Research into Vocational Education and Training (VET) has undergone major developments in the last 60 years. This is particularly true of the last 30 years. The rising political, social and economic priority of VET has been principally responsible for this development. However, it is also true to say that some of the disciplines of education have…

The British government continued intervention to support apprenticeship training across the economy has been notable in recent years. The construction industry is the only sector to retain a levy/grant scheme (that supports training including apprenticeships) since 1964, yet it still faces the problem of skills shortages. This article thus reviews…

This review focuses on the relationship between theoretical knowledge and professional practice within pharmacy education. The discussion takes two different approaches to examine the selected literature. The first approach is concerned with how curriculum changes may potentially contribute to the improvement of professional practice. This…

Apprenticeships are a time-honored way of passing along skills in an art, trade, or craft. Apprenticeships have long been an important element of career and technical education (CTE). From automotive technology to the construction trades to the culinary arts and beyond, community colleges across the nation are still using apprenticeships to…

This contribution aims at informing readers about a current education and training design approach which is based on theory building and practical experience. It is about the development of comprehensive competence-based education, which is different from earlier attempts to develop competence-based education. In many education development…

Purpose: The objective of this paper is to examine the initiation of the University of the Heads of the Valley Initiative (UHOVI) project and evaluate the development of its focus, materials and structure. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology employs interviews with a purposive sample of local employer stakeholders. The rationale for this…

Despite the heavy investments in the economic development of East German industry, the region still faces immanent structural challenges that affect the provision of vocational education and training (VET), in particular apprenticeships, and the availability of a well skilled workforce. In this article the situation of the economy as well as new…

Much of VET policy internationally draws on a toolkit that has been seriously questioned for its logic, international relevance and effectiveness by considerable amounts of academic research. Reflecting primarily on our experiences of leading a complex, multi-country policy study, we develop an account that seeks to explore ways in which the…

Robert LaLonde of the University of Chicago and Daniel Sullivan of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago suggest that retraining through our nation's community colleges is a way to reduce the skills gaps of at least some of these displaced workers and increase their reemployment earnings. Although workers may still experience significant earnings…

This paper provides an overview of vocational education and training (VET) system in India, and discusses various challenges and difficulties in the Indian VET system. The paper also examines labour market outcomes of vocational graduates and compares these with those of general secondary graduates using a large-scale nationally representative…

This study investigates the possibilities of estimating value added as a performance indicator in senior secondary vocational education. Value added is interesting in this context because it is considered as a reliable tool for comparing the effectiveness of educational institutions. Although value added indicators have been developed since the…

Cyprus takes over the European Union Presidency in the second half of 2012 in a period of continuing uncertainty due to the world economic crisis. The vocational education and training (VET) system of Cyprus is playing a significant role in dealing with the immediate adverse effects of the crisis on the labour market as well as in laying the…

Local government in Portugal had a good opportunity to modernise through the Programa de Formacao para as Autarquias Locais (Foral) [Training programme for local authorities], implemented between 2000 and 2005. Substantial financial resources were made available through the programme to retrain local government human resources in order to improve…

This paper deals with the latest structural changes in the Danish vocational education and training system (VET), a system so far characterised by a principle of alternating between practical training and theoretical instruction. Structural changes can be described as a shift of paradigm, which might be seen as a regression compared to the Danish…

Governments are currently mobilising their national workforces to compete effectively in a globalised economy where being export-effective and import-competitive are necessary to secure national economic and social goals. Australia is no exception here. Yet, in this country, as in others, similar mobilisations occurred in earlier times, most…