Skills Policy Research Articles

Skills development within Nigeria’s multinational corporations

ABSTRACT The quest for the relevant skills necessary for socio-economic transformation in Africa partly explains the drive by African countries to attract investments by multinational corporations (MNCs) – the custodians of modern skills and technology. While the literature is replete with analyses of liberal policies and incentives offered to encourage investments by multinational corporations, little scholarly attention appears to have been paid to the need to incorporate MNC skills policies and programmes into the national skills agenda. In Nigeria, like many developing countries, several years of MNC operations have not resulted in any meaningful alignment of multinational skills development programmes with national aspirations for human capital formation. It is against this backdrop that this article examines the skills development challenge in Nigeria vis-à-vis the efforts of multinational corporations in the area of skills development. The article is anchored in the Human Capital Theory of Gary S. Becker and Protectionist Narrative of Joel Bakan. The article engaged with key-informant interviews (5) and in-depth interviews (19) conducted in selected multinational companies, government agencies concerned with skills development and Organised Labour Federations in Nigeria. The paper has found that there is somewhat incongruence in MNCs’ skills development practice and national aspirations.

Skill Development in Jharkhand: A Study of Government Initiative Schemes towards the same for the youth of the state

The skill development growth in the Jharkhand has witnessed rapid momentum in the past years. State has focused on opening relatively large size centres along with longer duration courses with focus on soft skills and OJT/Apprenticeship components. State government has also partnered with many agencies to set up skill development centres within college premises as well as many other premises to improve the employability of the youth of the state. Government has initiated skill development focused on Industry in partnership with leading global companies like Siemens and many more. As it is gaining scale and maturity, need for Skills Policy that weaves together all aspects in a comprehensive roadmap was acutely felt. This policy is being released at an opportune time and will enable rapid growth and improved outcomes for skill development and entrepreneurship interventions in the state especially for the youth. Government of Jharkhand is committed to enabling growth of the state through skilling the youth. A skilled and high productivity manpower base is a critical enabler in the growth of manufacturing, services and agriculture. It is also a critical intervention to harness the potential of ‘Demographic Dividend’ in a youthful state like Jharkhand. To give impetus to growth with scale, speed and standard, Government of Jharkhand has decided to frame a Skills Policy for the state of Jharkhand. This policy will be known as ‘Jharkhand Skills Policy’ and will be in force in the state.

Policy Blending and Recombination for Multimodal Contact-Rich Tasks

Multimodal information such as tactile, proximity and force sensing is essential for performing stable contact-rich manipulations. However, coupling multimodal information and motion control still remains a challenging topic. Rather than learning a monolithic skill policy that takes in all feedback signals at all times, skills should be divided into phases and learn to only use the sensor signals applicable to that phase. This makes learning the primitive policies for each phase easier, and allows the primitive policies to be more easily reused among different skills. However, stopping and abruptly switching between each primitive policy results in longer execution times and less robust behaviours. We therefore propose a blending approach to seamlessly combining the primitive policies into a reliable combined control policy. We evaluate both time-based and state-based blending approaches. The resulting approach was successfully evaluated in simulation and on a real robot, with an augmented finger vision sensor, on: opening a cap, turning a dial and flipping a breaker tasks. The evaluations show that the blended policies with multimodal feedback can be easily learned and reliably executed.

Skills policy for growth and development: The merits of local approaches in Vietnam

Vietnam has achieved rapid economic growth since opening-up its economy in 1999, but to achieve further growth the World Bank and others argue it must tackle intermediate level technical vocational skill shortages and gaps, as well as address the poor quality of its technical vocational education and training. The Vietnam government subscribes to such views, but the policy ‘remedies’ prescribed i.e. supply-side approaches and policy borrowing, as well as aspects of the initial ‘diagnosis’, seem highly questionable. Drawing on research on Vietnam’s manufacturing sector, we discuss the skills shortage diagnosis and stakeholders’ perspectives on the government’s policy prescriptions to argue for an approach that recognises the merits of local level strategies, as a more effective way of addressing Vietnam’s ambitions.

