Could the labour market gender balance be improved by introducing new types of apprenticeship-trained workers? This article investigates what happened in the wake of the Norwegian VET programme for health and social care, a new approach introduced via the 1994 educational reform. By upgrading this traditionally female-dominated area of education,…

This study was conducted to investigate which pitfalls users of personal development plans (PDPs) perceive in business and governmental organisations with mandatory PDP use. Hundred and thirty-one written statements of PDP users across three Dutch organisations were analysed and categorised into nine pitfalls. Next to an overall lack of use and…

This article discusses a project designed to build a community of enquiry in the first year of a foundation degree in early years at an English university. Derived originally from Lipman's ideas of Philosophy for Children, this approach became a regular part of the fortnightly session for these early childhood practitioners, in order to…

Internationally, the delivery of vocational education and training is being challenged by increasing skills shortages in certain industries and/or rapidly changing skill requirements. To respond to this challenge, rigid and centralised state bureaucracies are increasingly adopting partnerships between schools and industry as a strategy to…

Workplace training is a key strategy often used by organisations to optimise performance. Further, trainee motivation is a key determinant of the degree to which the material learned in a training programme will be transferred to the workplace, enhancing the performance of the trainee. This study investigates the relationship between several…

In 2005, the UK government introduced new vocationally related diploma qualifications. Two-year programs were examined in the summers of 2010 and 2011; initial government hopes for candidate numbers proved largely ephemeral and results were disappointing. This article explores what happened to the diploma's lofty ambitions using the summer of…

This article presents findings from an investigation into the experiences of a single cohort of students, studying on a BA (Hons) degree in Britain. It examines the students' attainment on the degree and relates this to their profile on entry, examining their previous work experiences taken as part of a vocationally focused entry qualification,…

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…

Educational policy is asked to support young people in their successful transition from education to employment. In Switzerland, a two-year apprenticeship with Federal VET Certificate was established in 2002 aimed at increasing the employability of low-achieving school leavers. It is a low-threshold VET programme offering standardised vocational…

Nowadays few young people are prepared to consider setting up and managing their own business as a realistic and attractive career option. It is therefore necessary to expose children to the concept of entrepreneurship from a very early age, which means that the school has a fundamental role to play in this task. This research seeks to understand…

This paper explores the experiences of teaching assistants studying for a Foundation degree programme and the perceived impacts such a programme has on their job role and self-esteem. A review of the related literature gave rise to three research questions that were addressed via focus groups with teaching assistants employed across four different…

The placement in colleges is a crucially formative experience for trainee teachers on pre-service Further Education (FE) initial teacher training courses. A project at the University of Huddersfield researched these placements in four colleges in the north of England and the relationships that were formed between the trainees, their mentors, other…

Operating a quality assurance system in tertiary education is the rule rather than the exception, because of the belief that it will improve quality. However, proving this is not easy. This study examines three ways of providing the evidence: the a "priori" method, the stepwise backtracking method, and the external evaluation method. The quality…

Private and public organisations play a significant role in the development of entrepreneurship education. They give schools support of various kinds including the provision of seed capital and first-hand and latest information about the business sector. The fast growth of entrepreneurship education worldwide is largely due to the efforts of the…

This paper sets the scene for a collection of papers based on "The impact of policy on learning and inclusion in the learning and skills sector," a research project funded from January 2004 until July 2007 by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of their Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP). We raise some general…