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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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Understanding what constitutes learning across working life and how negotiating worklife transitions can be best supported has never been more important for working age adults, their workplaces and communities. The kinds and frequencies of changes in occupational and workplace requirements have consequences for personal goals, workplace viability and communities' economic and social wellbeing. Hence, for both individual and societal purposes we need to elaborate the goals for and processes of that learning and what constitutes educative worklife experiences. Drawing on a three-phase investigation of adults' worklife learning the kinds and qualities of the educative experiences directly or indirectly guiding, supporting and extending individuals' learning and development are elaborated. This includes pathways of experiences across working life: personal curriculums. The paper reports and discusses the data from: (i) worklife narratives and follow-up interviews, and (ii) 18-month monitoring of work and learning of a cohort of workers. It furthers the case for viewing lifelong learning and lifelong education as being distinct and seperate phenomena, the interdependence among the contributions of adults, their educational experiences and those provided by their communities, leading to the explanatory concepts of personal curriculum and educative experiences to illuminate and elaborate learning and development across working life.

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Forthcoming article first published online 15 June 2023 by Taylor and Francis. Show less

The concept of employability extends beyond initial occupational preparation into the ability to remain employable as, inevitably, occupational capacities and workplace requirements change frequently across working lives. Hence, the need to continually learn to remain occupationally current and respond to changing workplace requirements becomes paramount. The evidence suggests that much of that learning arises through individual efforts and the support of co-workers through work activities. So, there is a need to understand how that learning can be supported to sustain employability across lengthening working lives.

Drawing on an Australian study, reported here are perspectives from managers and workers in diverse workplaces about current modes of continuing education and training and about how workers are assisted with their learning to meet personal needs and those of employers. Employers want an occupationally current workforce that can meet specific workplace needs; workers want the capacities to remain employable, which may extend to advancing their careers elsewhere. The data indicate differences in perceptions about what is being provided, how frequently the provisions are used, and the worth of its certification. Whilst the findings indicate shared concerns about the importance of learning, there were clear differences in views about the models and processes used to support that learning. Across both sets of informants can be seen distinctions between 'training solutions' and 'learning solutions'. A more nuanced analysis suggests that the training solution is appropriate and effective at some point in workers' worklife trajectories but in other circumstances, learning through practice is proposed as being more efficacious.

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Many countries are becoming increasingly reliant upon an aging workforce. Yet, much literature positions older workers as 'last resort' employees, held in low esteem by employers whose preference for youth extends into decision-making about workplace engagement and support. As part of a broader study on maintaining the competence of older workers, we investigated the extent to which a group of employees in Australia aged 45 or more perceived they were discriminated against because of their age, including access to training, promotion opportunities and job security. Against expectations arising from the literature, informants reported little in the way of explicit age-related bias in their employment, opportunities for advancement and further development. Although the informants have particular characteristics and featured paraprofessional and professional workers, the contrast is noteworthy between what is reported in the literature and often premised on surveys, and our data were based on interviews. The findings indicate a need to be wary of making easy generalizations about the extent to which older workers per se are discriminated against in the workplace, while at the same time acknowledging that such discrimination exists, and perhaps for particular kinds of workers. In addition, we found a range of nuanced responses that suggest there are tensions between discriminations policies and practice that are a challenge for human resource development professionals.

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The study reported here used high school students' paid part-time work experiences to assist them to reflect upon work, working life and post-school pathways. Because many high school students engage in paid part-time work, in any Australian senior school classroom there is a range of experience that can be used to assist students to consider working life and post-school pathways. These experiences are more readily available and authentic than those provided through school-organised work experience programs. In order to understand how the students' experience of paid work might be best engaged, students and teachers in six schools in Victoria and Queensland participated in processes of reflecting on these experiences. Consistently, across all cohorts of students, authentic workplace experiences were identified as assisting a range of educational purposes associated with students' consideration of learning about work, the world of work and to consider 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 of their paid work and the resourcing and privileging within the school of vocational education and training (VET) provisions.

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Volumes of papers are indexed at TD/TNC 90.212 and TD/TNC 90.213. Selected individual papers are indexed from TD/TNC 90.214 to TD/TNC 90.264. Show less

The purposes and implementation of adults' lifelong education (LLE) has been shaped by two imperatives: i) neoliberal reforms and ii) focuses on employability and economic outcomes. This has led to LLE taking similar pathways across many countries, i.e., away from a focus on personal and cultural betterment, to one associated with promoting individual employability. However, policies and practices in Japan offers a nuanced contrast to the general trend. That is, the overall focus on LLE, particularly for older Japanese is premised on social engagement, personal enrichment and often captured in 'social education'. There is also a focus on sustaining the adult employability, including the re-employment of retirees, in structured ways and tailored to meet their needs and enacted at the local level.

