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Non-formal education and training (NFET) programmes in public and private centres in South Africa aim to meet the training needs of adults who have been deprived of formal education which would have fostered skills acquisition and access to employment earlier in their lives. The concern which informs this paper is that adults who face long-term unemployment due to a lack of marketable skills often remain unemployed after completing NFET programmes. The paper assesses the extent to which material and human resources have affected skills acquisition and graduate employment in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The results show that material and human resource challenges in most public and some private centres have led to gaps in skills training. Programmes focus too strongly on academic credits and certificates and not enough on employment as an end goal. The authors argue that the existence of suitable training materials and qualified trainers with practical experience and specific technical skills constitutes favourable conditions ('enabling environments') for graduate employment. Without improvement in material and human resources, adult trainees will continue to experience difficulties integrating into the labour market, and the cycle of poverty and social exclusion will remain unbroken.

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Technical education has a critical role to play in building the economic prosperity and social stability of South Africa, by offering a second chance education and training in the craft, technical and business skills so gravely needed by the economy. A national survey and interviews with two principals provided evidence of the environment in which colleges are planning for the future, how they undertake the planning process, what strategies are in use and the difficulties faced. Despite severe shortages or damaging uncertainty about resource levels, the majority of colleges have a belief in their future and are striving to increase the quality of the curriculum by a democratic planning process. The use of assets and strategies to increase productivity is as yet underdeveloped, but many colleges have a guiding vision and are achieving progress despite the turbulent environment.

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The purpose of this study was to establish factors influencing student's acquisition of vocational skills in vocational training centers in Igembe and Tigania districts of Meru county Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were: to establish the influence of provision of physical facilities on acquisition of vocational skills in vocational training centers; to determine how students attitudes influence acquisition of vocational skills in vocational training centers; to establish the influence of availability of a qualified academic and professional staff on acquisition of vocational skills; and to establish the influence of managers administrative experiences on acquisition of vocational skills in youth vocational training centers. The findings of the study revealed that lack of physical resources in youth vocational training centers has an adverse influence on acquisition of vocational skills with many students having negative attitudes towards vocational courses offered in these institutions. Amongst other findings the study also established that most of the tutors in these institutions were certificate and diploma holders and most of the institutional heads and their deputies had less than three years of administrative experience.

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In the last decade in particular, the promotion, sharing and use of open educational resources (OER) have been growing exponentially. The concept of OER is understood as educational resources that are openly available for use by educators and students, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or license fees. The case studies and reflections in this book cover OER practice and policy in a diverse range of contexts, with a strong focus on events in developing countries. The contents are: Discourses in the development of OER practice and policy / Jenny Glennie, Ken Harley and Neil Butcher; Taking OER beyong the OER community: policy issues and priorities / Trudi van Wyk; Introducing the opportunities and challenges of OER: the case of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic States / Dendev Badarch, Svetlana Knyazeva and Andy Lane; Tracing the trajectory of OER in India: reflections on three initiatives / V. Bharathi Harishankar; Producing OER from scratch: the case of health sciences at the University of Ghana and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology / Kathleen Ludewig Omollo, Adam Rahman and Chris Andrew Yebuah; Collaborative materials design, adaptation and take-up: a case study of a South African mathematics teacher education OER project / Ingrid Sapire, Yvonne Reed and Tessa Welch; OER production and adaptation through networking across Sub-Saharan Africa: learning from [Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa] TESSA / Freda Wolfenden; Vignette: teacher education in Sub-Saharan Africa / Catherine Ngugi; Integrating OER into open educational practices / Grainne Conole; Finding relevant OER in higher education: a personal account / Lisbeth Levey; Design and development of OER: a student perspective / Andy Lane; Pedagogical content knowledge in higher education and open educational resources: a case study on course design / Heather Kanuka and Genevieve Gauthier; Vignette: the Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC): OER within a transnational qualifications framework / John T. Lesperance; Experiences in finding and using OER in teacher education programmes: pedagogical approach and challenges / John Arul Phillips; Vignette: OER and teaching occupational and environmental health at the post-graduate level to medical practitioners at the University of Cape Town / Jonathan E. Myers; Sharing existing teaching materials as OER: key considerations from practice / Monica Mawoyo and Neil Butcher; Experiences of develping OER-amenable policies / Sarah Hoosen and Neil Butcher; From apples to legislation: OER policy in Brazil / Carolina Rossini; Opening education in New Zealand: a snapshot of a rapidly evolving OER ecosystem / Wayne Mackintosh; Reflections on practice / Jenny Glennie, Ken Harley and Neil Butcher. Show less

