This article reports on a series of interviews held with individuals in the middle of a Foundation Degree, during which they were asked for their views of studying for this qualification. It draws on a research project conducted with part-time students involved in work-based learning. The research into their "learning journeys" aimed to…

University-industry research and development links are commonplace. They offer many mutual benefits and have led to the development of significant outcomes. In the main, such linkages are in fields such as science and technology, not in research and development in workplace literacy. This article reports on a collaboration between university…

New Literacy Studies is the theoretical basis for this research, providing a social view of literacy. Recent work in New Literacy Studies has extended further the notion of literacy and demonstrated the ways in which people engage in practices in their everyday lives that do not always get translated into their studies. This article draws on…

This article provides a critique of South Africa's attempt to transform apprenticeships using data from the 2004 Baseline Survey of the Learnership Programme in South Africa. The data suggests that Learnerships provide important opportunities for those in work to learn new theoretical and practical capabilities and thus deepen the skills base of…

In 2000, South Africa implemented a levy-grant policy (Skills Development Levies Act, 1999) to give an incentive for workplace training across private and public sector workplaces alike, but the impact of the levy-grant scheme in the public sector was restricted by financial and management processes unique to that environment. This article shows…

Group achievements and social change are rooted in self-efficacy. This concept has important implications for career development in a changing environment. Associations that represent professionals involved with physical rehabilitation in the United States have identified activities that they feel are essential for the survival of the…

The authors of this article were involved in designing and delivering a vocational education and training (VET) program for employees of a large Australian government agency. Learning partnerships were included as an integral part of this program and research was conducted to determine whether learning partnerships could be used effectively in…

This article explores the state of skills development for smaller enterprises in South Africa through a consideration of two recent empirical studies of very small and micro enterprises (VSMEs--those with 2-10 employees). It provides new evidence about the complexity of the VSME sector and the mixed performance of state attempts to engage with it…

The recent structural reforms in New Zealand education have enabled the liberalisation of upper secondary school curricula to the point where schools can devise programmes that lead to nationally recognised vocational qualifications. Strategies include close relationships with further education providers whereby instructional materials or direct…

This article reports on the outcomes of the first phase of the Literacies for Learning in Further Education project, which is exploring the literacy practices required for successful study within different curriculum areas in four Further Education Colleges, two in Scotland and two in England. It draws upon initial interview data with staff and…

This article investigates the contribution skills development can make in promoting South Africa's wider socio-economic development. It provides a broad overview of the emerging gap between those who are benefiting from South Africa's transition to democracy and those who are not. Overcoming these worsening social conditions has become a major…

This article outlines the incorporation of vocational education and training (VET) courses into a senior secondary certificate of education, the New South Wales Higher School Certificate, in the largest state of Australia. VET courses were introduced in 2000 to broaden the offerings available in post-compulsory schooling and to cater better for…

While the political transition to democratic rule in South Africa was smooth and rapid, the economic transition has been slow and difficult. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the labour market. Job creation has not matched growing labour supply and the unemployment rate continues to rise. This article attempts to document and identify the key…

The last 30 years have witnessed ongoing calls for the reform of post-14 education, to make it more responsive to the needs of employers and the economy, and overcome the academic-vocational divide. This article maps out recent proposals and changes in 14-19 education to remind us that they are rooted in a complex past, and while they might appear…

The South African workforce is characterised by racial, gender, occupational and sectoral unevenness in the distribution of skills, employment and training opportunities. This article considers how enterprise training in South Africa contributes to ameliorating, sustaining or exacerbating such inequalities. Using data from the National Skills…