The problems facing young people in Australia's current labor market and the effectiveness of Australia's educational system in preparing young people for the labor market were examined. Particular attention was paid to the following issues: the reshaping of work in the modern labor market; skill development in the modern labor market; the impact…

The French employers federation (MEDEF) has taken the initiative to develop a joint inter-sectoral mechanism for accreditation of occupational competences. The approach analyzes occupations at a more abstract level than the tasks performed within a specific job to facilitate comparison of different occupations from different sectors and allow…

The Workplace English Language and Literacy (WELL) program is intended to provide Australian workers with the language, literacy, and numeracy skills needed to meet their current and ongoing employment and training needs. A research methodology based on the principles of naturalistic inquiry was used to examine the extent to which WELL projects…

Common factors among high-performing distance learning (DL) programs were examined through case studies at 9 further education colleges and 2 nonsector organizations in the United Kingdom and a backup survey of a sample of 50 distance learners at 5 of the colleges. The study methodology incorporated numerous principles of process benchmarking. The…

This document contains information from and about a world assembly on creativity and democratic governance in adult learning that was held by the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE) and its partner organizations in the Caribbean. The proceedings begin with English, French, and Spanish translations of the address…

This dictionary defines approximately 3,500 terms related to adult, continuing, higher, and lifelong learning. It provides detailed references to the main historical and contemporary figures, organizations, and concepts involved in adult and further education around the world with a distinct focus on the core issues in this rapidly changing field.…

Insights from a variety of research streams were synthesized to identify the key ingredients of a high-quality work environment in Canada's health care sector and ways of achieving high-quality workplaces in the sector. The following sets of interacting factors were considered: (1) the work environment and the human resource practices that shape…

The effects of three types of work-life conflict in Canada were examined by using data from a set of work and family studies that were conducted in 1991 and 2001. The studies focused on the effects of the following types of conflict: (1) work overload; (2) work-to-family interference (where work gets in the way of family); and (3) family-to-work…

Ways of improving the quality of precourse information, advice, and guidance available to students entering further education and sixth form colleges in the United Kingdom were explored. Data were collected from the following sources: (1) the 3-year Raising Quality and Achievement Programme; (2) seminars on sharing good practice in delivering…

The changing nature of the demand for training in Australian enterprises adopting new management practices and the implications of those changes for training providers were examined. More than 3,400 private sector enterprises were surveyed by mail, after which follow-up telephone interviews were conducted with 80 human resource practitioners from…

Parents are vital partners in the educational system. This handbook provides parents with information about the Grade 7 curriculum in Catholic schools in Alberta, Canada. Based on the Alberta Learning "Program of Studies: Junior High Schools," the handbook describes the knowledge, skills, and attitudes Catholic school students in Alberta…

Three studies covering the tourism, chemical industry, and healthcare sectors in the European Union investigated patterns of cross-border mobility at the sector level. Special focus was on transparency of vocational qualifications and the relation between transparency and mobility. A serious lack of information on labor force mobility within…

Since the "Kangan Report" (1974), literacy and numeracy (L&N) issues have become an integral component of policy development in Australia's vocational education and training (VET) sector. Debate in the literature is based on competing discourses: functional-economic and social practice. These discourses and globalization of the…

The Competent Children Project is following a group of about 500 children in the Wellington region of New Zealand from around the age of 5 until they leave school. The main aims of the project are to describe children's progress over time and to chart contributions to their progress made by family resources, early childhood education, school…

The 26 papers in this collection from a British conference first provide an overview of group-based learning in higher education, offer a range of examples, and identify issues and trends. Chapters include: (1) "Introduction" (Roy Gregory and Lin Thorley); (2) "An Overview from Higher Education" (Diana M. R. Tribe); (3)…