This paper reviews the manifestations of LLE in Japan to examine how its goals and educational provisions are being developed, enacted, engaged with and evaluated. Overall, it is suggested that Japan has not wholly embraced the tight economic focus on promoting and supporting LLE associated with employability imperatives. Perhaps through the electoral power of the aged population, the provision of educational experiences is focused on longevity, cultural betterment, further education and reducing the social isolation of older Japanese.

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The transitions adults negotiate across their working lives need to be further understood for governments, workplaces, and the community to effectively support these adults. Through analyses of worklife history interview data with 30 working age adults, distinct kinds of changes comprising these transitions have been delineated as representative of changes that have person-particular meanings and impacts. This delineation represents understandings of processes and outcomes for adults' learning and development. These transitions have specific kinds of scope, duration, and impacts in terms of continuity/discontinuity with individuals' earlier activities and knowing. Transitions can be objectively observed, captured, and represented by a complex of personal, institutional, and/or brute factors. Understanding the changes comprising these worklife transitions and how they can be supported and facilitated requires accounting for societal factors as well as individuals' personal histories and legacies and impacts of maturation. A schema representing six kinds of changes is presented and illuminated.

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Nation states need effective, accessible, and broadly engaged provisions of continuing education and training (CET) to develop the capacities of their working-age populations. Understanding what constitutes accessible and effective CET provisions, is needed to enable informed decision-making about realising governmental goals of securing a skilled, employable, and adaptive workforce. To understand what comprises that efficacy, it is necessary to capture, analyse, and reconcile the perspectives of stakeholders including government agencies, education institutions, CET educators and, most importantly, working-age adults. Reconciliation of these perspectives is essential for establishing what constitutes an effective CET ecosystem, including what kinds of CET provisions can best meet the needs of working-age Singaporeans and their workplaces.

Drawing on an investigation of CET provisions in the island nation, this paper seeks to illuminate and advance how CET provisions might be enacted through an ecosystem perspective to promote employability.

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A key concern for Singapore and a focus for current government policy is maintaining the lifelong employability and productivity of its workforce. An important element of this national policy agenda is the employability of the increasing portion of the workforce aged over 45 years (i.e. mature-age workers). The research project reported here aims to understand more about how best to assist mature-age workers maintain their employability across working life and what Singaporean workplaces and government agencies might do to maintain their employability. The project comprises three components: (1) an analysis of relevant literature; (2) conducting interviews with mature-age workers, some of whom are also employers; and (3) administering a survey to verify and extend ideas advanced in the literature review and interviews. From the findings, it is proposed that to sustain lifelong employability across Singapore's working population, government policies and community practice comprising the following are required: flexible [continuing education and training] CET provisions that articulate into high-level and highly regarded qualifications; workplaces fully utilising and further developing mature-age employees' capacities, including their contributions to others' learning; CET providers effectively engaging Singapore's growing mature-age population through flexible curriculum and pedagogic practices and by providing highly regarded certification; mature-age workers effectively directing their engagement in CET, and investing time and resources in sustaining their lifelong employability; a national charter to ensure workplaces, CETs and workers all fulfil their commitment for Singapore to excel as a community that values and supports lifelong employability; guidance and support to assist and advise mature-age workers, particularly women, in making appropriate CET choices, and in maintaining their sense of self as workers and learners; and clearly articulated education and qualification pathways across the tertiary and higher educational sectors.

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This article advances a conceptualization of lifelong learning that offers a platform for a broader consideration of what it comprises and how it might be supported and guided across adults' lives. It makes a clear delineation between lifelong learning and lifelong education, as they are often advanced as being consonant in contemporary policy accounts, when they are quite distinct concepts. Unless lifelong learning is seen as a personal fact (i.e., something that arises from and is secured by persons), it will remain misunderstood and limited in its explanatory power and utility in guiding lifelong education. This is particularly the case when it is confused with the provision of educational experiences (i.e., lifelong education), as is commonly the case. Given the range of circumstances and means through which adults' learning occurs across their lives, it is erroneous to view lifelong learning as being synonymous with or limiting to being merely the product of intentional educational experiences, albeit within educational institutions, workplaces, or community settings. Instead, it is necessary to consider the range of experiences that generate that learning and a broader account of how such learning might be supported.

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