Search results for "Vocational education"
showing 10 items of 262 documents
The effect of polytechnic reform on migration
2011
This paper examines the effect of the polytechnic reform on geographical mobility. A polytechnic, higher education reform took place in Finland in the 1990s. It gradually transformed former vocational colleges into polytechnics and also brought higher education to regions that did not have a university before. This expansion of higher education provides exogenous variation in the regional supply of higher education. The reform raised the mobility of high school graduates across local labour markets in the years after they had completed their secondary studies, which indicated increased mobility between high school and post-secondary education. We estimate that the reform enhanced the annual…
MATCHING VOCATIONAL TRAINING AND LABOUR MARKET DEMANDS – THE OPINION OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATIONS
2013
Matching vocational education and training (VET) competencies with actual labour market demands is an increasing challenge for European VET systems. This requires innovation in national VET systems and sets new tasks for public administrations that are responsible for the implementation of the VET systems. The aim of the research is to study the opinion of relevant stakeholders regarding innovation in VET provision. Textual analysis and expert survey among various stakeholders have been carried out. Conclusion has been drawn that experts and social partners express increasing awareness regarding the need of VET innovation. This requires continued research, especially on the interests and mo…
Ranking farms with a composite indicator of sustainability
2011
The assessment of sustainability at farm level has been growing in popularity over the last few years. This article contributes to this line of research by building up composite indicators for different facets—social, economic, environmental, and global—of farm sustainability using a methodological approach that combines data envelopment analysis (DEA) and multicriteria decision making (MCDM) methods, and assigns common weights to each individual sustainability indicator. This approach is applied to a database of 163 farms located in the Campos County, a region belonging to the dry lands of the Spanish Northern Plateau, using 12 individual indicators of sustainability. Our findings show tha…
More skilled, better paid : labour-market returns to postsecondary vocational education
2017
Outside the USA, relatively little is known about the labour-market returns to postsecondary vocational (or polytechnic) education. Yet, polytechnics in Europe are distinct from US community colleges. This paper focuses on the labour-market returns to polytechnic attendance in Finland, where polytechnics are representative of many European countries. Using matching methods and longitudinal administrative data, we find that, compared to individuals with no postsecondary education, students who attend polytechnics have higher annual earnings of €3,300 to €3,700 and employment gains of 2.5 to 6.6 percentage points 10 years after the entry decision. However, the returns vary by personal charact…
Revista complutense de educación
2001
M.Jesus.Martinez@uv.es Este articulo revisa los principales obstáculos y problemáticas que han tenido lugar en los sistemas europeos de Formación Profesional. Se reconoce para ello tres agrupaciones de paises a fin de estructurar el presente estudio, cada una de las cuales coincide en sus principales rasgos: los sistemas de Formación Profesional técnica y escolar (en el Sur de Europa y los países escandinavos), los sistemas mixtos de Formación Profesional o sistemas duales (en Alemania, Holanda y Austria) y los paises donde prevalecen los sistemas de Formación Profesional post-ocupacionales (Gran Bretaña e Irlanda). De cada una de las agrupaciones se han estudiado algunos elementos, utiliza…
Continuing professional development among social‐ and health‐care educators
2020
Future social- and health-care educators will be required to have versatile competence in educating professionals that reflects both the constantly changing health-care environment and delivery of high-quality patient care. Continuing professional development can be defined as a process that aims to increase educators' competence and well-being, along with the effectiveness of an organisation. This study aimed to describe educators' continuing professional development and clarify the contribution of continuing education. The research applied a qualitative approach as only limited information about social- and health-care educators' professional development currently exists.' Data were colle…
Pathways to higher education in France and Switzerland: Do vocational tracks facilitate access to higher education for immigrant students?
2014
In this chapter we wish to clarify through which institutional pathways higher education is accessed by immigrant group students in Switzerland and France. We have chosen these two countries because they differ from each other both in their educational systems and in the ways new routes to higher education have been set up through vocationally orientated programmes. The educational landscape in France is characterised by a more school-based system and has a greater tradition of prestigious tertiary education institutions (Duru-Bellat et al., 2008). Moreover, traditional vocational education and training (VET) does not have very high status and therefore fails to attract a large proportion o…
Changing World: Changing Pedagogy
2012
The purpose of this chapter is to examine the requirements of the rapidly changing world of work with regard to vocational competences and professional expertise, as well as their pedagogical implications for vocational and higher education. The first part of the chapter deals with recent macro-level trends in the working world in terms of the development of a knowledge society and a network society. On the basis of a brief literature review, a summary of required generic professional competences is presented. The second part focuses on the pedagogical implications of the changing world. First, traditional pedagogical practices which provide little contribution to the development of the kin…
Peer-group mentoring as a tool for teacher development
2014
Abstract: Peer-group mentoring (PGM) is a new model designed to support the professional development of teachers in Finland. This study examines the experiences of mentees participating in PGM and potential differences in the experiences of teachers in general education and vocational education. It also addresses the mentees perceptions of the results of PGM with regard to the professional, personal and social dimensions of professional development. Quantitative research methods were used. An online survey was completed by 69 teachers in general education and 47 teachers in vocational education (n = 116). The results showed that the participants saw PGM as an important tool for professional…
THE ROLE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION INSTITUTIONS IN IMPROVED APPROACHES TO MODERN LABOUR FORCE TRAINING
2012
The current research is aimed at studying the role of public administration institutions in securing improved approaches towards modern labour force training. More specifically, the research is being targeted at the existing and emerging institutional approaches (mechanisms) for a comprehensive treatment of the problem of labour market skills in relation to ‘innovation capable’ labour force. The presupposition behind the research is that the relatively weak links between the higher education and research system and the vocational education and training system may be a potential obstacle for the training of ‘innovation capable’ workforce at all levels. To study the problem, the opinions of t…