This book explores how Cuba’s famously successful and inclusive education system has formed young Cubans’ political, social, and moral identities in a country transfigured by new inequalities and moral compromises made in the name of survival. The author examines this educational experience from the perspective of those who grew up in the years of economic crisis following the fall of the Soviet Union, charting their ideals, their frustrations and their struggle to reconcile revolutionary rhetoric with twenty-first century reality.
Youth unemployment and joblessness are major issues for national governments and international organizations across the globe. In this respect, the school-to-work transition challenge is increasingly raising the interest of companies, education and training institutions, families and young people themselves, who are often involved in precarious and illegal forms of employment, in many countries of the world. In the field of industrial and labour relations, the school-to-work perspective seems particularly suitable for policy formulation and assessment: the broad and complex range of tools, strategies and policies for enabling youth training and their access to the labour market is deserving of a closer analysis at an international level in a time when jobless recovery threatens national economies. The ADAPT LABOUR STUDIES BOOK-SERIES has in connection been set up with a view to achieving a better understanding of the causes, consequences and possible responses to the issue in a global dimension through an interdisciplinary and comparative approach.
This six-volume handbook covers the latest practice in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). It presents TVET models from all over the world, reflections on the best and most innovative practice, and dozens of telling case studies. The handbook presents the work of established as well as the most promising young researchers and features unrivalled coverage of developments in research, policy and practice in TVET.
Conference report on young workers, esp. Their work attitudes, and youth employment in Europe - covers vocational training, transition from school to work, employment creation programmes, youth unemployment, attitudes of unemployed youth, occupational aspirations, social policy and youth policy. List of participants. Bibliography, graphs, statistical tables.
In advancing the vision of adult learning articulated at the International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA V) held in Hamburg in 1997, the UNESCO Institute for Education has been conducting studies on the different areas and dimensions of ‘Adult Learning and the Changing World of Work’. One question that has been central to this area is: What constitutes adult learning for those who traditionally secure their survival in the informal economy, as well as for those school leavers and dropouts who are forced to work in this sector? In answering this question, the informal sector or popular economy may be defined in various ways, but there is an increasing recognition that it is a phenomenon that has come to stay and that government policies aimed at economic and social development, including national education and training policies and programmes, should target those who work in this sector. In particular, basic education and continuing education and training are being seen as key to empowering people and as crucial to strategies for reducing poverty. Moreover, there is a growing awareness that education is a human right of fundamental siginificance to promoting decent work and humane living conditions. It is in view of such considerations that UIE and the ILO planned to conduct studies in South Asia (Nepal, Bangladesh, India) to develop an understanding of the quality provision of education and skills development in and for the informal sector.
Published in 1998. In recent years research, as well as the results of practical programmes, has led to a clearer understanding of the relationship between child work and education. It is increasingly evident that child work is not entirely the result of economic need or exploitation. Frequently is the failure of educational system to offer adequate, stimulating and affordable schooling that encourages children to drop out in favour of work that appears to offer advantages more relevant to their everyday lives. Parents too may undervalue the role and purpose of a school that provides inadequate preparation for the future and often see a job, including home-based work, as a positive alternative to crime, delinquency or begging. Consequently, while a distinction needs to be made between ‘formative child work’ and ‘harmful child work’, in certain situations and cultures the phenomenon is not always seen as negative. Yet, although gratifying in the short term and sometimes even providing the means for a younger child to attend school as well as a way of learning discipline and responsibility, often these jobs provide no useful experience and do not lead to an improvement in the personal development of life chances of a child. The situation is therefore complex and requires a more realistic evolution of the relationship between archaic pedagogy, dropout rates and child work. These five case studies from Latin America all reveal the effects of inappropriate school curricular. Desertion of the educational system for the labour market leads to inadequate training and perpetuates the poverty trap. As part of the commitment to combating work which is detrimental to the child, major educational reform is needed. Improvements in coverage, quality and affordability should lead to greater acceptance pf schooling at all levels of society and provide a greater incentive for parents and children alike to participate more fully in the system. Moreover, in cases of severe economic hardship and forced or harmful labour, practical assistance with subsides and scholarships should be considered to remove children from such work.
