Search Results for
"education"

This article examines how Technical and Vocational education and Training (TVET) lecturers in a South African college conceptualise a humanising pedagogy within Work Integrated Learning (WIL) practices. Against a backdrop of high youth unemployment and persistent skills mismatches, the study considers how WIL might be reframed to support employability while fostering learner agency. Using a qualitative, critical design, five purposively selected lecturers drawn from the college’s five campuses participated in the study. Data were generated through participatory visual methods (collage-making and a modified Mmogo-method®) combined with semi-structured group discussions. Findings reveal that although lecturers seldom used the term ‘humanising pedagogy’, their practices often reflected its principles: learner-centredness, dignity, and responsiveness to students’ lived realities. The visual artefacts and narratives highlighted tacit and affective dimensions of pedagogy that interviews alone might miss. However, humanising practices were constrained by compliance-driven frameworks that emphasised logbooks, placements, and bureaucratic requirements. The study acknowledges that students’ perspectives were mediated through lecturer accounts, suggesting future research should include learner voices and direct observations. Overall, the paper argues that humanising WIL holds transformative potential by nurturing purpose, workplace readiness, and entrepreneurial imagination. It contributes to debates on vocational reform by offering context-responsive guidelines for socially inclusive WIL. © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Worldwide, the tourism and hospitality industry has been expanding quickly over the past two decades as a result of globalization. The role of tourism and hospitality education at colleges, universities, and vocational schools plays a critical role in achieving excellence in the tourism industry. In the tourism and hospitality industry, being a highly competitive work-market focused on services, there is the constant demand for developing educational programs that emphasize professional skills along with student quality. This new book looks at how higher education in tourism and hospitality meets the demands and expectations of today's tourism and hospitality industry. © 2026 by Apple Academic Press, Inc.

Recently, a strict working definition of information in computer science was proposed. Information is understood as a selected subset in relation to the original set of elements (alternatives, states, outcomes, etc.); in the general case, the selected subset can be fuzzy. The purpose of this study is to create a methodological basis for using the new definition of information in IT education, in particular when studying machine learning technologies and neural networks. In addition, an important methodological issue is considered: the relationship of the new definition of information with another central concept of information theory – diversity. The experience of implementing the new approach is analyzed using the example of a research and educational student project. The project is devoted to forecasting the emergence of evolutionarily stable daily vertical migrations of zooplankton as a result of adaptation to environmental conditions. In this case, external conditions are classified into four classes corresponding to different migration regimes of two age groups of zooplankton. The new approach to the definition of information involves taking into account the objective fuzziness of the boundaries between classes. This in turn leads to the fact that the forecast regarding the migrations is formed with varying degrees of confidence. This approach allows us to avoid unfounded decisions and reduce the number of errors. It significantly reduces the risks of neural network overtraining. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.

This study provides a comprehensive and critical examination of various enrichment strategies for gifted learners, specifically contextualized within the unique educational and sociocultural landscape of the Philippines. The primary purpose of this research is to systematically analyze the efficacy and implementation of differentiated and advanced curricula, independent study enrichments, learning centers, specialized programs, and mentorship/apprenticeship programs within the context of the Filipino gifted child. Employing a State-of-the-Art review methodology, it synthesizes existing scholarly literature to elucidate how these approaches foster cognitive, academic, and socioemotional development in gifted students, enhancing higher-order thinking, self-efficacy, and social responsibility. The findings highlight the profound impact of these strategies on engaging Filipino gifted learners’ natural curiosity and collectivist orientation, preparing them for future leadership roles. However, the study emphasizes that the full realization of these benefits is critically contingent upon addressing systemic challenges, necessitating robust policy frameworks, sustained funding, culturally competent teacher training, and accessible identification tools. Ultimately, this research advocates for a tailored, effective, and sustainable gifted education system in the Philippines to empower its brightest minds for national progress. © 2026 World Council for Gifted and Talented Children.

