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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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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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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 book addresses what is, perhaps, the single most important issue for vocational education; its relatively low standing in an era of high aspiration. The work explores the nature, extent and consequences for an educational sector that whilst having an increasingly important role in contemporary societies is seen to be of low standing across both countries with developed and developing economies. Some of the standing is associated with the occupation it serves and this is highlighted in an era of high aspiration by young people and their parents. The consequences are far-reaching. This includes how governments and community view and support vocational education, parents and familiars advise about participation in it and young people's decision-making associated with their post-school pathways.

More than describing this problem, the focus of this collection is how this issue can be redressed through the actions of supra-government agencies, governments, schools in tertiary education institutions, industry and professional bodies and employers. It sets out the quality and extent of societal sentiments in shaping how vocational education and the occupation it serves are projected, across countries, continents and cultures, and offers a range of perspectives and contributions from scholars on how this issue might be redressed. These contributions are drawn together and synthesised into sets of propositions, practices and approaches directed towards governments, schooling and tertiary education institutions, educators, researchers, industry and professional bodies and employers.

Edited excerpt from publisher's website.

The contents are as follows: Part one, 'The standing of vocational education: perennial issues, emerging concerns and ways forward', contains the following chapters: The standing of vocational education: a global concern with diverse meanings and implications / Barbara E. Stalder, Sarojni Choy, Anh Hai Le; Enhancing the standing and status of vocational education / Stephen Billett, Steven Hodge, Vibe Aarkrog. Part two, 'Issues, sources and consequences of the standing and status of vocational education', contains: Understanding the purpose and standing of technical and vocational education and training / Susan James Relly; Improving the standing of [vocational education and training] VET: perspectives from countries with developing economies / Stephen Billett, Anh Hai Le; The standing of dual apprenticeships in Germany: institutional stability and current challenges / Thomas Deissinger; Shaping young people's decision-making about post-school pathways: institutional and personal factors / Stephen Billett, Darryl Dymock, Steven Hodge, Sarojni Choy, Anh Hai Le.

Part three, 'Country studies of the standing of vocational education and the occupations it serves', contains the following chapters: Alternance training as a way to improve the attractivity of vocational education programmes in France / Laurent Veillard; Promoting the standing of VET in Finland: balancing the different aims of VET / Heta Rintala, Petri Nokelainen; Attractiveness of vocational education and training in India: perspectives of different actors with a special focus on employers / Matthias Pilz, Muthuveeran Ramasamy; The quality and status of school-based Norwegian VET / Hilde Hiim; Perspectives on informing post-school pathways: a Vietnamese case study / Anh Hai Le; Enhancing the standing of VET in Switzerland / Barbara E. Stalder, Fabienne Luthi; The significance of learning environment and decision-making for enrolment in and completion of VET: a Danish case / Vibe Aarkrog; Elevating the standing of vocational education and training in Romania / Maria-Carmen Pantea.

Part four, 'Enhancing the standing and status of vocational education: an Australian study', contains the following chapters: Investigating enhancing the standing of vocational education and the occupation it serves: purposes, processes and phases / Stephen Billett, Sarojni Choy, Steven Hodge, Anh Hai Le; Influences on post-school decision-making: perspectives of school students, parents, teachers (phase 1); Steven Hodge, Stephen Billett, Sarojni Choy; Surveys of students, parents and teachers (phase 2) / Sarojni Choy, Anh Hai Le, Steven Hodge, Stephen Billett; Informing and advising the zones of influence shaping young people's decision-making about post-school pathways (phase 3) / Stephen Billett, Darryl Dymock, Sarojni Choy, Steven Hodge, Anh Hai Le.

Individual chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 148.657 to TD/TNC 148.674. Show less

Changing personal and societal sentiments about the status of vocational education and the occupations it serves requires information, education, action at societal and local levels and will, inevitably take time. With entrenched issues such as the standing of occupations and the education systems that they serve, it is more likely incremental and focused initiatives are required to bring about this change. It has been consistently identified that there are 'zones of influence' shaping young people's decision-making about postschool pathways. These zones comprise the aspirations and advice of parents, the intended and unintended press of schoolteachers, the views of peers and suggestions arising from within the community. Consequently, advising and shaping young people's decisions about postschool pathways, including an informed and impartial consideration of vocational education, are not restricted to those students alone. Instead, it is necessary that those comprising these zones of influence also need advice and information so that young people's decision-making can be supported by informed and impartial advice.

