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Context: This paper is part of my research on the birth and evolution of the 'work grammar' [vocational education and training] VET audiovisual format in the second half of the [20th] XX century, aiming at clarifying how historical, cultural, and political circumstances have contributed to shaping a new educational discourse in the Italian audiovisuals for vocational training.

Approach: The research is based on multiple approaches: (A) the study of VET audiovisual production and policies (and their relationship to the general VET policy in Italy and the general background of Italian society), since the days when the 'work grammars' were first issued in the 1950s. It is also based: (B) on the attempt to analyse the cinematic discourse of these films through the study of their content and structure and the interpretation of the cinematic language they use and its evolution.

Findings: Crossing these two approaches, some original research themes have emerged. One is being developed in this paper: some important developments in the content and style of the 'work grammars' were not only consequences of intentional educational or VET policy. They were rather caused by the evolution of Italian society into a modern free market.

Conclusion: The work grammars evolved (in form and content) not only under the pressure of Italian VET policy and of parallel didactic evolutions in other forms (e.g. traditional non-audiovisual courses) of VET, but also under the influence of the laws on cinematographic production and fruition and eventually, thanks to the advent of commercial television and the changes that ensued in the Italian audiovisual scenario.

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This study undertaken for the Association of Independent Trade Unions aims to map the opportunities and threats for the participation of trade unions in the system of apprenticeship education in the context of Industry 4.0 trends in the Czech Republic. The study particularly concerns specialized initial education, which prepares participants for professional life. Challenges also lie in the speed and depth of changes, demanding new skills, new skills combinations and rapid skill obsolescence. Therefore, a basic prerequisite of maintaining competitiveness for the future will also be the development of further education, particularly as participation in the Czech Republic is not at the level of advanced countries. Employers face a critical shortage of qualified workers and have to deal with the graduates who are insufficiently prepared for workplace practice. These factors highlight the importance of trade unions reflecting on and, if possible, getting actively involved in the processes that regulate the education system, particularly specialised education (both initial and continuing). Trade unions can bring a new aspect to the processes, helping to achieve a better balance between the interests of employers, school institutions, state authorities and employees or education participants themselves (students, apprentices and adult workers coming to education).

This study was based on a large research and secondary analysis of home and foreign literature as well as other resources, in particular topical research reports and data. It was augmented with the industry experience of the National Training Fund and consultation with industry stakeholders and education professionals about the possible role of trade unions. The report outlines a wide palette of opportunities for trade unions to participate, which have been identified on the basis of experience from abroad and reality from practice in the Czech Republic.

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‘Breaking Through’ is a multi-year initiative of Jobs for the Future and the National Council for Workforce Education funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. ‘Breaking Through’ is helping community colleges identify and develop institutional strategies that can enable low-skilled adult students to enter into and succeed in occupational and technical degree programs at community colleges. As a major strand in the initiative, the Ford Foundation has funded research on ways to support these institutional strategies in state policy, as summarized in this overview.

State policymakers can harness the power of the community colleges to address the issues of economic growth and individual prosperity. To do so, they must address six key tasks. (1) Create a shared vision of the state’s economic future among key stakeholders in education, workforce development, and economic development - a vision that includes the reasons why increasing the number of adults with postsecondary credentials is crucial; (2) Set measurable goals for achieving the vision, including increasing postsecondary access for lower-skilled adults, and ensure that funding flows in ways that support progress toward those goals; (3) Track individual outcomes across workforce education services and into the labor market, in order to identify trouble spots and document successful approaches with an especially close look at outcomes for lower-skilled students; (4) Help community colleges connect in a broader, more strategic way with local employers, in order to link their needs to for-credit college offerings and to help lower-skilled adults get good jobs in demand in the local labor market; (5) Overhaul the content and delivery of adult education, English as a Second Language, and college remediation, in order to accelerate progress and connect these services closely to occupational pathways in the colleges; and (6) Create and expand more flexible and comprehensive financial aid strategies and more personalized career and academic counseling and support, in order to support postsecondary access and success for lower-income adults.

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Career guidance for adults is a fundamental lever to help adults successfully navigate constantly evolving labour markets. As labour markets in Latin America are hit hard by the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic and mega trends such as globalisation and digitalisation continue to impact labour demand, support is urgently needed. Millions of adults have lost their jobs and need to identify new career options. However, career guidance for adults is still rare in Latin America. More common are vocational guidance programmes for young people, or labour intermediation services for adults.

This report analyses career guidance initiatives for adults in four Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico). It emphasises the need to establish career guidance higher up on the policy agenda of the region. Lessons are drawn on how to strengthen the coverage and inclusiveness of career guidance, provision and service delivery, quality and impact, as well as governance and funding. The findings build on information collected through the 2020 Survey of Career Guidance for Adults (SCGA), an online survey of adults' experience with career guidance.

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Little information is available concerning effective lecturing and teaching in TAFE. In particular, literature and resources on lecturing in the technical education sector in Western Australia (WA) are scarce. The aim of this monograph is to provide TAFE lecturers, who may not have had formal teacher training, with a set of principles that can be used as a basic guide for the improvement of teaching and lecturing. These principles should be relevant to lecturing in a wide variety of settings in WA technical colleges. The teaching principles outlined in this monograph were selected on the basis of information gathered from interviews with effective lecturers in WA colleges. These interviews were arranged through the principals of four technical colleges within the metropolitan area. Those interviewed were responsible for a very broad range of the subjects offered by TAFE.