As online learning environments become increasingly popular within engineering education, practitioners and researchers seek to enhance teaching and learning by better understanding the factors influencing students’ perceptions. This study aims to explore some of these factors by employing a multi-methods survey design, which included a Teamwork Satisfaction Scale, Online Collaborative Attitude Scale and an open-ended question. The participants are first-year engineering students (N = 94) in an online module that was developed and implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. The quantitative results highlight overall positive student perceptions of teamwork satisfaction and collaborative attitude in the online environment. The qualitative results identify eleven elements of successful online collaboration. The findings also highlight multiple factors which have the potential to positively impact student perceptions of collaboration in online PBL settings. Additionally, the study presents a refined Teamwork Satisfaction Scale and Collaborative Attitude Scale. However, further refinement by way of an exploratory factor analysis is recommended. © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This article investigates the impact of authentic learning on student employability within postgraduate Human Resource Management (HRM) programme in New Zealand. Focusing on a consultancy project course at a large New Zealand university, the study examines how work-integrated learning, as a form of authentic learning, enhances employability through the lens of job crafting theory. Twelve former students participated in the study through interviews. Analysis of interviews and secondary data highlights the role of authentic learning in developing employability skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking and professional communication. The study underscores the importance of carefully designed authentic learning experiences in bridging the gap between academic knowledge and practical application, ultimately contributing to enhanced employability outcomes for graduates. Additionally, our research suggests that job crafting can be a valuable strategy for higher education institutions to enhance authentic learning experiences for HR students, thereby creating a more adaptable and future-ready workforce. © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The article presents an analysis of the mechanisms used by a vocational high school in Bulgaria to develop dual training and implement it sustainably. It focuses on the school management’s leadership role in the network of different stakeholders, demonstrating the importance of this aspect in the entire process of developing dual education. Apart from the case analysis of the Bulgarian vocational high school’s successful implementation of dual learning, the research strategy includes examining regulatory documents, evaluation reports and publications in media and by companies, as well as analyzing the attitudes among key stakeholders. An overview of the challenges facing dual education in Bulgaria is also provided. Based on the case study findings, the factors supporting the implementation and sustainability of the dual system have been identified. We conclude that the long-term development of the dual education model depends on the understanding that the formation of professional skills is a dynamic process, requiring attention to the needs of the local environment, adaptability to current changes and active participation by all stakeholders. The role of school leadership—with regard to both its motivation and activity—has proven to be essential, and therefore it should not be overlooked when creating state incentives to support dual training. © 2026 by the authors.

Introduction: The phenomenon of “educational silos”–the structural fragmentation between professional training and values education–remains a persistent challenge in global higher education. While China’s Curriculum Ideological–Political education (CIPE) policy offers a systemic response to this issue, existing research often lacks a robust theoretical framework to explain the mechanisms of integration. Methods: This study addresses this gap by developing a dialectical integration framework through a mixed-methods design, combining a cross-linguistic bibliometric analysis of 851 publications (2014–2024) with multi-site case studies across 12 universities. Results: The analyses identify three distinct integration modalities—complementary, dialogical, and transformative—which function as context–dependent strategies rather than hierarchical stages. Furthermore, a meta-analytical synthesis indicates a moderate positive association between these initiatives and knowledge consolidation, although effects diminish in behavioral domains. Discussion: Overcoming educational silos appears to require dialectical negotiation of disciplinary boundaries and explicit alignment between professional competencies and value-oriented goals. The proposed framework offers a transferable typology to support curriculum design, institutional implementation, and evaluation of integration quality. © © 2026 Wei and Yang.

Grounded in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4), specifically addressing the urgent need to increase relevant skills for decent work (Target 4.4) while ensuring inclusive access and quality (Targets 4.3, 4.5, 4.c), this study develops a province-level indicator system for the “talent chain” and “industry chain” and integrates entropy-weighted composite evaluation, a coupling coordination model, correlation tests, and mismatch typology classification to systematically assess the alignment between higher education talent formation and industrial demand across 31 Chinese provinces during 2000–2022. The analysis aims to characterize China’s phase-specific progress in SDG4-consistent development at the education–industry interface and to provide a theoretical and empirical basis for improving graduate job matching. The results show that (1) overall talent–industry matching improved steadily from 2000 to 2022, yet pronounced regional disparities persist, with eastern provinces generally outperforming central and western regions; (2) educational quality and structural inputs—such as faculty capacity, per-student expenditure, and the composition of human capital—are the primary drivers of talent-chain performance, whereas expansion-oriented indicators exhibit limited marginal contributions, implying that sustainable graduate job matching hinges more on quality upgrading and supply-structure optimization than on quantitative expansion alone; (3) industry-chain advancement is jointly driven by industrial scale, structural upgrading, and employment absorptive capacity, with the tertiary sector playing a particularly prominent role in shaping demand for higher-skilled labor; and (4) a divergence in driving mechanisms—quality- and structure-oriented on the education side versus scale- and structure-oriented on the industry side—combined with regional heterogeneity produces stage-specific mismatch typologies, suggesting remaining scope for structural alignment between higher education systems and industrial upgrading. Overall, strengthening regional coordination, integration, quality, and upgrading drives synergistic development, advancing SDG 4 targets by validating that quality-driven education reform is the key lever for sustainable employment in China. © 2026 by the authors.

This study examines the effectiveness of the University–Government–Kindergarten Collaboration (UGK) model in training early childhood teacher candidates (TCs), using the education for Sustainable Development (ESD) framework to assess its role in enhancing TCs’ competencies. Data were collected through a survey of 210 TCs and in-depth interviews with 12 participants. The findings indicate a structural imbalance in UGK: while university–kindergarten collaboration shows some effectiveness, the lack of governmental leadership weakens tripartite synergy. From an ESD perspective, although UGK fosters basic collaborative skills, it does not systematically develop higher-order ESD competencies such as systems thinking, normative awareness, critical thinking, and strategic action. By shifting the focus from institutional to student experience, this study offers a new analytical framework for teacher education models. It concludes that optimizing UGK requires stronger governmental coordination, deeper university–kindergarten cooperation, and explicit integration of ESD core competencies throughout the training system. © 2026 by the authors.