In England, thresholds for success in public examinations taken by 15/16 year-olds play a major role in the education system. Definitions of what constitutes ‘success’ change over time and have an important impact on young people’s progression to further education, training, and employment. By takin…
While the literature in skill formation systems has paid considerable attention to inter-variation between types of national skill formation systems and intra-variation among individual types as in the case of collective skill formation systems, less is known about the role of the European Union in …
This contribution explores how multinational companies (MNCs) have managed to develop their own policy that sets international standards for education, in particular in the sphere of corporate education. It criticises education policy studies for leaving the study of corporate education mainly to ma…
This article contributes to the literature by proposing a methodological approach that scholars in all research fields can use to develop high-quality explanatory typologies. We argue that every typology should be constructed using a systematic, transparent process and must have a strong theoretical…
Since the 2000s, successive governments in the United Kingdom and elsewhere have embraced the idea of ‘raising aspiration’ among young people as a solution to persisting educational and socio-economic inequalities. Previous analyses have argued that these policies tend to individualise structural di…
A historical tension between a more general and a more specific focus in post-compulsory education is made visible in some educational systems by the division into more academic and more vocational programmes. Embedded in this tension are questions of social justice and the purposes of education. In…
This paper examines how economics imperialism (the increasing colonization of other disciplines by neoclassical economics) has affected contemporary education policies. I suggest that an increasing preoccupation with education meeting the needs of the economy, together with the prevalence of economi…
A focus of Government policy has been the need to ensure that those at the lower end of the labour market invest in their human capital through re-engaging with learning, which has been assumed to enable progress into better-paid employment. This article explores the problems created by 'bad jobs' a…
The paper questions the link that policy-makers assume exists between qualifications and access to employment in the creative and cultural (C&C) sector. It identifies how labour market conditions in the C&C sector undermine this assumption and how the UK's policy formation process inhibits education…
In 2008, the UK Labour government unveiled plans to abolish the Learning and Skills Council and transfer funding for the education and training of 16-19-year- olds in England to local authorities (LAs). The transfer of 16-19 funding complements the responsibilities that LAs have already acquired in …
Recent education policies focus on making youth pathways more transparent while addressing skills shortage. However, there appears to be ambivalence about the target audience for 'new vocational' programmes in secondary schools and how they should be organized. This paper begins from the observation…
Reforming vocational education in the English education and training system has occupied governments for at least the last three decades, the latest development being the introduction of 14 lines of Specialised Diplomas. Using an historical analysis of qualifications reform, we suggest they are unli…
This article explores the previously quite marked absence from English policy debates on 14-19 education of issues that, in other developed countries, would be seen as key elements in the policy landscape. These are: the role of employers as providers of learning; the structure of employers'demand f…
The paper provides an analysis of the take-up of modern apprenticeships in Scotland for the period 1999-2001. The methodology includes secondary data sources and a case study. The findings indicate that, although the numbers participating in the MA scheme have increased, there remain major concerns …
In the UK policy context, skills, education and learning are seen as a universal solution to a vast array of economic and social problems. In challenging this view, this paper argues that those educationalists calling for progressive reforms to the education system need to acknowledge the reality of…
This paper considers youth engagement with dominant discourses regarding school completion. The paper is fundamentally concerned with the way the notion of school completion is being cast, its supporting discourse and the manner in which this potentially marginalizes and excludes. The ultimate effic…
This article examines the rise of the discourse on lifelong learning across Europe and the variety of national policy trends which its rhetoric occludes. The ubiquitous presence of this meta-discourse in education and training policy-in-theory is seen as a singular event, which can be ascribed to th…
This paper examines curriculum and assessment policy in Australian vocational education and training. Throughout the 1990s curriculum and assessment policy in Australia has been enacted through demand-side market oriented policies. Training policy has focused on the development of a competitive nati…
The United Kingdom has devised a set of National Learning Targets to be achieved by 2002. Revised from an earlier set of National Targets for Education and Training (NTETs), the latest ones embrace 11-21-year-olds, adults and employers and promote a credentialist approach to both economic and social…
Education systems can be characterized on the basis of whether the academic and occupational/vocational education and training they provide is compartmentalized (tracked systems), systematically connected (linked systems) or fully integrated (unified systems). This paper describes how such a typolog…