Mother-Tongue Maintenance in Canada: The Role of the Coethnic Community and Coethnic Resources

ABSTRACT Much of our understanding of language attainment among immigrants and their descendants focuses on the US with substantial evidence of mother-tongue loss within a few generations. However, these patterns may differ in Canada given its unique linguistic context, such as continuous migration, multicultural policy, two official languages, and a skilled migration policy. Thus, this study focuses on several contexts under which immigrants and their children are received. Specifically, this article examines the role of the coethnic community and coethnic resources on unofficial and official language proficiency among the first, 1.5, and second generations in Canada. Using data from the 2002 Ethnic Diversity Study and 2001 Canadian microdata, this study finds that simultaneous proficiency in non-official and official languages is structured by the availability of coethnic resources and the average size and education of the coethnic community. Specifically, individuals with greater access to coethnic resources and many coethnic neighbors are more likely to maintain the mother tongue with the official language(s).

Politics against individualism?

Politics against individualism?

Positioning construction workers' vocational training of Guangdong in the global political-economic spectrum of skill formation

PurposeThis paper explores the vocational training of construction workers in Guangdong Province of China and identifies its position in the global political-economic spectrum of skill formation.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews construction vocational education and training (VET) of major political economies to develop a theoretical framework that guides an in-depth case study of Guangdong. Document analysis, field trip observations, meetings and semi-structured interviews were combined to explore the political-economic environment, political stakeholders and quality assurance mechanisms of industrial training in Guangdong's construction sector. The findings were compared with construction VET of other economies reported in the literature.FindingsConstruction training in Guangdong is deeply rooted in the local history and culture, under strong dominance of the state, while continually evolves to respond to the fluid market and therefore can be conceptualised as “market-in-state”. The political stakeholders are embedded within the state to ensure that skills policies are implemented in-line with industry policies. The differences between the training of Guangdong and its foreign counterparts are attributed to their divergent political-economic models.Research limitations/implicationsAs the case study was undertaken only with Guangdong, the generalisability of its findings can be improved through future research within a broader context of multiple provinces of China through both qualitative and quantitative research approaches.Practical implicationsPlausible foreign VET approaches are likely adaptable to the Chinese context only when conducive political-economic environment could be enabled. The findings are useful for developing countries to learn from the VET experience of industrialised economies. Construction workers' training in Guangdong can be improved by strengthening labour regulation at lower subcontracting levels and ensuring the presence of industrial associations and unions for collective training supervision.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the field of construction engineering and management with a theoretical framework that guides empirical studies on the influence of the political-economic environment upon the ways political stakeholders develop and participate in construction VET. The exploration based on this framework revealed the position of the vocational training of construction workers in Guangdong in the global political-economic spectrum of skill formation.

Becoming digitally literate: Reinstating an educational lens to digital skills policies for adults

The development of digital skills for all is a key focus of many educational policies across the globe. Despite the significant attention paid to the nature and suitability of such policies targeted at young people, there has been far less focus on digital skills policies targeted at adults. This article contributes to this literature. It outlines current digital skills policy in England. Having established this background, it analyses 30 interviews with digitally competent adults from lower socio‐economic backgrounds about their experiences of learning to use the Internet. In doing so, the article highlights that a narrow and instrumental digital skills agenda is emerging in the education of adults, driven by the needs of the commercial sector, that is in stark contrast to the experiences, motivations and hopes of adults who learn about, and use, digital technologies. Reframing digital skills as part of a broader adult education agenda may offer a way to facilitate the development of digital literacies that individuals seek.

A Qualitative Exploration of the Impact of a Distressed Family Member on Pediatric Resuscitation Teams.

