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This paper contributes to closing a knowledge gap on gender, entrepreneurship and development by linking the entrepreneurial productivity to start-up capital and skills. The empirical analysis of a survey of entrepreneurs in Swaziland confirmed the importance of start-up capital for sales. Women entrepreneurs have smaller start-up capital and are less likely to fund it from the formal sector than their [male] counterparts, pointing to a possible room for policy interventions. Further, business training is positively associated with sales performance of men entrepreneurs, but has no effect on women. However, this does not call for abolishing training programs for women entrepreneurs. Instead their design and targeting should be revisited.

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This article reports findings of a study conducted in Swaziland to determine computer literacy skills of teachers of agriculture, commerce, home economics and technical studies in 16 pilot vocational schools. These teachers are expected to teach the new vocationalised curriculum of the four subjects. Findings revealed that the teachers lacked the basic computer knowledge and skills needed in the newly vocationalised curriculum that was to be mounted in the year 2000 with the financial assistance (loan) from the African Development Bank. However, the teachers indicated a strong interest in taking computer technology courses.

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The shortages of entrepreneurial skills have lowered search effectiveness of potential young entrepreneurs and the rate of youth start-ups. [This] paper contributes to closing a gap in the entrepreneurship and development literature with a model of costly firm creation and skill differences between young and adult entrepreneurs. The model shows that for young entrepreneurs facing high costs of searching for business opportunities, support for training is more effective in stimulating productive start-ups than subsidies. The case for interventions targeted at youth rises in societies with high costs of youth unemployment. [The authors] test the role of skills and training for productive youth entrepreneurship on data from a recent survey of entrepreneurs in Swaziland.

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In April 2013, the International Network on Innovative Apprenticeship (INAP) hosted its fifth international conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, in co-operation with the International Labour Organisation (ILO), bringing together researchers, policy makers and practitioners from 34 nations. The title of the conference 'Apprenticeship in a globalised world: premises, promises and pitfalls' points out the need for apprenticeship to deliver on its promise of workplace skills and for it to develop and change as world economies develop. This international exchange of ideas among researchers from all over the world identifies cases of good practice and helps to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and innovation, also within the frame of informal apprenticeships. This book is a summary of papers presented and discussed at the Johannesburg Conference split up equally to the five key topics: (1) introducing apprenticeship: backgrounds, changes and difficulties; (2) enabling learning opportunities in workplaces and informal contexts; (2) competence assessment and development; (4) managing transitions from [vocational education and training] VET into the world of work; and (5) curriculum design, apprenticeships and national qualification frameworks.

Abstract from publisher's website.

The contents are as follows: Keynotes: Overcoming the work-inexperience gap through quality apprenticeships: the ILO's contribution / Michael Axmann and Christine Hofmann; Apprenticeship in global, national and local contexts: can INAP bridge the gaps? / Robert I. Lerman; Rearranging the furniture?: shifting discourses on skills development and apprenticeship in South Africa / Volker Wedekind. Chapter one, 'Introducing apprenticeship: backgrounds changes and difficulties', contains the following papers: Between an inglorious past and precarious future: South African apprenticeship in transition! / Salim Akoojee; Artisanal development without a clear demand: what about the public economy? / Lolwana Peliwe; Indonesia's efforts to implement modern apprenticeship / Joachim Dittrich; Development of a further education and research network for VET professional pedagogues in Sub-Saharan Africa (VET-Net) / Friedheim Eicker and Team of the VET-Net Project; Globalising the apprenticeship concept: how far can apprenticeship systems be compared across countries and what can be gained? / Erica Smith and Ros Brennan Kemmis; Progress with the English apprenticeship / Richard Marsh; Success factors of transition in Austria: possible considerations and consequences for countries all over the world / Peter Hartel and Michaela Marterer; Introducing an apprenticeship pathway in Swedish VET: chances and difficulties in workplace learning / Ingrid Berglund; Marketing apprenticeship in the United States: the case of South Carolina / Robert I. Lerman.

