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This chapter contributes to an examination of governance and marketisation strategies in continuing and vocational education from international, national and sectoral perspectives. The author questions whether networks as a form of governance displace the influence of the government or the market in the area of adult learning. Since the 1970s, the level of governance in adult learning has shifted from the national level to one of a network of regional players in German learning regions. The concept of networking as a level of governance for regional adult learning is distilled, highlighting 'two poles' of the network approach; the structure (top-down) and the process (bottom-up) of a regional network. The author compares the structure as a 'pattern for regional adult learning providers' and the process as a 'performance of a learning region' against empirical findings about the learning region of Trier. The author argues that the results show that networks as learning regions are a 'new power of governance'. However, they still follow top-down direction on a lower level and are still strongly influenced by the government through regulations and funding, and by market patterns of supply and demand. The process of the network is important to render it inclusive and sustainable. It is concluded that process oriented networks of providers and participants can be a successful form of governance for adult learning although further research is needed.

The volume from which this chapter was taken is indexed at TD/TNC 83.73. Selected chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 83.74 to TD/TNC 83.82. Show less

This paper explores the ‘joined-up thinking’ and attempts at ‘joined-up working’ that policy architects recommend for the successful operationalisation of the New Deal for 18-24 year olds. In particular, it examines the difficulties arising around the full-time education and training option. The research project reports upon the ‘implementation gaps’, in particular the workings of Employment Service Personnel and College staff who strive to interpret and work within the relevant policy guidance for the New Deal for Young People (NDYP). The paper draws upon semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis from a qualitative case study in South Wales to describe the interaction and articulation of the ‘main players’ who facilitate New Deal education and training options. Centralised and mandatory programs like the New Deal for Young People which aim to be integrative and ameliorative, but which are framed within a strong sanctioning policy, have created tensions between those professionals trying to work in a ‘joined-up’ manner. The guidance, educative, and social work elements which contribute to a positive learner/trainee identity are at odds with the surveillance and policing roles involved in monitoring claimant participation. [Further education] FE staff who facilitate and manage the ‘New Deal’ full time education and training option emerge as a seriously challenged group, which has to forge workable and practical applications of a policy which somewhat undermines notions of a learning society and lifelong learning.

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This [report] is part of a series of in-depth studies on student loan schemes. It makes a comparative review of five case studies undertaken in Asia, including [People's Republic of] PR China, Hong Kong [Special Administrative Region] SAR China, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines and Thailand. At a time when most Asian countries are experiencing both a dramatic increase in demand for higher education and severe public budgetary restraints, loan schemes are increasingly on the policy agenda. This synthesis study provides a broad canvas of practices and experiences, looking at aspects such as organization, funding, financial viability and targeting. It also provides an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each scheme studied, drawing valuable lessons for policy makers.

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Academics from a variety of disciplines have recently begun to consider the role that public policy might play in encouraging the development of new and better forms of work organisation aimed at expanding employees’ opportunities to exercise skill, discretion and autonomy. The paper explores these questions through an examination of the Finnish Workplace Development Programme, often regarded as a form of public policy intervention, par excellence, explicitly aimed at improving work organisation. Drawing upon interviews with policy makers, employer organisations, trade unions and academics involved with the program, together with two case studies of development projects in the Finnish municipal sector, it considers how successful the program has been in its attempt to develop better forms of work organisation that improve both productivity and the quality of working life (QWL). The paper concludes that even in a country which might be regarded as having many of the institutional and political conditions conducive to workplace innovation, there remain definite limits to how far such programs can help to deliver the ‘better job’.

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Over the last 30 years, open and distance learning has come to be used increasingly to provide continuous and ‘just-in-time training’ for workers and to fill the gaps left by apprenticeships and other traditional methods of professional training. The 13 chapters of this monograph report on how developing and industrialised countries are using distance education methods and information technologies to provide vocational education and training (VET). It examines the nexus between VET and distance education policy and practice and includes case studies. The monograph is presented in three main parts: Vocational education across national borders; National public policy programmes; Institutional models and frameworks.

The contents are as follows: Introduction: Vocational education and training / Louise Moran and Greville Rumble. The chapters in part one are: The African Virtual University: reaching sub-Saharan Africa / Magdallen N. Juma; Continuing professional education across borders / David Murphy with Arjuna Aluwhihare, Patrick Guiton, Andrea Hope and Angela Kwan; Transferring competences across borders / Vivien Martin. The chapters in part two are: Canadian e-learning policy and vocational education / Irene Lewis; The Australian Flexible Learning Framework / Phoebe Palmieri; Distance learning for vocational education and training in the small island states in the Pacific / John Bartram, Perive Tanuvasa Lene and Jenny Williams; Further education and training in South Africa / Ginger Bester. The chapters in part three are: Vocational education and training initiatives through open and distance learning in the United Kingdom, 1970-2003 / Naomi E. Sargant; Taking it to the world: the US private sector model / Yoni Ryan; Institutional policy for vocational education and training delivery / Peter Le Cornu with Deon van der Merwe, Dermot Moore, Stephanie K. Nduba and Frank Rennie; Learning for and in the workplace / Margaret Haughey with Abuhena Mohammed Faruque, Donna Hensley and Bernadette Robinson. Conclusion: Policy frameworks for vocational education and training in an electronic age / Greville Rumble and Louise Moran.