Family presence during resuscitation (FPDR) is commonplace in many hospitals today. Research has supported the positive effects it can have on family members; however, there is little research about how it may affect the resuscitation team's performance, especially in a pediatric population. Our objective was to identify how resuscitation team members perceive and respond to the presence of a distressed family member during a resuscitation. This is a qualitative study in which we examine FPDR-related themes raised by pediatric resuscitation team members after a resuscitation simulation. As part of a team training educational intervention, pediatric resuscitation teams, composed of nurses, respiratory therapists, and resident physicians, participated in a video-recorded simulated event in which they attempted to resuscitate an infant. During the scenario, a confederate actor played the role of a distressed "parent." Video-recorded debriefs occurred immediately after each simulation. Video recordings were transcribed verbatim, and then transcripts were coded and analyzed via thematic analysis to saturation. Thirteen postevent video debriefs were analyzed. A total of 74 participants took part in these simulations and debriefs. Analysis revealed 15 major and 29 minor themes, which were mapped to 5 factors, namely resuscitation environment, affective responses, cognitive responses, behavioral responses, and team dynamics. FPDR has an impact on resuscitation team members' responses and influences their adaptive behavior. If not managed well, this may pose potential patient safety concerns. Policy and training of specific teamwork skills are ways in which we can better equip health care providers to effectively manage FPDR.

The responsibilisation of learners in the Australian Foundation Skills apparatus: making up motivated, choice-making customers

ABSTRACT This paper contributes to debates that shaped a special issue of Discourse in 2017 by taking the debate about responsibilisation in education into the realm of Foundations Skills in Australia. The difficulties that many Australian adults experience with low levels of language, literacy and numeracy skills (Foundation Skills), have been widely identified. It has been claimed that almost half of Australia’s working age population have Foundation Skills at levels that do not allow them to meet the complex demands of work and life. The paper describes the Foundation Skills policy apparatus that has developed in Australia, and discusses how the sector is characterised by aspects of marketisation and commodification. We argue that the Foundation Skills learner is imagined as an individual, choice making, responsible consumer and increasingly made responsible for carrying the burden of the development of their ‘human capital’ so that they can secure a less parlous participation in precarious labour markets.

Towards greater inclusion in skills competitions

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a short overview of WorldSkills UK's deep mission to improve the diversity and inclusivity of its skills competitions, in order to give more young people from all backgrounds the opportunity to achieve their potential.Design/methodology/approachOpinion piece outlining the organisation's stated aims and objectives with respect to diversity and inclusion, incorporating fresh insights from emerging research.FindingsMakes the case for a transformative approach to diversity and inclusion in a critical part of the UK's FE system, providing unique insights into one organisation's trailblazing approach.Originality/valueA case study of a hitherto under-reported, yet important, aspect of vocational skills policy.

The waxing and waning of functional skills mathematics

ABSTRACT There have been repeated attempts to establish mathematics qualifications for lower attaining students aged 16 years and over on vocational pathways in England. In 2004, the Tomlinson Report proposed Functional Mathematics and this paper examines the trajectory of this qualification (later Functional Skills mathematics) through analysis of policy literatures over the last twenty years and empirical data from two studies in Further Education colleges. For a time, Functional Skills mathematics flourished and was becoming valued by many stakeholders but the privileging of GCSE Mathematics in recent policy has affected its status and uptake. It is important to understand this waxing and waning trajectory if future skills policy is to have better chances of long-term success. Key challenges include the unsuccessful integration of Functional Skills with the established mathematics curriculum, the difficulty of achieving qualification recognition across the vocational-academic divide and the negative unintended consequences of linked policy decisions. Raising the adult skills base is currently a policy priority in England and understanding these challenges to a skills-based qualification that is more aligned to the needs of vocational education than to schools is important.

Real–Sim–Real Transfer for Real-World Robot Control Policy Learning with Deep Reinforcement Learning

Compared to traditional data-driven learning methods, recently developed deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approaches can be employed to train robot agents to obtain control policies with appealing performance. However, learning control policies for real-world robots through DRL is costly and cumbersome. A promising alternative is to train policies in simulated environments and transfer the learned policies to real-world scenarios. Unfortunately, due to the reality gap between simulated and real-world environments, the policies learned in simulated environments often cannot be generalized well to the real world. Bridging the reality gap is still a challenging problem. In this paper, we propose a novel real–sim–real (RSR) transfer method that includes a real-to-sim training phase and a sim-to-real inference phase. In the real-to-sim training phase, a task-relevant simulated environment is constructed based on semantic information of the real-world scenario and coordinate transformation, and then a policy is trained with the DRL method in the built simulated environment. In the sim-to-real inference phase, the learned policy is directly applied to control the robot in real-world scenarios without any real-world data. Experimental results in two different robot control tasks show that the proposed RSR method can train skill policies with high generalization performance and significantly low training costs.