Chapter two, 'Enabling workplace learning': Improving the quality of apprenticeships as learning environment / Jeroen Onstenk; To what extent do facets of the learning environment influence apprentices' motivation and learning success? / Annalisa Schnitzler and Stefanie Velten; Correlates and predictors of apprentices' perception of their workplace as learning place: an analysis of the first three years in apprenticeship / Christof Nagele; An assessment of the effectiveness of VET workplace learning via the VET-WL factor model: a study in the Barcelona area / Pilar Pineda-Herrero, Anna Ciraso-Cali, Berta Espona-Barcons and Carla Quesada-Pallares; A typical experiment of cooperation between a vocational college and enterprises: a case study of Guangzhou Electromechanical Technician College / Ke'an Zhang and Caifeng Chen; COMET learning tasks in practice: how to make use of learning tasks at vocational schools / Thomas Scholz and Lars Heinemann. Chapter three, 'Apprenticships in informal contexts': Lessons learnt from informal apprenticeship initiatives in Southern and Eastern Africa / Ashwani Aggarwal; Linking informal apprenticeship and formal education in South-Eastern Nigeria through market/mechanic village schools / Benjamin Ogwo; Benin: experiences avec deux certificats formels / Roger Adanhounzo [in French only]; Upgrading informal apprenticeship in Egypt: a formalized approach with off-the-job learning / Mohamed F. El Fateh Moussa; Policy options for improving informal apprenticeship: experiences from Ghana / Dan Baffour-Awuah; Vocational skills formation in the informal economy in Tanzania / Gunilla Hojlund; Informal collaborative learning opportunities at Mozambique's [technical and vocational education and training] TVET institutions and industry / Daniel Dinis da Costa and Brigida O. Singo; Youths between urbanisation and poverty: livelihood opportunities and challenges of informal apprenticeships in Ghana / Benjamin Schraven; Transitions in informal apprenticeship: results from ILO research in several African countries / Christine Hofmann and Wendy Okofo; Les examens de fin d'apprentissage traditionnel (EFAT): un accelerateur d'amelioration de l'apprentissage traditionnel au Benin / Cyr Davodoun [in French only].

Chapter four, 'Competence assessment and development': 'Between a rock and a hard place': structural dilemmas of workplace trainers in German apprenticeship training / Anke Bahl; Competence development of pre-vocational and vocational teachers / Klaus Jenewein; Creating matrices of learning situations as a didactical possibility to fabricate an internal differentiation for action-oriented vocational education / Ralph Dreher; The influence of work process oriented learning context on learning outcomes in VET / Yingyi Zhou and Zhiqun Zhao; The influence of apprenticeship systems on occupational-biographical orientations: findings of a qualitative comparative study of the VET in England and Germany / Erika Edith Gericke; Competence measurement and development in TVET: result of the first COMET test in South Africa / Ursel Hauschildt, Hefen Brown and Zolife Zungu; Applying the COMET competence measurement and development model for VET teachers and trainers / Felix Rauner; Changes to artisan status and identity: implications for apprenticeship development / Angelique Wildschut and Salim Akoojee; A competence analysis and competence creation tool to integrate employees in subsidized contracts / Martin Kroll. Chapter five, 'Managing transitions from VET into the world of work': Does promoting permeability decrease social inequality in VET?: promises and pitfalls of a widespread idea / Jakob Kost; Why apprentices quit: a German case study / Ursel Hauschildt and Dorothea Piening; Successful educational outcomes after early apprenticeship contract terminations: the effect of learning experiences / Barbara E. Stalder; The application of COMET model in automobile maintenance technician personnel training / Donglian Gu and Changwen Cai; The transition from school world to authentic work world: a model of integrating work into learning in Chinese TVET colleges / Bin Bai; School-to-work transition: explanatory and predictor variables for self-employability of high school pre-vocational agriculture graduates in Swaziland / B. S Mndebele, Mpendulo L. Mngomezulu and Barnabas M. Dlamini.

Chapter six, 'Curriculum design, apprenticeships and national qualification frameworks: does VET fit into NQFS?': 'Apprenticeship' in contemporary Britain, Italy and Germany / Lisa Rustico; National Qualification Frameworks (NQFs) as a foundation to gaining more transparency and a better international recognition of professional qualifications including VET qualifications / A. Willi Petersen; Connections between the recognition of non-formal and informal learning and National Qualification Frameworks: consequences for VET / Silvia Annen; Apprenticeship and NQF: do they fit together or compete with each other?: the case of Switzerland / Philipp Gonon. Chapter seven, 'Open session topics': The connection of school improvement and school-intern further teacher education in the Canton of Zurich / Silke Pieneck; The effect of labor market regulations on training behaviour and quality: the German labor market reform as a natural experiment / Anika Jansen, Mirjam Struplef Leiser, Felix Wenzelmann and Stefan C. Wolter; Productivity of apprentices: the impact of school-developed key competencies / Anika Jansen and Harald Pfeifer; Case study on cost, benefit, and quality of apprenticeship in China / Junlan Chen, Zishi Luo, Haoyan Mai and Qiming Yang. Show less