Vocational Education Based on Knowledge or Experience?

Abstract

The development of vocational education will depend on whether it provides future-oriented competencies. That means desired competencies of the knowledge society. At present the vocational education includes two different views. One is based on implicit knowledge, the other on explicit knowledge. Implicit knowledge is understood as the knowledge based on experience. Explicit knowledge represents systematic and theoretical knowledge. Although implicit and explicit knowledge have been identified for the first time in the fifties of the last century, both of these forms were already established as essential parts of a business education in the Bata company in Zlín in the twenties to forties of the last century. The thesis aims to characterize these two forms of knowledge in relation to vocational education and to answer the following research questions: What competencies will provide graduates with vocational education based only on explicit knowledge? What competencies will provide vocational education based solely on implicit knowledge? Document analysis and field research obtained facts and information about these issues are compared with the concept of vocational education in the Bata’s shoe company in the twenties to forties of the last century. Methods conform to the historical method of working with archive documents and literature.