This paper focuses on how generic skills can be developed to enable young adults to best utilise them in making transitions into the labour market. Drawing on the literature and a Commercial Education Trust study of practices which encourage employer engagement in skills development, it is argued th…
This paper reviews evidence on two serious imbalances in the UK education and training system: The heavy bias in public spending on initial education and training (for 18–24-year olds) towards higher education at the expense of further education and vocational education and training. The very weak g…
Motivated students have been shown to persist longer in post-secondary education. As a multidimensional psychological construct, motivation is shaped by within- and between-person perceptions of context. Empirical measures of distinct workplace and trade school subjective task values (STVs) were exa…
Drawing on pragmatic and occupational sociology, this paper examines how individuals in Sweden embark on occupations that are in nascent stage and for work tasks that are weakly defined. I accompanied a group of aspirants as they moved from a higher vocational education programme into the labour mar…
This paper considers the position of Further Education (FE) in the light of the analysis undertaken by Geoff Mason (this issue). It argues that despite great optimism as to the potential of FE to raise productivity and enhance social mobility this has not been achieved due to underfunding and the cu…
This paper examines the role of the UK’s post-16 education and training system in supporting the young unemployed. It maps the trajectory of a series of time-limited policy initiatives, which have attempted to install a training system for young people alongside containing fluctuating levels of yout…
The question addressed in this paper is why expanding Higher Education (HE) has become the default policy position in England. One answer concerns the reluctance by employers to train. The paper adopts an historical perspective on the policy reviews into this issue which have displayed a remarkable …
This paper identifies a nascent trend in several countries regarding increased collection, public availability and use of destination data for graduates of secondary education, with policy ambitions to support pupil-level decision-making and drive provider-level accountability. This trend mirrors th…
The present paper proposes a conceptual model in which both personal and perceived workplace-related factors affect vocational students’ workplace learning success in real workplace environments, with workplace learning success constituted by students’ professional learning and satisfaction. We empi…
This article considers the implications of a ‘managed’ approach to skills policy in Scotland, in which Government policy and the role of national institutional frameworks can be seen to be influential, and which contrasts with the more marketised approach which has been a central aspect of policy in…
This article provides a response to the other contributions in this special issue and explores the range and scale of the opportunities for policy learning across the four UK nations. It addresses the importance of locating FE and skills policy within wider national policy contexts, national choices…
This article builds on the previous articles in this special issue to explore two related concepts–a ‘UK policy laboratory’ and ‘expansive policy learning’, with a specific focus on further education (FE) and skills. We argue that the potential for a UK policy laboratory in this area is based primar…
During the 25 years since Incorporation, when further education (FE) colleges were taken out of local government control, FE in England has been shaped by processes of marketisation to become a competitive national sector that has increasingly diverged from the more ‘collaborative system logic’ of t…
High educational aspirations are considered to be a crucial factor for educational success and social advancement. As is also the case in many western European countries, migrants in Germany have higher aspirations than non-migrants. Although migrants’ average school performance levels are significa…
This paper explores the perceptions of degree students at two UK universities regarding their work placement and part-time working activities, to assess if the two activities converge. The research comprises three stages: interviews for preliminary exploration of students’ perceptions towards work p…
We empirically investigate whether the relationship between the fraction of filled apprenticeships in a particular occupation in the past and the fraction of prospective apprentices having very early intentions to train in this occupation has an impact on the decision to change the intended choice o…
Graduate unemployment has increasingly been the topic of research interest as it grows in many countries. In many such contexts, the massification of higher education and the global economic recession of the late 2000s explain the challenge. The situation differs in South Africa. Graduate unemployme…
The aim of this paper is to describe changing learner identities and trajectories of identification that take place among vocational education and training (VET) apprentices in Norway. This paper describes 23 young, male VET students’ learner identities in compulsory school (age 7–15) in comparison …
Education providers and employers working together to prepare young people and adults for employment is internationally accepted as a key factor in effective technical and vocational education. In the English context, however, we argue that two related orthodoxies have prevailed–‘employer engagement…
Vocational education aims at preparing students for their future as professionals; thus, students are often required to undergo a form of on-the-job learning. Assessment of professional performance during on-the-job learning is not based on single observations, but on prolonged participation at the …
