scholarly journals A Path Towards a Possible Future – Adult Students’ Choice of Vocational Education

Author(s):  
Tobias Karlsson ◽  
Karolina Muhrman ◽  
Sofia Nyström

AbstractToday’s society is characterized by high unemployment, a prevailing trust in and demands for an academic degree, and an emphasis on the individual’s own responsibility for their educational choices. This study aims to examine adults’ vocational education choices, their intentions in connection with municipal adult education (MAE) studies, and how this relates to identity formation. The study is based on 18 interviews and compares students from two vocational MAE training programmes in assistant nursing and floor laying. The analysis has identified different pathways concerning adult students’ decisions to enrol in municipal adult education and a specific vocational education and training (VET) programme. We see educational choices and paths in terms of underlying causes or as forward-looking rationalities. The results show that the process of identity formation is larger than simply one of vocational becoming within a vocational community of practice, since MAE studies involve a student’s whole being, including both their personal identity trajectories and their vocational identity formation. With this article we hope to provide a foundation for a pedagogical discussion about student intentions, focusing on how different subjectivities affect students with regard to their future vocational becoming.

Author(s):  
Rebecca Ye

AbstractThis paper addresses the question of how higher vocational education and training programmes socialise participants for future work, where the occupational pathways they are to embark on are weakly defined. The analysis focuses on organisational rituals as a means to understand individual and collective transformative processes taking place at a particular intersection of education and labour markets. Building on organisational and sociological theories of rituals, as well as drawing empirically from a longitudinal qualitative interview study of a cohort of students in Swedish higher vocational education for work in digital data strategy, I explore how rituals are enacted in a vocational education and training setting and what these rituals mean to the aspirants who partake in them. The findings illustrate how rituals initiate, convert, and locate the participants in a team. These repeated encounters with rituals socialise, cultivate and build vocational faith amongst participants, despite the nascency and unstable nature of their education-to-work pathways. However, while rituals can serve as a catalyst to ignite processes of collective identification and vocational socialisation, they are not always successful. The paper discusses implications of faith-building in weak-form occupational pathways when the labour market is strong and conversely, when the economy is in recession. The text concludes by advocating the need for examining the power of educational institutions in shaping transitional experiences of participants in vocational education.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (30 (1)) ◽  
pp. 397-405
Author(s):  
Ágnes Stomp ◽  
Marianna Móré

Continuous development of education and training programmes in the European Union is a key factor in enhancing cooperation at European level. Today, economic and social changes are taking place in the world, which is why vocational training is seen as a tool to prepare people for a changing world of work, improving employability and competitiveness. Vocational education and training must adapt to changes affecting the economy, society and the labour market. Vocational education and training (VET) policy has been a national, autonomous area of the Member States for decades, but the issue of VET has increasingly been given priority in the process of European economic unification. At the Lisbon Summit, the European Council recognised the important role of education as an integral part of economic and social policies, which is an important tool for increasing the European Union’s competitiveness. European cooperation in VET has been promoted by the three common European instruments created as a result of Copenhagen process: the European Qualifications Framework (EQF), the European Quality Assurance Reference Framework for Vocational Education and Training (EQAVET) and the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET), which are progressively integrated in their VET systems by the Member States. The aim of these instruments is to support recognition between European VET systems, to promote lifelong learning and mobility and to improve learning experiences. The aim of our study is to explore with a comparative study, to what extent and manner the V4 Member States (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) have integrated EQF, EQAVET and ECVET transparency instruments into their national vocational training systems and to what extent the transformations are in line with EU objectives.


Author(s):  
Amjad Kamal Owais ◽  
Suzan Mahmoud Alabidi ◽  
Zaydoon Mohammad Hatamleh ◽  
Elham T. Hussein

This study is of three-fold. The first provides a general overview of the history and importance of “Technical and Vocational Education and Train-ing” (TVET); the second compares TVET in The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United Kingdom (as a pioneer country in the field) in order to explore points of similarity and differences and to make recommendations for TVET im-provement in UAE; and the third analyses the relationship between teacher train-ing programmes, accessibility to technical resources, teachers’ technology inte-gration, and the mission and vision of technical and vocational institutes in UAE. Data were collected from 175 teachers and administrators of Technical Vocational Colleges (TVCs) in the UAE. To ensure a comprehensive exploration of the top-ic, three separate research models were developed and tested. All models were analysed using covariance-based structural equation modelling (SEM) through AMOS version 24. Results showed that there is a positive and significant rela-tionship between teachers’ technology integration, teacher training programmes and accessibility to technical resources/equipment, and the mission and vision of the technical and vocational institutes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liviu Moldovan

Abstract The objective of the research is to elaborate a comparative scheme of support and assessment procedures in Vocational Education and Training programmes according to ASSESS project partner’s countries. It is a comparative study between the different modes of support to employment and a conclusion between the existing programs and measures in the ASSESS project partner’s countries, investigating the strengths and weaknesses, assessment and evaluation of employability, methods that have been used and degree of performance. The research provides important information on different programs that includes assessment show the needs, realities and what improvements can be done. This analysis makes it possible to model key steps that will be included in an assessment tool of key skills for employment.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 274
Author(s):  
Pantelis Sklias ◽  
Spyros Roukanas ◽  
Giota Chatzimichailidou

<p class="AbstractText">The objective of the present study is to investigate the European Union (EU) policies regarding Adult Education from the early fifties. It seems like Adult Education, either as an ideology or as a practice, haven’t gained widespread attention by the Brussels Bureaucrats, as a result, the first interests in concepts of Adult Education had begun, only, in 2000. While Lifelong Learning involves both vocational and non-vocational education, policymakers seemed to be preoccupied by an extensive interest to meet the needs of European labour market, so they have paid much effort to promote Vocational Education and Training instead of Adult Education. The possible contribution of Adult Education policies to strengthen social cohesion is another issue we attempt to explain. Were EU policies for Adult Education a step in this direction so far or not? </p>


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