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The past decade has seen the transformation of South Australia into a high growth, high skill economy that is heavily engaged with the global marketplace. The population is ageing and technological changes challenge the world of work. South Australia must respond by updating and extending its skill and knowledge base and build the capacity to innovate across all sectors of the economy, with the vocational education and training (VET) sector playing a key role. The focus of this report is on what can be done by the South Australian Government and its entities in engaging with other VET stakeholders to improve the depth and breadth of skills in South Australia. It presents an integrated package of actions designed to change the way the publicly-funded VET system functions in South Australia designed around three core elements: (1) understanding skilling needs; (2) dynamic training environment; and (3) delivering 21st century skills.

A key element of this strategy, 'Skills for jobs: priorities for developing South Australia's workforce: the Training and Skills Commission's five year plan for skills and workforce development', is indexed at TD/LMR 86.66. Show less

Lifelong learning (LLL) is about learning throughout the life-span. In the early 1970s the concept of lifelong learning took on new importance. What has happened in the interim? Is there a paradigm change associated with more recent efforts virtually to recreate the concept? The report treats important elements of today’s lifelong learning strategies: the ‘foundation skills’ or the necessary platform on which to build one’s learning throughout life, i.e. the ability to ‘learn for life’; the transition from school to work and how certain types of initial training facilitate this better than others; pathways and bridges between various education and training routes which enable the individual to return to formal learning at any time in the life-span; the increasing importance of non-formal learning and how this should be linked to formal systems of accreditation and recognition; upgrading the skills of the workforce and maintaining the employability of those at risk, e.g. low skilled and older workers; increasing access to and motivation to learn, especially among disadvantaged groups; the role of the various actors - governments and public administration, enterprises, educational establishments, individuals, the use of new technologies; and new partnerships and networks. This report concentrates on that period of life from the end of lower secondary education (which corresponds in most Member States to compulsory schooling) and throughout working life.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner.

The volume from which this chapter is taken is indexed at TD/TNC 66.507. Volumes two and three are indexed at TD/TNC 66.508 and TD/TNC 66.509. Individual chapters from the three volume set are indexed from TD/TNC 66.510 to TD/TNC 66.540.

The first background report, published in two volumes, is indexed at TD/IRD 88.38 and TD/INT 58.286. Show less

This report examines skill trends in 24 OECD countries over the past several decades. The skill measures used include broad occupation groups, country-specific direct measures of skill requirements from international surveys, and direct skill measures from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database applied to both United States and European labour force surveys. Each kind of data has its own strengths and limitations but they tell a consistent story. Economically advanced countries experienced a generally steady, continuous process of skill upgrading over the time periods for which data are available. Blue collar occupations saw the most pronounced relative declines, while less skilled white collar occupations increased their shares of the workforce initially before stabilising or declining slightly. There is no strong evidence of a general acceleration of skill upgrading in recent decades despite widespread talk of it as a consequence of the diffusion of information and communication technologies. Official forecasts in the [European Union] EU, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States do not suggest acceleration in the next 10 years. Using the more specific skill measures in the O*NET database, analysis suggests raised educational, cognitive and interpersonal skill requirements, while craft skills, physical demands and the frequency of repetitive physical tasks declined. Changes in European countries happened at a more rapid rate as some of the measured gap with the United States was closed. This more fine-grained method of measuring skills also suggests that trends are gradual. The international survey data shows job educational requirements and learning times are mostly a function of occupations within an economy but are also affected by workers’ own human capital, gender, and institutional features of the employment relationship such as part-time and fixed-term contracts, as well as country differences net of these variables. Physical job requirements are affected similarly by these variables, but what is most notable is the modest rate of decline in the physical intensity of work in an ostensible age of automation and the lack of any observed decline in physical intensity within occupations. The findings of this report do point to some, more specific, sources of concern: (i) skill transferability and the sources of skill acquisition are not well understood and the available data are of poor quality; and (ii) the level of cognitive skill demands among women is less than among men after controlling for a number of individual, job and family characteristics. More generally, the results point to the need to maintain education, training, and social policies that will support the process of skill upgrading observed rather consistently in the data. Although governments face strong pressures to cut their budgets, cutting human capital investment might be a drag on economic growth and living standards in the long-run. One component of such a strategy should be the development of guidance modules providing students with a full understanding of the full range of jobs available in the labour market, their entry requirements, working conditions, and monetary and non-monetary rewards. Finally, the quality of the data needs to be improved if firmer conclusions are to be drawn about trends in job skill requirements.

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This report is the result of a review of America's job training programs that aimed to ensure that the programs shared the goal of providing workers with the skills they need in order to secure decent work. The report details actions that the government is taking as a result of the review and outlines further steps that can be taken to ensure future economic growth. Show less

Smaller, more targeted, and more flexible than traditional education and training programmes, micro-credentials have become a prominent feature of education, training and labour market policy discussions in recent years. Several OECD countries have already started the development of national micro-credential ecosystems, and many others are looking to follow suit.

This paper serves as Part A in a two-part series. Part B [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 154.927] presents case studies from four European Union Member States - Finland, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Spain. This paper, Part A, examines the evolving landscape of micro-credentials, focusing on the development of public policies that can foster effective utilisation of micro-credentials for lifelong learning, upskilling and reskilling. The paper also provides a self-assessment tool for micro-credential policy implementation, which identifies a range of policy measures and considerations needed for the establishment and effective operation of national micro-credential ecosystems. Overall, the two-part series of summary papers are aimed to serve as a guide for policy makers and stakeholders in the education and training sectors, offering a strategic framework for the integration and effective utilisation of micro-credentials.

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