vocational Education and Training

Nothing is more important than education. And today more than ever, education is not just an issue for children. We must be concerned about people of all ages and backgrounds, citizens and newcomers, those who are literate and those who are not. The future of America depends on it. (Barbara Bush, Bu…

The 1980s may well be remembered as the decade of initiatives and initials in education and training. NTI, YTS, ATS, RVQ, NCVQ, WRNAFE, TVEI, PICKUP, REPLAN, EEI, LEN, and COMPACTS were all launched, usually preceded by a relevant White Paper. Each of these initiatives in turn spawned a number of de…

The consequences of nearly twelve years of Thatcherism have been felt in virtually every aspect of life in the UK, and after experiencing the savage rounds of ‘cuts’ during the 1980s, the universities no longer feel immune from the demands of the market economy. With the loss of the premium in overs…

Editors’ Note: When planning this book we came across an article by Lewis El ton which expressed many of the ideas which are central to our work in Higher Education and which we included in the Open University’s Enterprise in Higher Education proposal which we were work ing on. The Enterprise in Hig…

This chapter explores some of the characteristics of standards with in the education and training context. It describes how Government policy designed to encourage an enhancement of the effectiveness of the nation’s workforce has led to a major programme to establish standards of occupational compet…