Search Results for
"Article"

This article is a critical review of policy and literature relating to vocational education and training (VET) in schools in Australia. Over the past decade in Australia, VET in schools has grown considerably so that not only are nearly half of senior school students now involved, but also VET in schools represents around 10% of total VET activity. In both schools and the VET sector itself, VET in schools was originally marginalised and this article explores its movement from the margins towards the mainstream in both spheres. An overview of the growth of VET in schools in Australia, along with other vocational developments in schools, is given, along with discussion of some of the benefits and challenges of VET in schools, both from a schooling perspective and from a national skills formation perspective. The consequences of the move from margins to mainstream have not yet been fully digested and debate rarely moves beyond consideration of implications for the school sector. The article moves beyond these narrow confines to raise broader questions for the VET sector. © 2004 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This article discusses workplace participatory practices: the reciprocal process of engaging in and learning through work. The reciprocity between the affordance of the workplace (its invitational qualities) and individuals' engagement in the workplace is proposed as a means of understanding how learning through work proceeds. How workplaces invite individuals or cohorts of individuals to participate in and learn through work can be understood in terms of how they are afforded opportunities to engage in activities and interactions that are central to the values and practices (i.e. continuity) of the work practice. These affordances are shaped by workplace norms, practices and affiliations (e.g. cliques, associations, occupational groupings, employment status) and are often characterised by contestation and inequitable distribution. Access to opportunities for practice, and therefore learning, is directed towards sustaining the work practice and/or the interests of particular individuals and groups. Nevertheless, how individuals engage in and learn from work is also shaped by their agencies, which are a product of their values, subjectivities and identities. These reciprocal processes of participation in workplaces are illuminated through an analysis of the micro-social processes that shape the participatory practices of three workers over a six-month period: a union worker, a grief counsellor and a school-based information technology consultant. The findings illuminate the bases for participation, performance and learning for each of the three workers. © 2004 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

The question of student teachers connecting what is learned at university and within school sites has always been considered problematic. At the University of New England (UNE), in New South Wales, Australia, this issue is addressed through an action research project undertaken by fourth year Bachelor of Education (BEd) primary students during their final professional experience component, i.e. an internship. This article sets out the theoretical framework for the project, which is grounded on previous work on the problems of knowledge production. Additionally, the articulation between the action research project and professional experience within the internship is discussed. Although this article reports on a project designed within the context of the Australian teacher education system, the concept may well be of interest to a much wider audience. © 2004 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This article examines the development of nationally funded vocational education and training (VET) research in Australia since the mid-1990s. The provision of nationally competitive funding through the Australian National Training Authority has led to an explosion of VET research guided by a national strategy that outlines the key priorities for the major stakeholders in the VET system. The article reports on the results of an analysis of Australia's major national competitive grant scheme for VET research from 1997 to 2000, and examines the quality and impact of that research. Issues of quality and impact are crucial to the future of VET research in Australia, and the analysis leads to the conclusion that there is a need for the development of new skills amongst VET researchers to ensure the continuity of the field. © 2004 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

The article examines the reasons why the United Kingdom's approach to vocational education is more confused and impoverished than ever, despite its central importance to contemporary society. Instead of celebrating skill and vocational knowledge, the United Kingdom has embroiled itself in tortuous debates about parity of esteem, while paradoxically attempting to reduce its once well-respected vocational qualifications to a thin gruel of competence-based checklists. In 2003, young people could still find themselves apprenticed to employers who would not be out of place in a novel by Charles Dickens: some play a positive role in young people's lives, while others enslave them. Yet just as in a Dickens novel, we abandon young people to the economic marketplace. A recent government discussion paper on 14-19 Education and Training defined vocational education solely in terms of its value to the economy. The author argues, however, that in everyday life, vocational education supports people's need to create artefacts, to improve their surroundings, to fight against becoming de-skilled consumers, to feel part of the natural world, and to demonstrate the true extent of their capabilities. © 2004 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Since 1998, the ‘Learnership’ model of workplace training has been promoted in South Africa as a creative vehicle for addressing high unemployment rates and a serious skills shortage. This is achieved through fast-tracking the acquisition of skills and increasing a learner's chances of employment. However, because learnerships are a recent innovation, the body of applied knowledge is small. This article aims to contribute to what is known through examining a series of pilot projects, implemented between 1997 and 2001 in KwaZulu-Natal. A key finding concerns how learnerships are managed: the effective delivery of a learnership programme and of its outcomes requires the involvement of key stakeholders from the outset, role clarity and a carefully structured and monitored process of implementation. Using a case study approach, this article situates learnerships within the context of workplace training; explores four key lessons learnt and presents a proposed model of effective learnership management. © 2004 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Social partnerships that respond to and address local needs are becoming an increasingly significant feature of public policy, particularly in Europe and more recently Australia. The trend is also being actively promoted through the development planning agencies such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, UNESCO and World Bank. The common policy intent is to devolve decision-making to the local level where action consequences are more immediate and more readily realised than in more centralised forms of governance. Working to secure mutuality of interests and reconciliation of conflicting interests among client groups then becomes the hallmark of mature service delivery. This article sets out the conceptual terrain for ‘new’ social partnerships in terms of their prospect of building communities through participation in vocational education and training (VET). It initially identifies some of the qualities and characteristics of ‘new’ social partnerships being enacted in VET, their achievements and contributions to community building. In doing so, it highlights some bases for judging the successes and threats to these social partnerships, and to appraise the extent to which they have shifted conceptions of learning beyond traditional institutional spaces occupied by centralised policy formulation and provision of VET through education institutions. A principal concern is to identify strategies for making social partnerships work better in supporting localised decision-making and opportunities for VET to be enacted in ways to support both communities and individuals. © 2004 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This article examines ways in which more explicit connections might be forged between students' experiences as humanities students, and their experiences as part-time workers. The purpose is to connect particularisations of meaning with the development of a coherent whole, by using Van Oers' (1998) framework for contextualisation. It is argued that the meaning that humanities students derive from their academic studies is provided through the specifics of the context in which it is learned, and the relationships that the student discerns between this particularised meaning and its coherence with a wider whole. Similarly, the meaning that is derived from experiences of part-time work is provided by the specifics of the workplace context and the relationships that the student discerns between workplace meanings, and the particularised meanings from other contexts. Data gathered in Griffith University's Workplace Learning Project are re-analysed here to indicate how these relationships can be built in order to enrich meaning through its increasing coherence. © 2004 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

The findings reported in this article are based on qualitative research that explored the views and experiences of key stakeholders, including employer-bodies, training providers, employers and apprentices of Modern Apprenticeships (MAs) in retail. The study identifies fundamental barriers to the successful implementation of MAs in this sector. These are related to the culture of the sector, including the mobility of young workers, who frequently change jobs, and the preoccupation with serving the customer, which can restrict and fragment training and development opportunities. The stresses and strains of this working environment do not provide conditions that support the use of MAs. The paper explores some of the steps that could be taken in order to increase the demand for training and more generic skills among employers. However, it concludes that government initiatives such as MAs alone will not change employers' attitudes towards training. © 2004 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This article reports findings from an assessment of the effectiveness of privately administered ‘structured on-site training’ (SOST) programs funded by the California Employment Training Panel. It reports on the characteristics of SOST programs that increased trainees' competitiveness in the internal and external labor markets. In addition, it provides implications for on-the-job training (OJT) programs that are funded privately and offers additional implications unique to OJT funded with public dollars. © 2004 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.