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'Moving from the edge' personalises the policies and discussions about social inclusion through case studies. Chapters include: 'Candice, Louise & Priscilla's story: inclusion by strengthening family functioning' (pp. 15-29); 'Kyleen's story: building connections through education' (pp. 31-41); 'Brian's story: experiencing others' commitment and discovering a life purpose' (pp. 43-59); Melanie's story: drawn by the goal of a 'normal' existence' (pp. 51-57); 'Robert's story: relationship as a lever to inclusion' (pp. 59-65); 'Samakab's story: sustained by community membership' (pp. 67-75); 'June's story: surrogate inclusion through her children' (pp. 77-84); 'Bill's story: reinforcing resolve through community involvement' (pp. 87-95); 'Overview: insights into the dynamics of change' (pp. 96-101). Show less

Using objective criteria to gather data from 143 economies worldwide, this report establishes a detailed fact base on the many ways in which the law has been used to establish differences on the basis of gender, generally to the detriment of women. As this year's data show, many societies have made progress, gradually moving to dismantle ingrained forms of discrimination against women. Yet, a great deal remains to be done. This year's report analyzes trends across six indicators: accessing institutions; using property; getting a job; providing incentives to work; building credit; and going to court. It also adds a new pilot indicator on protecting women from violence. Like previous editions, this year's report examines laws, regulations, and institutions that treat women differently. That can be found in ways that make it more difficult for them to earn an income, make decisions about property or start a business - and ultimately deny them opportunities for economic advancement and personal growth. In turn, those roadblocks impede social mobility, undermine competitiveness, and restrain economic growth.

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Distance learning's unique capacity to meet the individual needs of a wide range of learners and thus to widen access to learning makes it an extremely important strand of provision in the new post-16 sector. Only quality distance learning can do this. Employers need responsive training that meets the needs of individual employees or small groups, that is cost effective to provide and achieves the desired outcomes. High quality distance learning is a successful way to provide such training. This report is the result of an investigation using case studies at nine colleges and two non-sector organisations and a back-up survey of a sample of students at five of the colleges.

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This publication provides insights into how disability perspectives may be incorporated into policies, laws, services and programmes, and the essential elements for sustainable and inclusive growth of societies. ILO-Irish Aid supported projects on disability (INCLUDE and PEPDEL) operating in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Thailand and Viet Nam provide the basis for the case stories, examples of good practice and lessons learned presented in this publication.

Published summary from ILO website. Show less

This report argues that postsecondary education is the entry ticket to the middle class. But for low-income Americans college success is rare. While education has long been seen as a force for social mobility, inclusion, and equity, it is too often the great stratifier in practice. Boosting social mobility requires interventions that widen the doors to college, and help more students succeed in post-secondary education. There have been a growing number of initiatives, especially 'Promise' scholarship programs, aimed at cities and counties to help level the playing field and make a path to a good education available for all.

The report explores the experience of one such program - Say Yes to Education, which works at a city level in Syracuse and Buffalo, New York, and a county level in Guilford County, North Carolina. The authors draw on case studies of the program in Buffalo, Syracuse, and Guilford County and offer four lessons for reformers hoping to expand access to higher education: (1) Collaboration depends on local leadership; (2) Collective governance needs a powerful 'cabinet' of decision makers; (3) Securing credible commitments is important for sustainability; and (4) Data is the single most important ingredient of reform.

There are few tasks as important, and as challenging, as narrowing gaps in educational outcomes. Any attempts to improve educational outcomes for poorer students, or to narrow class gaps in outcomes, are working against the grain. The authors argue that unless accompanied by deeper reform of the education system as a whole, and of the inequality underlying it, even the most ambitious, innovative, and sustained efforts will have, at best, modest results.

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In light of the large number of individuals deemed 'underprivileged' in the education system, it is especially important within the context of the ongoing qualifications debate to focus on the young people in Germany who do not possess a formal academic qualification. As a result of the differentiated system in the secondary phase of schooling in Germany, dropouts come from many pathways including the Secondary General School, the Intermediate Secondary School and the Grammar School, as well as from vocational training schools, Dual System apprenticeships and special-needs schools. The Secondary General School (Hauptschule) represents the school type that is at the lowest academic level. It is compulsory until Grade 9 and in some federal states until Grade 10, by which time students are aged 15 or 16. This type of school provides a general education that is mainly seen as a basis for practical vocational training. The Intermediate Secondary School (Realschule) provides extended general education until Grade 10. With the Intermediate Certificate, students have access to all types of medium-level occupations, to the dual apprenticeship system and also have the option to transfer to a Grammar School or to specific subject related grammar schools that provide access to universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen). The Grammar School (Gymnasium) offers schooling from Grade 5 to Grade 12 or 13, and with the final exams (A-levels, or Abitur) students qualify for studies at all institutions of higher education. Normally, about two thirds of these school leavers transfer to universities, while others enter the Dual System.

This divided school system is seen as one of the main causes of social selection and inequality as it provides the grounds for the tracking or streaming of students (e.g., see the PISA1-studies: PISA-Konsortium Deutschland, 2004). On the other hand, this system, which attempts to qualify young people at the educational level that best suits their capabilities and interests, can result in comparatively high completion rates. Youth without an educational or vocational qualification have greatly reduced options within the educational system and also in the job market (e.g., see Hillmert and Mayer, 2004; Friebel, 1999; Max-Planck-Institut fur Bildungsforschung, 1995). To design policies that reduce dropout rates, it is essential to identify the influences and also those institutions and agencies that are accountable. In Germany, responsibility for these problems is scattered throughout the federal political and educational system, with the 16 states having responsibility for educational legislation and administration. In order to ensure agreements on educational matters of supra-regional importance, there is a national committee that fosters cooperation and coordination: the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Educational and Cultural Affairs (Kultusministerkonferenz). Some of the common regulations concern compulsory full-time school attendance, which is 9 years in 12 federal states, and 10 years in four federal states (for a more thorough description of the system, see Reich et al., 2008).

