This article discusses learner progression within further education (FE) colleges in England and the role that both internal college practices and wider system factors play in the transition of 16-19 year olds from school to further study and the workplace. Focusing on a sample of 118 learners from 19 lower level courses in a large general FE…

Incorporating industry-specific training into senior secondary education has not always succeeded in attaining status alongside general education courses. This paper reports enrolment and student performance trends from 2001-2008 in industry-specific training courses developed in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) where around one in…

In this paper we explore whether power issues enhance and/or inhibit retention of foundation-learners in vocational education in Aotearoa New Zealand. After surveying reasons given for early departure in the retention literature, the paper offers Foucault's notion of governmentality as another possible factor in early departure. The paper explores…

From 2007 to 2008, CILT (Centre for Information for Language Teachers) developed a set of National Occupational Standards for Intercultural Working in the UK. This paper reports on three questions arising from the development project: how these standards are distinctive from others, how they realise intercultural competence and how they meet…

Mentoring has become established as a central feature of initial teacher training programmes in English further education (FE) yet there remains a lack of clarity within the sector about what mentoring should mean. The direction of government reforms has been to make mentoring part of the formal assessment of trainee teachers against national…

The shift to Vocational Education and Training (VET) for the training of the Australian residential aged care workforce has resulted in significant variance in the competencies at graduation of those caring for people with dementia. Competence may be also be enhanced, or conversely, decline over time as a result of implicit learning gained from…

This article explores the impact of the Every Child Matters agenda on a group of multi-agency professionals with regard to a number of key issues--such as leadership, multi-agency collaboration, and individual practice. One of the main challenges concerning the successful implementation of the ECM agenda is to ensure that effective training is…

Much is expected from the new learnership system implemented in South Africa a mere seven years ago as a key component in putting a multi-pronged National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS) into operation. The learnership system is expected to foster skills development in the formal economy, as well as assist new (young) entrants into employment.…

Current theories of learning hold dominant assumptions about the type and scope of knowledge and skills taught in formal courses that prepare novices for professional practice at work. In performing arts educational contexts, a common emphasis continues to hone individual performance skills in order to gain technical mastery and to differentiate…

This paper examines the Australian phenomenon of Enterprise Registered Training Organizations (RTOs). These are organizations that do not have training as their main business but that are accredited to deliver training and award qualifications, primarily to their own workers. Although Enterprise RTOs have been in existence in one form or another…

Studies demonstrate that negative interpersonal interaction(s) (NII) such as bullying are frequent and harmful to individuals in workplace and higher education student settings. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether the degree of perceived severity of NII varies by the status of the actor. The present study explored the moderating effect of actor…

The first part of the paper outlines and discusses the nature of work-based learning (WBL) and WBL programmes, and the overall direction of government strategy towards WBL programmes in Higher Education (HE) in England, with particular reference to postgraduate programmes, policy documents, and the WBL literature. Drawing upon case study research,…

This study was conducted with Thai students enrolled in undergraduate programs for industrial and technical education. Volunteer participants responded to surveys designed to elicit their personal goal orientations and their preferences regarding the thinking style of a competent professional, that is, a manager or supervisor. Participants (N =…

Dutch prevocational secondary schools are reforming their educational programmes to make them more competence-based. This reform has substantial implications for the roles played by teachers. Yet, little empirical research has been conducted on teachers' processes of competence development in vocational settings. This study explores teachers'…

Within the general context of the attention being given to vocational education in China and imminent major reform in the English language vocational education curriculum, this paper describes the construction of a set of calibrated tests of reading skills, grammar and vocabulary knowledge to inform curriculum planners about levels of ability in…