Purpose: In Ghana, graduates often have limited entrepreneurial skills and rarely undertake entrepreneur initiatives as they are persistently in search of non-existing jobs in the formal sector. On this basis, this study was conducted to identify underlying strategies for improving entrepreneurial skill requirement of technical and vocational students in developing countries using Ghana as a case study.

Design/methodology/approach: The study approach was largely mixed, as the study aimed at testing existing theories on the entrepreneurial development of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) graduates and tutors using a quantitative approach. The findings of the study were further validated qualitatively by interviewing TVET experts and tutors. The analysis of the quantitative data gathered was done using relative importance index (RII) and factor analysis (FA). The thematic analysis was employed in analyzing the qualitative data gathered.

Findings: The study revealed that four key strategies needed in improving the entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurial education among TVE students in Ghana: comprised learner/student centred education; problem-based learning (PBL); classrooms that encourage development of intellectual aptitudes and activity-based learning (ABL). However, the leading reasons for non-usage of the underlying strategies were the lack of capacity of the tutors in the adoption of the strategies, lack of availability of human resources at TVET and the poor perception of TVET tutors and students. Some challenges included faced in adopting the strategies encompassed inadequate training resources, tutors' training not tailored to the emerging technological advancement, insufficient resources and infrastructure, lack of industrial collaboration and readiness of the job market to absolve graduate from TVET.

Research limitations/implications: The results of the study showed the mode of instruction delivery of entrepreneurial education should be improved by adopting the key strategies identified in this study in comparison to the conventional mode of education. The findings of this study would stir the policy debate on entrepreneurial education in Ghana. Similarly, further studies could develop relevant hypothesis for testing the identified strategies and its impact on entrepreneurial skill development in Ghana.

Originality/value: Various studies on entrepreneurial education has been developed all over the world. This study focused on how the skills of TVE students can be improved. The study further identified reasons for non-usage of these strategies in improving the entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurial education by TVET tutors and other challenges faced by tutors who adopted the underlying strategies. A study of this nature in Ghana is novel and cogent findings were elicited from this study that could form the basis for policymaking and curriculum development in developing countries.

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This report is the third in a series that analyses the education indicators developed through the OECD/UNESCO World Education Indicators (WEI) Programme. It examines both the investments and returns to education and human capital. The report begins by examining the results of a specially commissioned study of the impact of human capital on economic growth in WEI countries that reveals new findings relative to those found in studies of OECD Member States. The report also outlines the context for trends in educational attainment as well as current levels of educational participation and expenditure in WEI countries. The report examines the financing of education systems by investigating the spending and investment strategies in WEI countries from both public and private perspectives. It examines the rationale for public spending, how public resources are distributed across levels of education and the role of the private sector both as a provider of educational services and a source of educational expenditure. To complement the analysis, the report provides a national statistical profile outlining selected contextual and financial indicators against both OECD and WEI benchmarks, along with a comprehensive statistical annex covering both WEI and OECD countries. The countries participating in the OECD/UNESCO WEI program are: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Malaysia, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay and Zimbabwe. Show less

In 2000, a number of questions of importance for IIZ/DVV [Institute for International Cooperation of the German Adult Education Association] were raised in the discussions between IIZ/DVV and its partners which provide academic training for adult educators in Africa. How is training provision developing at tertiary institutions, and how do they promote AE [adult education] as a field of study and work which can help to combat poverty and encourage self-help? Do the types of support provided by IIZ/DVV for the training of adult educators need further development? Curriculum development, institutional arrangements such as the length of courses, the role and nature of course field work and research, extramural learning, and assessment of constantly changing practice in the field of adult education, were regular elements in the discussions with partners. Topics such as these were addressed at a workshop held in Gaborone [Botswana] in January 2001, which focused on networked exchange of information and joint materials development. [This] paper reports the opening remarks by the IIZ/DVV speaker, Henner Hildebrand, and the outcome of the meeting.