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The volume from which this chapter is taken is available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 108.1247. Show less

This six volume handbook covers in detail all of the latest practice in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). Contributions have come from more than 200 international authors. The handbook’s aim is to review the developments that have occurred in TVET and provide pointers to improvements in the field. In this handbook readers will find information on TVET models from all over the world, reflections on the best and most innovative practice, and dozens of telling case studies. The handbook will assist those involved in TVET at any level in making informed decisions and further advance and improve the field and to bridge the gap between vocational and academic education in the 21st century. This work is particularly relevant today as TVET faces major challenges posed by the move in many countries towards the knowledge-based economy ushered in by new information and communication technologies. Traditional occupations and apprenticeships are affected as the boundaries between manual and mental work fade. National economies are evolving rapidly as market forces take full advantage of the opportunities offered by globalization. Work, of course, has always been a major feature in people’s lives. Not only does it provide them with the means of survival - food, clothing and shelter - but it also has a major impact on their self-identity, social status, standard of living and quality of life. In this respect, the shift from the Industrial Age to the Information Age has considerable implications for education and training. Numerous questions arise from the shift in the global labour marketplace, questions that this handbook addresses. How do we anticipate change in the labour market? How do we respond to the dilemma of providing appropriate educational and training courses in a fluid world economy? Governments need reliable mechanisms to predict economic trends and the demand for manpower. Governments, enterprises and trade unions alike must focus on the methodologies of teacher training, curriculum development, the school-to-work transition, gender, and equality and equity. They will need to offer flexible pathways to training, find new ways of moulding human capital, and work out how they cope with unemployment and an ageing workforce - to name only a few. These are just some of the topics addressed in this handbook. It draws on international experience to identify the answers and procedures to improve TVET, and provides comprehensive coverage of current practices in research and policy as we face the vicissitudes of the 21st century.

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Individual chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 100.52 to TD/TNC 100.244. Show less

It is generally assumed that school dropout is not much of a problem in Poland. According to Eurostat (2008), the rate of early school leaving is only 5.5 per cent, which means that only a small proportion of young people aged 18-24 have not obtained an upper secondary qualification. Rapid and wide expansion of education at the secondary and tertiary levels suggests that the quality of Polish education is high and so too is its effectiveness. This chapter presents a contrary point of view. The author will try to show the impact of educational change in contemporary Polish education, particularly in terms of social inequalities. The processes of change have led to an illusion of democratic and effective schooling but, as will be argued, the mechanical involvement of larger and larger numbers of students in education is not sufficient to overcome social inequalities or to open up opportunities to all. As will be shown, dropout (or potential dropout) is not as low as might be expected and differs according to the type of secondary education. The first part of this chapter presents a general overview of changes in the contemporary education system in Poland and its general structure. The second part presents estimates of dropout rates in secondary schooling. Finally, some institutional strategies to assist students at risk of dropping out are discussed.

Excerpt from publication.

The volume from which this chapter is taken is available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 108.1247. Show less

This paper analyses higher education reform in relation to the 'knowledge' society and recent political frameworks developed by governments in response to sociopolitical and economic change. It argues that a wide range of countries have responded to forces associated with globalisation by adopting a 'third way' political approach, which lies mid-way between state collectivism and an unregulated market economy. On the one hand, this political approach promotes policies to support marketisation as the basis for a successful economy. On the other hand, the most corrosive effects of market forces are contained through state regulation and state support for disadvantaged groups. This 'dual' approach is reflected in government reform in higher education, particularly around issues of quality and participation. Presenting the reform of higher education in Britain as a case study, the paper outlines the important financial and other support measures devised by the New Labour government to distribute opportunities for study more evenly across society. The quality assurance measures, which have restructured the higher education terrain within a quasi-marketised framework, at the same time compel universities to compete against other universities for funding and status. This paper illustrates how the institutionalisation of the quality assurance mechanisms inhibits the workings of measures aimed at widening participation in the system as a whole. It concludes that the implementation of the 'third way' approach to higher education reform, which implements policy mechanisms to temper some of the consequences of the marketisation of higher education within a quasimarket framework, serves to penalise the very institutions which recruit students with the greatest social and educational need. Interaction of the measures for widening participation and quality assurance is therefore likely to lead to a higher education system that is heavily stratified along the lines of prior educational and social disadvantage.

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This chapter is part of a book that aims to provide an accessible, practical and scholarly source of information about the international concern for the philosophy, theory, categories, and concepts of lifelong learning. In this chapter, the authors examine lifelong learning in South Africa in terms of three basic principles in education. Firstly, the concept of learning as central to both economic and social cohesion is explored. The argument is that lifelong learning cannot be driven by economic motives but has to develop the 'capacity of citizens to exercise and enforce democratic rights and participate effectively in decision making', as described in the South African Government's National Plan for Higher Education (indexed at TD/IRD 88.293), published in 2001. Learning is then examined in relation to challenges around equity and redress. The third principle is access to education. It is argued that particular groups, such as Africans, women, non-traditional learners, students from working-class and rural backgrounds, the disabled and adults, are not yet equitably represented in the higher education system.

The book from which this chapter is taken is indexed at TD/TNC 98.562. Selected chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 98.563 to TD/TNC 98.569. Show less