A series of workshops with teachers and administrators, and presentations to policy and practitioner groups were used to evaluate the findings from focus groups and interviews, and a national survey that are elements of an Australian study. Those events were directed to identify how key institutions of government, schooling, vocational education institutions and industry could work to shape these zones of influence in ways that promoted broader and more informed considerations about post-school pathways, including vocational education. This led to strategies that could be used to reshape and enhance the standing of vocational education as a worthwhile post-school pathway across these zones of influence. These strategies were proposed as being directed broadly to inform that decision-making, and that includes perspectives, aspirations and interests of school students, parents, teachers, other familiars and members of the community, who in different ways shaped those perspectives.

This chapter sets out some initiatives that might be enacted by government, schools, employers, and teachers to offer experiences and informed and impartial advice about potential post-school pathways through engaging with the zones of influence.

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The decisions that young people make about post-school pathways are becoming increasingly important because of implications for: (i) personal educational and employment trajectories and goals, (ii) allocation of educational resources, and (iii) meeting a range of community needs associated with the development of occupational capacities. Indeed, there is a growing and global concern that young people are disproportionately participating in higher education which comes at a cost to the level of participation in vocational education and the occupations it serves. This trend indicates a shift in young people's aspirations and their preference for post-school pathways. However, there are implications and outcomes arising from this decision-making, leading to calls in many countries to redress this shift in post-school preferences. There are distinct implications both for young people who have identified a preferred occupation and those who remain undecided about them and the consequences for post-school pathways. Yet, without an elaboration of the societal factors and personal practices shaping and influencing that decision-making, it is difficult to know how to redress that situation.

This review examines recent literature addressing the factors and practices shaping young people's decision-making about those pathways. It identifies a complex intertwining of societal (i.e., institutional) and personal factors shaping this decision-making. Although societal factors (e.g., [socioeconomic status] SES, location, gender) play important roles in this decision-making, it appears that the practices of parents, teachers and familiars are salient in this decision-making and, therefore, efforts to redress this issue. These findings suggest such practices need to be mediated by enhancing what is suggested by societal institutions (e.g., schools, government), familiars (teachers, parents) and more fully informing young people's decision-making.

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The VET Development Centre offers customised professional development services and programs, on a fee-for-service basis, across the Victorian vocational education and training (VET) sector. The evaluation reported in this document focused on three objectives to identify and provide evidence: (1) relating to the benefits to practitioners as a consequence of participating in the VET Development Centre's Professional Learning Program; (2) that there are improvements in their teaching and learning practice as a consequence of attending the programs; and (3) of practitioner pathways from the programs into further professional learning opportunities, whether accredited or non-accredited. The findings will be considered when planning and delivering future activities of the VET Development Centre.

Excerpts from publication. Show less

This book discusses how the Dutch vocational education system has undergone significant waves of reform driven by global imperatives, national concerns and governmental policy goals. Like elsewhere, the impetuses for these reforms are directed to generating a more industry-responsive, locally-accountable and competence-based vocational education system. Each wave of reforms, however, has had particular emphases, and was directed to achieve particular policy outcomes. Yet, they are more than mere versions of what had or is occurring elsewhere. They are shaped by specific national imperatives, sentiments and localised concerns. Consequently, whilst this book elaborates what constitutes the contemporary provision of vocational education in the Netherlands, it also addresses a broader concern of how vocational education systems become formed, manifested within nation states and then transformed through particular imperatives, institutional arrangement and localised factors.

Excerpt from publisher's website.

