A changing world of work brings the importance of Vocational Education and Training (VET) to the forefront, as it has the ability to develop the skills that are needed in today’s labour markets and societies. At the same time, structural changes highlight the need to re-engineer certain parts of VET systems in some countries to make them more resilient and ensure they can make the most of the opportunities ongoing changes present.
The German vocational education and training (VET) system is admired around the world for its ability to prepare young people for skilled employment. In Germany, VET smooths transitions into work and is closely aligned with labour market demand. This report focuses on an unprecedented test of the German VET system: how to respond to the significant increase in migrants who arrived in the country in 2015-16. The study explores both the opportunities and the challenges presented by migration.
Germany has a strong skill development system. The country’s 15‐year‐old students performed above the OECD average in the last (2018) edition of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), continuing a trend of significant improvement since PISA’s first edition in 2000.
This book examines modularisation in the German system of initial vocational education and training – an issue that is a matter of intense debate by educationists and politicians in Germany. After examining the underlying concept of modularisation, Hubert Ertl looks at approaches to it in Spain, Scotland, France and the Netherlands, before examining in detail the National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) framework in England and Wales. The author demonstrates how the strengths and weaknesses of NVQs (and their functional position within the education and training system) are particularly significant to the strategy of modularisation in German initial training that he goes on to propose. This strategy recommends the evolutionary development of the elements of occupational profiles into self-contained modules, and identifies the ways in which these elements have to be transformed in order to fulfil the functions of modules in a modularised training system. The author hopes that the restructured system may incorporate modules developed in co-operation with European partners and so link to other national training systems.
This joint OECD-ILO publication provides guidance on how local and regional governments can foster business-education partnerships in apprenticeship programmes and other types of work-based learning, drawing on case studies across nine countries.
This report on Responsive School Systems is the second in a series of thematic comparative reports bringing together findings from the OECD’s School Resources Review. Evolving educational objectives, changing student needs and demographic developments require school systems.
After reviewing policies and practice in 15 countries, this book presents nine broad policy responses to the lifelong learning agenda that relate directly to national qualifications systems. They also identify twenty linkages between qualifications systems and lifelong learning goals.
Government attempts in recent years to create a national system of vocational education and training have marked a profound shift both in educational policy and in underlying concepts of what education is for. Relations between schools and the working world are changing all the time and the implementation of ideas of vocationalism has forced a blurring of the time-honoured boundaries between educations concerned with concepts and training, or with skills. The challenge now is to define how the schools can give young people the foundations for life in a working world in which they are likely to have to change jobs and where work will fill a smaller proportion of their lives. The Vocational Quest maps the evolution of vocationalism in Britain in historical terms and examines how the particular forms that have come into being in the last few years compare with developments in other parts of the world, including Continental Europe, Japan, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. It argues for new forms of communication and partnership between formal education and training and the wider community, in which values will be shared and no one partner will win at the expense of others.
This book assesses the impact and implementation of national qualifications frameworks in sixteen different countries. It presents two major lessons for policy makers thinking of introducing a National Qualifications Framework (NQF). First, that an NQF is only a way of framing existing provision; it cannot on its own, lead to the acquisition of skills or knowledge. Second, as an attempt to standardize learning- something that is only to a limited extent standardizable, NQFs have disadvantages as well as advantages. The research was funded by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the European Training Foundation (ETF) and, partly as a result of the ILO/ETF Report, the Editors were asked by the World Bank to help them in advising the government of India on introducing a NQF for vocational qualifications. Building on the findings of the report, the editors of this book presented an NQF implementation strategy to the Government of India on behalf of the World Bank. It laid out the steps and stages that would be involved and took account of the earlier experiences of introducing an NQF. Although this strategy was prepared specifically for the Government of India, others who have read it felt it deserved wider circulation. The report has therefore been included in this volume. Since this research was undertaken, the number countries, especially developing countries, implementing or introducing a NQF has continued to increase. This book will be of interest to policy makers and researchers. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Education and Work.
This book sets current policy and practice concerns against the backdrop of community education and employs case studies to chart the developments and changes that have taken place in FE.