Prevalence and Relationships among Physical Activity Policy, Environment, and Practices in Licensed Childcare Centers from a Manager and Staff Perspective.

Physical activity (PA) is critical to early childhood health and development, and childcare is a key setting for establishing physically active play. In British Columbia (BC), a provincial standard for active play in childcare was enacted, identified here as the Active Play (AP) standard. Pragmatic constraints limit real-world data collection for evaluating policy impact. We explored whether information about policies, practices, and the environment varied when it was collected from managers or staff. Surveys were distributed to BC childcare centers before AP standard enactment to ascertain current PA and fundamental movement skill policies and practices. The full sample (n = 1037 from 625 facilities) and a subsample of paired managers and staff (n = 261 centers) were used to explore agreement across managers and staff in reported prevalence and relationships among indicators. The policy prevalence and relationships for active play and outdoor play variables were relatively similar for manager and staff data, although the matched data had modest agreement and less than optimal intraclass correlations. The prevalence of manager-reported PA policies ranged from 47% for screen-time limits to 77% for fundamental movement skill activities. The manager and staff data highlighted indoor and outdoor space as a primary factor in AP standard adherence. With reliance on sampling staff unfeasible, it appears that the manager data may adequately describe the policies and practices of childcare providers with some notable issues.

A Reinforcement Learning-Based Framework for Robot Manipulation Skill Acquisition

This paper studies robot manipulation skill acquisition based on a proposed reinforcement learning framework. Robot can learn policy autonomously by interacting with environment with a better learning efficiency. Aiming at the manipulator operation task, a reward function design method based on objects configuration matching (OCM) is proposed. It is simple and suitable for most Pick and Place skills learning. Integrating robot and object state, high-level action set and the designed reward function, the Markov model of robot manipulator is built. An improved Proximal Policy Optimize algorithm with manipulation set as the output of Actor (MAPPO) is proposed as the main structure to construct the robot reinforcement learning framework. The framework combines with the Markov model to learn and optimize the skill policy. A same simulation environment as the real robot is set up, and three robot manipulation tasks are designed to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the reinforcement learning framework for skill acquisition.

“Measuring the factors affecting Job Characteristics with Personal outcomes” (A Case Study of Khairpur Sugar Mill)

The fundamental purpose behind this research was to find out the association amongst job characteristics and personal outcomes of the representatives of Khairpur sugar factory. The quantitative and qualitative methods have been used to analyze the data and interpret the results. In this research personal outcome, such as satisfaction, internal work motivation and growth were the dependent factors and independent variables were job characteristics like skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, feedback, policy practices and benefits. The present studies led to the laborers of Khairpur sugar mill and total workers were 394 and only 78 workers were randomly selected for this study. Essential information gathered through sample received from the employment indicative overview survey (Hackman & Oldham, 1975) . The secondary sources incorporate journals, annual reports and unpublished research works. Statistical software for social science (SPSS version 21) and descriptive survey was used to analyze data and multiple regressions were applied to establish the correlation between independent and dependent variables. After analyzing the results, it is concluded that job characteristics such as skill variety shows the significant relationship with personal outcomes which is at the level of .000 as well as task identity, task significance and benefits have a positive relationship with personal outcomes such as (internal work motivation, satisfaction and growth) but autonomy, feedback and policy & practices shows less significant impact on personal outcomes.