The contents are as follows: Part one, 'Introduction', contains the following chapter: Vocational education in the Netherlands / Elly de Bruijn, Stephen Billett, and Jeroen Onstenk (pages 3-36). Part two, 'Policies and organisations', contains: Vocational and professional education and lifelong learning / Jeroen Onstenk and Ruud Duvekot (pages 39-56); Transforming vocational education: encouraging innovation via public private partnerships / Marc van der Meer, Jan Peter van den Toren, and Tammy Lie (pages 57-82); Great expectations: VET's meaning for Dutch local industry / Anneke Westerhuis and Marc van der Meer (pages 83-102); Improvement of educational quality in VET: who is next? / Louise van de Venne, Marlies Honingh, and Marieke van Genugten (pages 103-118); Professional development of teachers in vocational education / Marcel van der Klink and Jan Streumer (pages 119-136).

Part three, 'Educational programmes: teaching and learning', contains the following chapters: A dialogue worth having: vocational competence, career identity and a learning environment for twenty-first century success at work / Frans Meijers, Reinekke Lengelle, Annemie Winters, and Marinka Kuijpers (page 139-155); The role and nature of knowledge in vocational programmes / Elly de Bruijn and Arthur Bakker (pages 157-174); Designing competence-based vocational curricula at the school-work boundary / Renate Wesselink and Ilya Zitter (pages 175-194); Pedagogic strategies for improving students' engagement and development / Truus Harms, Aimee Hoeve, and Peter den Boer (pages 195-218); Work-based learning (WBL) in Dutch vocational education: connecting learning places, learning content and learning processes / Jeroen Onstenk (pages 219-243); Assessment in Dutch vocational education: overview and tensions of the past 15 years / Liesbeth Baartman and Judith Gulikers (pages 245-266). Part five, 'End piece', contains: The Dutch vocational education system: institutional focus and transformations / Stephen Billett (pages 269-294). Show less

This book discusses how policies and practices supporting post-school transitions are formulated by and enacted in education systems and schools. It outlines how students, parents, and others in the community engage in these policies. It does this by drawing upon accounts from a range of countries with advanced industrial economies where the expectations for successful transitions are increasingly being aligned to individual, community, and national economic well-being. In countries such as Britain, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States, social and economic changes are heightening the importance of young peoples’ transitions from secondary schooling to post-school life in contemporary times. Such transitions now involve negotiations of diverse and sometimes complex educational and work-related pathways.

Excerpt from publication.

The chapters are as follows: Part one, ‘School transitions: overview, policy orientations and theorisations’, contains: Experiences of school transitions: policies, practice and participants / Stephen Billett and Greer Johnson; Reconciling the system world with the life worlds of young adults: where next for youth transition policies? / Karen Evans; Bridging school and work: a person-in-context model for enabling resilience in at-risk youth / Christopher DeLuca, Nancy L. Hutchinson, Joan Versnel, Jennifer Dods, and Peter Chin; Part two, ‘Imperatives for and practices of transitions: international perspectives’, contains: The American shortcut to VET: global policy borrowing for the post-16 educational arena / Richard D. Lakes and Antje Barabasch; Access, coping and relevance of education in youth transitions: the German transition system between labour society and knowledge society / Andreas Walther; Making the transition to post-school life: the Canadian situation / Wolfgang Lehmann; School-to-work transitions in apprenticeship-based VET systems: the Swiss approach / Barbara E. Stalder; Governing schooling, people and practices: Australian policies on transitions / Sue Thomas and Stephen Hay; Part three, ‘Experiences of schooling: contemporary practices and experiences’, contains: Researching transition experiences in Australian senior schooling / Jill Ryan, Greer Johnson, and Stephen Billett; Excluded from the game: a case study of transitions for non-tertiary-bound students in a Queensland private school; Pathways and choice: transitions at Sunny Beach College / Sue Thomas and Jill Ryan; A critical focus on family-school-community partnerships: St Jude’s Secondary College transition program for ‘at-risk’ students / Greer Johnson and Stephen Billett; The impact of interrupted schooling: recent school leavers’ accounts of transitions / Esther Beltermann, Jill Ryan, and Stephen Billett; The translation of transitions policies into school enactment / Cheryl Sim, Stephen Hay, Greer Johnson, and Sue Thomas. Show less