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This chapter discusses the changing and emerging characteristics of work, work practice and work requirements, and their consequences for vocational education. Changing patterns in work and working life are proposed as comprising: (1) the kind of work available; (ii) how individuals participate in work; (iii) what constitutes competence within that work; and (iv) those participating in work. The consequences for vocational education are systemic in terms of the kinds of occupations that need to be developed, variations in and complexity of work requirements, shifts in employer/employee relations, and the demographic shifts in those who will need to be supported by vocational education. The chapter examines these patterns of change to work and working life, and discusses policy and curriculum practice associated with each. Overall, it argues that the changes to work make it more demanding, and the frequency of change in work and how work is carried out demands careful, comprehensive and targeted preparation and on-going development. Moreover, with broader participation in the work force and longer working lives, the arrangement for this preparation and on-going development will need to be targeted, differentiated and sustained.

Published introduction.

The book from which this chapter is taken is indexed at TD/TNC 100.51. Individual chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 100.52 to TD/TNC 100.244. Show less

A complex set of relational factors shape adult students' transition to higher education. Through accounts provided by adult vocational education students, a set of related interdependencies between what the university and other forms of support (e.g. family, friends) afforded these students and their agency, capacities and engagement were identified as shaping their transition to higher education. Bases for these students' engagement in their studies were found in their intentions and previous experiences that together shaped how they construed what is afforded by the university and other sources of support. Consequently, beyond what universities provide to support these transitions, considerations for promoting successful student transition into higher education necessarily require accounting for students' experiences, access to different kinds of support outside the university and their previous experiences. Therefore, rather than proposing general prescriptions about what universities need to do to promote successful transitions, [these] complex factors likely [play] out in quite person-particular ways. All of this reinforces the view that successful transitions to higher education are quite individual processes, and not just wholly dependent upon what educational institutions provide, and those affordances need to be [informed] by and aligned with different kinds of student needs.

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This paper discusses theorising and empirical work which proposes that the dispositions underpinning cognitive activity need to become more central to deliberations about how individuals think about and engage in skilful vocational practice. Such activity has consequences for how and what is learnt, as well as individuals’ ongoing development. Having reviewed ideas about the dispositional underpinnings of skilful knowledge, the paper reports a study examining how individuals construct knowledge associated with their vocational practice. This study provides tentative findings about the source of dispositions and their role in vocational activity. The paper concludes by advancing some implications for instruction. Show less

There are growing expectations that tertiary education graduates will be ready for working life, that is, possessing the capacities to participate effectively in an occupational practice in a specific work situation. Yet, graduates are often unprepared to fulfil this expectation. In response, tertiary education increasingly includes workplace experiences (i.e., practicums, internships, and work placements). It is necessary to understand these experiences' efficacy and their optimisation to promote work-life readiness. Drawing on students' experiences of internships, this paper discusses what constitutes the value of internships in post-secondary diploma courses in Singapore.

A quantitative analysis of interview data identified the contributions afforded through these experiences in workplaces - students' intentional engagement, and their readiness for working life. Central here is how these contributions promote the development of the adaptability required for effective participation in contemporary working life. The analysis identifies challenges including students' adapting to new work environments, navigating workplace practices, and developing occupational capacities. Workplace supervisors' and host educational institutions' support suggests interns' adaptability can be enhanced by promoting the relations between the support they received, on the one hand, and their engagement with challenges during internships, on the other. These findings offer an understanding about the experiences and outcomes of interns' learning through workplaces and offer implications for supporting and augmenting transitions into working life.

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The origins and focuses of adult education across Western countries are often about meeting adults' needs, and for purposes they have nominated, not those compelled by others. Unlike other sectors (e.g. schools, vocational colleges and universities) that were mainly initiated and sustained by church or state, adult education has long been grounded in communities and provided through hybrid institutions. Across Western countries, the term 'movement', is often associated with adult education's origins, and it is sometimes regarded as a 'fourth sector' of education, apart from schools, vocational education and training and university studies. In recent times, the concept has expanded and diversified, however, making it more amorphous and less distinctive as an educational 'sector'. Nevertheless, one of the continuing features of 'adult education' has been its concern for adults' learning needs and preferences.

This paper proposes that the formation and continuity of adult education have been based particularly on three key premises: (i) meeting adults' specific but heterogeneous learning needs; (ii) educational purposes and purposes being understood in the local context; and (iii) the enactment of adult education being shaped by local considerations. Furthermore, the values underpinning 'traditional' adult education have not only been sustained in what is now more commonly known as Adult and Community Education (ACE) but have expanded into other educational contexts. Informed by considerations of selected research projects the authors have been involved with in recent years, this paper identifies how the three premises have emerged as features of other educational provisions for adults.