The Importance Of Education To Understand Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA)

Education is a very essential factor in human life, because if someone get the certain knowledge then they will be able to make a better decision, self empowerment and aware of rules and regulations in the world. Two of the important regulations related to international trade are coming from The World Trade Organization (WTO) and Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). Indonesia has ratified the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) on 5
 December 2017. The new agreement related to WTO and TFA needed to be learnt and teach with a good Education Model. The most important role of skill policies and education in globalization era is its role in facilitating the international flow of ideas. This research can fill the gap to make an Educational Model of TFA based on Non-Juridical and Juridical Education. Both factors become very important things because the stakeholders can use this model to more quickly and easily understand the substance of TFA, so that Indonesia can fully implement the TFA commitments in the digital database WTO in the year 2022.

Prevalence of Premarital Sexual Practice and Its Associated Factors Among Senior Students in Alage Technical Vocational Education Training College, Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resource, Ethiopia

The study was conducted to explore the prevalence of premarital sexual practice and its associated factors among senior students in Alage ATVET College, Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resource, Ethiopia. A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 363 systematically selected students by using self-administered questionnaire and complimented by a qualitative data. The data was entered, cleaned and analyzed by using SPSS version 20. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were used for quantitative data analysis while thematic presentation was used for qualitative data. Odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was used to measure the strength and significance of the association. In this study, more than half 188(53%) of the participants had premarital sexual experience, of which 131(69.7%) were males and 57(30.3%) were females. The mean age at first sexual intercourse was 18.12 for males and 17.07 for females. The main reasons reported for initiation of premarital sexual intercourse were personal interest to try sex(36.17%), peer pressure (26.6%) and to get money or gifts 22 (11.7%). While male sex[AOR=3.33, 95% CI(1.2-9.24)], having pocket money[AOR=9.63, 95% CI(3.61-25.79)], watching pornography[AOR=1.34,95% CI(0.45-3.98)], having sexual experienced friends [AOR=2.97, 95% CI(1.06-8.32)], alcohol drinking [AOR=1.54; 95% CI(0.59-4.01)] and dating experience [AOR=42.43, 95% CI(14.93-120.62)] were found to be statically significant predictors of premarital sexual practice. In conclusion, this particular study indicated that a substantial proportion of youths were practicing premarital sexual practices that predispose them to different reproductive health problems. Therefore, there is a need for institutions of higher education to develop skill building programs and policies that will assure a safe institutional environment, promote access to health care and sex education, encourage peer counseling and parental communication. Keywords: prevalence, premarital sex, risky sexual practice, factors of premarital sex, Alage Technical Vocational Education Training College. DOI : 10.7176/RHSS/9-19-03 Publication date :October 31 st 2019

Proposições da OCDE para América Latina: o Pisa como instrumento de padronização da educação

This article aims to analyze the educational propositions of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for the Latin American region. For this, it analyzes documents that present proposals to the countries of the region. It is based on the understanding that, based on the results of the International Program for Student Assessment (Pisa), the International Organization urges countries to adopt a concept that has as its epicenter the policy of skills and abilities to meet the demands of the market of work in the globalized world. It points out contradictions in the propositions that, in appearance, defend public education, but, in essence, attempt to standardize systems. It concludes that the comparative bias towards standardization is contrary to public and social purposes of education.

Economics of Artificial Intelligence: Implications for the Future of Work

Abstract The current wave of technological change based on advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) has created widespread fear of job loss and further rises in inequality. This paper discusses the rationale for these fears, highlighting the specific nature of AI and comparing previous waves of automation and robotization with the current advancements made possible by a widespread adoption of AI. It argues that large opportunities in terms of increases in productivity can ensue, including for developing countries, given the vastly reduced costs of capital that some applications have demonstrated and the potential for productivity increases, especially among the low skilled. At the same time, risks in the form of further increases in inequality need to be addressed if the benefits from AI-based technological progress are to be broadly shared. For this, skills policies are necessary but not sufficient. In addition, new forms of regulating the digital economy are called for that prevent further rises in market concentration, ensure proper data protection and privacy, and help share the benefits of productivity growth through the combination of profit sharing, (digital) capital taxation, and a reduction in working time. The paper calls for a moderately optimistic outlook on the opportunities and risks from AI, provided that policymakers and social partners take the particular characteristics of these new technologies into account.