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The article traces the policy history of Kenya over more than 40 years (1963-2006) in order to tease out the tensions between the key themes of its own national agenda and the priorities of its principal development partners. The national concerns with the education-and-employment connection and with the orientation of schooling towards skills for work in the formal and informal economies can be contrasted with the aid agency priorities on quality and on education-for-poverty reduction. Equally, national preoccupations have been with the whole of the education and training system - from early childhood, to technical, to university. By contrast, external donors have frequently prioritised a particular sub-sector such as primary schooling. In the most recent period, 2002-2006, the paper identifies the emergence of common ground between the national and external agendas. Thus the international education agenda, as marked out by the UN Millennium Project, the Commission for Africa, and the World Bank’s most recent education policy paper, is not dissimilar in its priorities to the latest Kenyan education agenda, as expressed in the Kenya Education Sector Support Programme. There is also an agreement that the education sector, on its own, cannot deliver the many benefits so often associated with schooling; rather, there needs to be an enabling environment in other sectors of the economy, if the investment in education is to be most productive. The one area where there is serious divergence, between the Government of Kenya, and, at least, its principal Western donors is on the treatment of corruption. At the point of writing, the extent of corruption remains a major threat to the external funding so necessary to Kenya’s large educational ambitions.

Though the article is primarily concerned to analyse the tension between the national and the international policy agendas in terms of Kenya, arguably a similar case could be developed for many other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, and not least those which are most donor-dependent.

Published abstract reprinted from ‘International journal of educational development’, copyright 2007, with permission from Elsevier. Show less

The importance of vocational education for improving national human capital cannot be underscored. Yet, its objective of improving the quality and quantity of human capital has yet to be fully achieved due to its shortcomings. The training system's significant challenges have yet to be determined and explored to develop appropriate interventions. This study examined the challenges bedevilling vocational education in Botswana, leading to its failure to execute its mandate fully. The paper followed a positivist paradigm whereby a survey design was adopted with the quantitative methodology used to collect data using a questionnaire administered to 61 respondents. Data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), producing descriptive and inferential statistics. The study results revealed many challenges facing vocational education in Botswana, such as the lack of quality instructors and ineffective delivery, lack of finance leading to low-salaried teachers who are not motivated and lack of adequate infrastructure, among others. It is, therefore, imperative for policymakers to consider the findings of this study to develop more effective strategies for enhancing the delivery of vocational education in the country to avoid wastage of limited resources.

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The main purpose of the study is to examine the implementation of cooperative training in some selected Government [technical and vocational education and training] TVET colleges in Addis Ababa city Administration. To this end an attempt was made to look in to the duets and responsibilities of TVET colleges, organizations, trainees and the major challenges affecting cooperative training implementation. In order to achieve this purpose basic questions were raised which are intended to address the implementation of cooperative training. To achieve the purpose of the study descriptive survey method was employed. There are six government TVET colleges in Addis Ababa city Administration, among theses three TVET colleges were selected and included in the study by using purposive sampling techniques. The subjects of the study were trainees, trainers, college deans, vocational counselors and training coordinators in the enterprises.

The study revealed that, TVET colleges have not undergone need assessment to search organizations and do not create awareness for industries. The participation of industries on the cooperative training is small; the trainers are not committed for cooperative training implementation. The similarity of contents and the linkage between school based and enterprises based training was below the expected. Moreover, the outcome of the study showed that, the preparation and organization of TVET colleges to implement cooperative training was inadequate, the view of the trainers towards the cooperative training is negative. The curriculum which is implemented in the industry for cooperative training is not relevance. Therefore, it is recommended that adequate awareness should be created by all at all levels of vocational education bodies. The colleges must take care as much as possible both in selecting enterprises and assigning trainees for cooperative training. The collages have to make efforts in creating conducive work environment that enable trainers and trainees feel free to participate actively in the college activities.

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