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"human"

In July 2005, President Mbeki announced the launch of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), a new development strategy designed to help the South African state meet the ANC's 2004 election pledges, namely:•halve unemployment;•halve poverty;•accelerate employment equity; and•improve broad-based black economic empowerment. AsgiSA outlines a very different development path from the current orthodoxy of the Millennium Development Goals and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers in spite of the common commitment to halving poverty. This difference in approach encompasses the education and skills sector, where post-basic provision is given considerable attention. This paper seeks to explore why South Africa has taken this different approach, especially in education and skills development. It examines what the current evidence tells us about the strategy's likely success. Finally, it briefly considers the implications this case might have for the dominant model of African education and development. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Knowledge acquisition, processing and transfer are given central importance in today's knowledge economy in the belief that the structure and reproduction of personal capacities require permanent updating of the human commodity workforce. These complex requirements are often encoded in the concept of employability. One consequence of the policy emphasis on employability is pressure on higher education to produce an increasing range of desired personal capacities. A further pressure is on graduates to demonstrate a range of norm-related 'soft skills' and dispositions. Employability has equity implications. Educational experiences and processes can contribute to the development of employability skills and socio-economic privilege can be transferred on to the production and codification of qualifications and competencies.

The establishment of the European Higher Education Area has involved specifying lists of professional competencies that programs are expected to develop, and with this the need for procedures to measure how every course within a higher education program is aligned with the program's competencies. We propose an instrument for characterizing this alignment, a process that we call assessing the relevance of a course. Using information from the course syllabus (objectives, contents and assessment scheme), our instrument produces indicators for characterizing the syllabus in terms of a competence list and for assessing its coherence. Because assessment involves quality, the results obtained can also be used to revise and improve the course syllabus. We illustrate this process with an example of a methods course from a mathematics teacher education program at a Spanish university. © 2007.

OBJECTIVE: To report the ethical stances taken by newly-qualified dental graduates working in the south-east of England and how these changed over their first two years in practice. METHODS: A longitudinal self-completed questionnaire-based study using scenarios and closed questions was completed by an initial group of 135 vocational dental practitioners at the very beginning of their vocational training year, at the end of the year, and, finally, at the end of the subsequent year. Their answers were then analysed to see whether or not their views had changed during this period. RESULTS: At the commencement of the study in 2003, 133 (99%) newly-qualified dental graduates completed the questionnaire and answered the closed questions. The following year, 129 (96%) completed these documents and in 2005, at the end of the study, this figure was 97 (72%). There was considerable variation in the attitudes taken by the responding dentists. Reported attitudes changed over the study period in seven of the nine scenarios. Responses to the scenarios used could be grouped into three categories: those in which there was no change; those in which the change happened following completion of vocational training; and those in which there was a continual change. Answers to the four closed questions indicated a growing negativity to practice within the National Health Service over the study period. CONCLUSIONS: Dental educators need to be aware of the findings from this study. The importance of the ethical attitudes held and the reasons underpinning them should be explored if problems with delivery of care are to be avoided in the future.

[No abstract available]

In education as well as in human resource management, the concept of competency is becoming more and more important. However, competency is a fuzzy concept that lacks coherent terminology and is used in many different meanings. In the first part of this chapter, competency is defined as a multi-dimensional construct with five dimensions: specificity, coherency, durability, activity, and trainability. Then two approaches are presented to establish the competencies organisations or educational institutes should address: the function-based approach, which focuses requirements for good performance on a specific function, and the employee-based approach, which focuses on individual competencies for excellent performers. Finally, it is argued that a competency-based curriculum should move toward self-directed competency-based learning (SDCBL), using personal learning plans and adopting the flexible learning opportunities of e-learning. However, SDCBL can only be successful when learners can be taught to be responsible managers and owners of their own learning process. © 2007 by Idea Group Inc.

On-the-Job Training (OJT) is probably the training method withthe longest history. Even in the times of Hamurabi this trainingmethod was already put into practice to educate craftsmen. Inour days it is still used on a large scale to train employees, andin particular it is applied for training frontline employees. Thischapter deals with the topic of the effectiveness of OJT in thecontext of human Resource Development (HRD). So far thistopic has not been investigated into detail in HRD research.This chapter commences with raising explanations for thecurrent popularity of OJT. Then attention is paid to the issue ofdefining OJT as a concept. Additionally, the various forms inwhich OJT occurs in practice are pictured briefly. After a shortintroduction of the research findings in the area of OJT two casestudies are presented. In both studies the emphasis was ondetermining the effectiveness of OJT and on exploring thefactors contributing to its effectiveness. The final section of thischapter is devoted to the conclusions and will raise some pointsfor discussion. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.

In addition to dental hospital clinical activity, dental students at Paris Rene Descartes University have the opportunity in their final year of study to practise clinically in a dental office, as associates. This paper outlines a pilot, experimental study designed to assess student reaction to this Vocational Clinical Activity (VCA) in order to identify relevant weaknesses of the undergraduate programme. Using questionnaires, data were collected for each of the following clinical or management skills: clinical difficulty, therapeutic decision-making, patient/ practitioner relationship, time management, administrative matters and technical problems. Students were asked to rank each item in order of difficulty (1, high level to 6, low level). A high response rate was observed (90%) among the 50 undergraduate VCA students. The results pointed out three main difficulties encountered by undergraduate students during the VCA: time management (90% of the students), administrative matters (85% of the students) and clinical decision-making (80% of the students). These preliminary results need further investigation. However, they give us the incentive to carry on with this type of assessment and to extend it to young, qualified colleagues' perceptions and to other French Universities. © Blackwell Munksgaard 2006.

Vocational training in dentistry in Ireland was first established in 1999 to introduce new graduates to the practice of dentistry and to provide general dental training. The Vocational Dental Practitioner (VDP) spends two days per week in private practice, two days in the health board and one day on day-release attending lectures. Their salary is paid by the Health Service Executive (HSE). The VDP completes a portfolio book throughout the year to demonstrate their progress. Vocational training is not currently mandatory in Ireland. However it does come highly recommended as an excellent start to any dental career.

Background. Undertaking term-time employment is increasingly commonplace for university students. Much research suggests that combining 'earning and learning' may be detrimental to university life, generating role conflicts, increasing stress and reducing academic success, participation and overall adjustment to university. Potential positive effects of term-time employment on well-being are often neglected. Aims. This study adopted a balanced perspective, investigating the relationship between role congruence in academic, social and career domains and adjustment, with state and trait psychological factors as mediators/moderators. Methods. A questionnaire measuring perceived role congruence, adjustment to university life and psychological state and trait characteristics was mailed to all undergraduates at a Scottish university during term-time. Sample. Results for a subsample of 625 university students currently in term-time employment were included in this paper. Results. Findings suggested that students generally perceived employment and university roles to be in balance, and there was no difference in adjustment for students whether currently in term-time employment or not. However, psychological factors, particularly positive affectivity and stress were important mediators of the relationship between role congruence and adjustment. Conclusions. Since promoting role congruence may enhance students' adjustment and well-being, the study has implications for universities, student welfare organizations and employers offering term-time employment. © 2006 The British Psychological Society.