Individual chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 79.561 to TD/TNC 79.573. Show less

This article draws on ethnographic research conducted from 1997 to 2001, focusing on the critiques and accounts of a group of mature students participating in access programs (Access to Higher Education, Return to Study and Women’s Studies) at a case-study English suburban further education college. The article focuses in particular on the white, working-class women who participated in the study, to consider the connections between their gendered and classed subjectivities and the contemporary discourses in play within the policy of access education. It considers the meanings that the women bring to their courses, including their desire for self-discovery through education. The women found their way to education owing partly to a longing for ‘a space of their own’. Their longing challenges the discourses of widening participation found in contemporary policy documents, which construct access education as primarily a functional and utilitarian bridge into work. However, the women’s narratives also reinforce meritocratic discourses that construct access students as individuals, outside gendered and classed relations, with natural qualities and abilities, obscuring complex social processes of identifications, exclusions and inclusions that operate within (and outside) educational sites.

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This paper addresses the influence of information technology in human resources management (HRM) and specifically on training policy through the experience of a Spanish telecommunications firm, Telefonica. The characteristics of the training model designed by this firm to face new environments is considered and the technologies used, the key actions, the disadvantages and success factors are detected in trying to grow an E-learning company. Success factors in training policy are identified. These include flexibility in time management for training; active participation by trainers; the establishment of control mechanisms that ensures training occurs; the creation of quality content; the promotion of interactive elements among trainers, students and with each other; the use of standardised and developed technologies and gradual implementation. Objectives of the company for the future are to maintain progress in the use of E-learning as a way of adapting the training process to the new E-business culture.

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The aim of this paper is to shed light on a series of initiatives taken by the European trade unions at the beginning of the 1970s to promote the development of a European social policy, dealing with employment issues and vocational training. The question of European trade unions' approach towards vocational training is an interesting example of a broader issue, involving both the role played by non-governmental actors in shaping the social dimension of the integration process, and the need to develop a social dialogue in the [European] Community [EC]. In this context, the establishment of Cedefop [European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training] in 1975 can be considered one of the main achievements of the protracted pressure and requests from the European trade unions to be better represented in the EC and to develop a series of initiatives aimed at shaping a common European social policy in the field of employment and vocational training.

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This paper refers to the use of evaluation in the policy of VET system change. Recent reforms of the VET systems in Denmark and the Netherlands are used as case studies to underpin the analysis. Changing VET systems is a complex issue. Social systems such as VET are multi-layered and to be effective, system change should be consistent at all levels. Furthermore system change is not a one off event, but a continuous process of overlapping developments. Within such complex change policies, evaluation can be used in different ways, from more positivistic approaches to participatory approaches. Positivistic approaches are more compatible with controlling policies whereas participatory approaches fit learning policies better. Two reforms are described extensively, particularly concerning the way evaluation and research has been used by the reform policy. Reform 2000, the Danish reform of the VET system since 1999, is a good example of the participatory approach. This reform tries to combine national debates and policies with local and regional experiments with new pedagogical tools and steering mechanisms; evaluation and research were used in a learning methodology. The introduction of WEB, the 1996 Dutch Act on VET, is evaluated in an ex post way in 2001, checking whether the WEB objectives have been reached after five years of implementation. The use of evaluation in the WEB case has to be assessed as rather positivistic. The use of evaluation as an instrument for policy learning has been successful in Denmark, but failed around WEB. The emergent knowledge based economy demands VET policies built on a contingent development strategy in which evaluation and research serve as continuous feedback mechanisms. Adaptive policies imply a learning approach, allowing concurrent adaptation, instead of a prescriptive approach, in which the solution is presented as a blue-print. The development of a culture of learning VET policy is still in its infancy.

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The three volumes of the background report are indexed from TD/TNC 84.261 to TD/TNC 84.263; individual papers from these volumes are indexed from TD/TNC 84.264 to TD/TNC 84.283. The synthesis report from this third series is indexed at TD/IRD 88.32; its executive summary is indexed at TD/TNC 84.259. Show less

This issue examines the implications of a gender-based educational strategy, particularly in relation to curriculum development for equality. It highlights the need for significant reform in policy, practice and curricula and educational materials to promote gender equality in and through education. The International Bureau of Education (IBE) undertook a review of gender equality in education from a qualitative perspective in March 2003. This review contributed to UNESCO's Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report 2003/4, 'Gender and Education for All: the leap to equality'. The first two articles provide an overview of the main findings and suggest a policy framework for identifying the changes needed to ensure gender equity in education. A series of national case studies present an overview of gender perspectives in a range of contexts. Other articles review male and female roles in educational decision making, the potential for gender audits of curricula, and the life of a Swedish pioneer of women's rights and social reform. The articles are: Achieving gender equality in education: what does it take? / Christopher Colclough (p. 3-10); Human rights: promoting gender equality in and through education / Duncan Wilson (p. 11-27); Introduction to the Open File / Isabel Byron and Jesusa Ona (p. 29-36); Ensuring gender equity in Education for All: is Cambodia on track? / Esther Velasco (p. 37-51); Gender and education in Jamaica: who is achieving and by whose standard? / Barbara Bailey (p. 54-70); Gender sensitive educational policy and practice: the case of Malawi / Dixie Maluwa-Banda (p. 71-84); All in one: fairness, neutrality and conservatism - a case study of Romania / Mihaela Miroiu (p. 85-100); Participation of women in the International Conferences on Education, 1934-2001 / David Sifuentes Cortez (p. 101-112); Curricular framework documents from Slovenia / Valerija Vendramin (p. 113-125); Kerstin Hesselgren (1872-1964) / Lene Buchert (p. 127-136). Show less