As part of the efforts of higher education to reach additional audiences, this study deals with an alternative non-traditional pathway that leads to higher academic education. This alternative, the stackable credentials pathway, uses short-cycle tertiary VET as a way to an academic degree. The study describes the extent of users of the pathway in…

This paper investigates early employment influences on postsecondary expectations and enrolment for working men and women who have recently completed high school in the United States. We find that young workers still have very high expectations for postsecondary education, but that women are more likely to enrol. However, this difference is…

In this paper we argue that learning in the workplace can bring considerable benefits for learners and employers. It draws on data from in-depth interviews and secondary sources from eight sites of work-based learning as part of wider research into the effects of five national policy mechanisms within the Learning and Skills Sector. We also have…

Increasing enterprises' expenditure on their employees' vocational education and training (VET) is of concern for governments in many countries. This article identifies and discusses policy goals for increased enterprise expenditure on VET and elaborates options for achieving these goals. Throughout, measures that attempt to mandate and regulate…

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…