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Maintaining and improving the capacity to be effective in work is held now to become an important social goal in order to maintain, individual, local and national well-being, including standard of living (Organisation of Economic and Cultural Development [OECD], 1996). Yet, without knowing more about how individuals are able to engage in work and learn through that work, and are motivated to continue to learn, there can be no certainty about whether the expectations upon individuals are realistic. This paper reports the initial findings of an investigation that aims to understand something of these relations through understanding the working lives of five individuals. It aims to explore these individuals’ working lives including how they exercised their agency ethically at work. In doing so, it aims to identify how this agency is shaped by individuals’ identity and subjectivity, and how these shape their participation in, and learning through, work.

Published abstract reprinted by the permission of the copyright owner.

The volumes from which this paper is taken are indexed from TD/TNC 77.351 to TD/TNC 77.353. Individual papers are indexed from TD/TNC 77.354 to TD/TNC 77.437. Show less

As many, perhaps most, high-school students engage in paid part-time employment, there is available in any Australian senior school classroom a range of work experiences that can be used to assist students to consider and reflect on working life and post-school pathways. Furthermore, these experiences are more readily available and authentic than those provided through school-organised work experience programmes. In order to understand the effectiveness of such experiences, students and teachers in six schools across two Australian states participated in processes of guided reflection on these experiences. Consistently, across cohorts of students in all of these schools, the authentic workplace experiences of paid part-time work were identified as assisting in securing a range of educational purposes associated with students’ learning about work, the world of work and post-school options and pathways. Key variables in the likely success of this initiative were the facilitative capacity of teachers, their knowledge and valuing of working life outside schools and students’ capacities and readiness to engage in reflection on their paid work.

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This guide, a product of research into workplace learning conducted by the author within the coal mining industry and across a range of workplaces in other industries, was intended to be used in the development, implementation and evaluation of work-based learning processes. It addresses three broad questions: (1) What are the attributes that learners need to acquire to become skilled vocational practitioners? (2) How can the workplace be used as a learning setting to develop these attributes? (3) What are some guidelines and principles for learning in the workplace? The contents are: Introduction; Qualities of vocational expertise; Workplace as a learning setting (Learning on-the-job; Apprenticeship as guided learning; Guided apprenticeship; Operational principles); Organising experiences for the learner; Mentoring role of expert; Guided apprenticeship-type learning in less-than-idea circumstances (isolated learners; processes that are not visible; lack of available expertise); Checklist for workplace learning; References. Show less

This project investigated the principles and practices underpinning the effective operation of social partnerships. The aim was to identify those principles and practices most beneficial in social partnerships supporting vocational education and training (VET). The project builds on prior research into social partnerships by examining the processes involved in social partnerships. The specific aims of this project were to investigate: the key principles and practices that underpin the formation, development and maintenance of the social practices effective in assisting localised decision-making and capacity-building; the effective enactment of these principles and practices as shaped in different ways across these social practices; and the ways in which these principles and practices are associated with establishing and developing social partnerships robust enough to manage changing circumstances, tasks and goals. This project is phase one of a two-phase project. Phase two will investigate the application of these principles and practices to VET in specific regions. The project involved reviewing 10 social partnerships in Queensland and Victoria during 2005-06, specifically those which had shown some history of operation and success. This review process aimed to: understand their formation, development and progress; determine internal and external factors influencing their formation and development; and identify principles and practices that have sustained these social partnerships and their partnership work over time. Data were collected from these 10 partnerships through interviews with up to three key informants in each, and focused on specific events in the development of the partnership in order to identify factors that either contributed to the development of, or served to undermine the partnership and partnership work. Three kinds of partnerships were identified: enacted partnerships; community partnerships; and negotiated partnerships. Analysis of the data indicated that these three kinds of partnerships may not be helpful in categorising social partnerships in their early or subsequent development, but their quite different bases need to be considered in the context of their initial formation, depending on the direction or initiation of the partnership project. The data show that social partnerships are established and maintained because participants engage in partnership work which is identified as the interactive and collaborative process of working together to identify, negotiate and articulate goals, and to develop processes for realising and reviewing those goals. The findings of this first phase of the research project have been used to identify and elaborate further the character of social partnerships and the work necessary for establishing and maintaining them. A key finding is that this is complex work, demanding significant skills in cross-cultural and interpersonal communication. Further findings cover the identification of different types of social partnerships; the central role of partnership work in the development and continuity of social partnerships; the principles and practices associated with partnerships and their development; and the types of partnership work. Show less

This paper outlines the potential roles for vocational educators in developing workplace learning arrangements. The author discusses a series of activities referred to as developing the ‘learning curriculum’ which is a central task for vocational educators. These activities include: establishing a learning pathway; organising support and guidance; structuring access to authentic activities; and recognition of skills acquired in the workplace. Show less