VET Policy Research Articles

The results of asking a deceptively simple question: what is for sale in Australian VET markets?

ABSTRACT Assuming Australian training markets represent successful policy implementation facilitates an exploration of the implications for their future evolution by querying what is sold in these markets. A Foucauldian discourse analysis of relevant documentation suggests that training markets overwhelmingly provide products and/or services. Further examination finds that these two are conceptually confused as is the contention of a single national vocational education and training market. Ontological rhetorics have been used to indiscriminately conflate products and services in pursuit of preferred political values. The performative work being done by uncritically mingling the discourses of two distinctively different markets for bureaucratic and political purposes, when combined with executive federalism, contributes to VET’s exasperating complexity. Brief transactions that provide multiple useful, yet low-value, compliance-driven products differ substantially from markets that deliver educational services by developing longer term relationships that increase the national stock of higher level occupational skills. Making explicit the different perspectives that have fashioned the product and services artefacts invites more tailored market operational and regulatory approaches as well as creating the possibility of a more inclusive approach to VET policy making and delivery of vocational knowledges.

Why Is It So Difficult to Contribute to Social Inclusion Through Vocational Education and Training?

This paper compares “recognition of prior learning” (RPL) schemes in four countries, to find out the impact of VET policy reforms on social inclusion. The study finds that RPL schemes have only made limited contributions to social inclusion in these countries, for the following reasons: firstly, there are challenges in upper secondary VET, which, in all four countries, requires a substantial level of general education and transversal competencies, on which the key educational policy actors are not willing to compromise. Secondly, some countries used RPL to provide access to non-formal qualifications. Still, such schemes were only successful when those non-formal qualifications were already well-established in society and the labour market (prior to having been made accessible through RPL). The article argues that, for RPL to contribute more to social inclusion, schemes need to be less complicated and should also include complementary education and training provisions for all those who lack work experience in sectors where access to employment depends on certain qualifications.

Applying discourse analysis to Australian national VET policy: more than one, less than many

ABSTRACT VET researchers and policy-makers have historically displayed a keen interest in the future. Two assumptions link VET to the future. The first is that there is a singular object called VET and, secondly, that it can influence a forthcoming state of reality. This relationship is investigated through a rarely utilised post-structuralist discourse analysis of Australia’s development of national vocational education and training policies. The performative language of policy-makers treats VET as a singular object and portrays the future as rational and predictable. By demonstrating that VET and potential realities exist in multiple forms, it might be possible to better utilise VET’s capacities to produce more desirable national futures. The findings suggest that despite continual reform of the sector, just three strategic positions and their supportive discourses have guided federated policy making. The first generally neglected technical and adult education, followed by the creation of a federally funded novel type of educational institution which eventually led to the establishment of VET quasi-markets. Each underpinning discourse exploited the productive power of language to give effect to governments’ desire to improve manifold futures by deploying alternative versions of VET.

Reconstructing policy transfer in adult and vocational education and training

The article contributes to the understanding of educational policy transfer with a particular focus on VET and labour-market related training. A review of VET policy transfer literature is followed by a description of travelling VET reforms in adult and vocational education and training around the globe. Historical foundations of VET policy transfer are described with an emphasis on lending and borrowing from the global North to the global South. Finally, contemporary forces that influence global policy transfer, derived from personal observation, are described. We aim to contribute to a better understanding of policy cycles by depicting the influence of different dynamics on decision-making for policy transfer in VET. We argue that there can be various reasons to policy transfer, not just attractiveness of a particular educational system or approach, but also global industry demands for workforce development or the influence of big data and social media.

Exploring vet policy making: the policy borrowing and learning nexus in relation to plurinational states—the Basque case

ABSTRACTThe contrasting conceptions of policy borrowing and policy learning processes in relation to education and skills have been widely debated. Nevertheless, most analyses have focused on nation states and, subsequently, cases of sub-sections of a state have been insufficiently considered. This article examines the process of modernisation of the Vocational Education and Training (VET) system in the Basque region of Spain since the 1980s. This article concludes that, although a National Qualifications Frameworks-like conception was introduced in the region, the prevailing neoliberal thinking of policy borrowing of reforms was not applied. Rather, the relatively high level of autonomy from the state provided the opportunity for policy innovation in VET. It will be argued that the particular policy borrowing/learning balance helped develop a collective capacity for policy learning and change that still remains and that explains the region’s advancement in raising the overall quality and status of VET. The following process from which this differentiated VET model emerged within the state merits an interest in plurinational systems of governance seeking to better adapt general policies to particular circumstances and socio-political environments.

Caught up in the past? Social inclusion, skills, and vocational education and training policy in England

Since the mid-1990s, governments of different political persuasion have tried to reform VET policy to address problems in skills formation and social inclusion. Despite considerable policy activism, success has been somewhat limited, and England failed to overcome the problems associated with its liberal training regime. This article assesses the failure in vocational skills formation as a political economy and a public policy problem. It challenges the determinism in the political economy literature, points to poor public policy-making, and outlines possible policy levers.

Yrkesutbildningsutmaningar i nya tider – vilken väg ska vi ta?

Vocational education and training is amongst the educational areas drawing the biggest attention by mass media and a key topic of political debate in Sweden. This is by no means surprising if we take into account that nearly half of Swedish youngster follows any of the vocational training lines offered at upper secondary education. But, is this a unique ´Swedish discussion`? Are there other international frame factors influencing and some how conditioning the discussion about the strategic importance of VET? If, so which are these frame factors? This paper attempts to give initial answer to these questions by contextualizing VET discussion in Sweden from an international perspective that includes social transformations from modernity to the so called postmodernity and the impact on work market demands. The paper present these new demands, as well as qualifications required. The chapter uses a wide range of references that includes Education For All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report of 2012 focused on the third goal of Education for All, that is to ensure that all young people have the opportunity to acquire skills. The urgency of reaching this goal has sharpened acutely since 2000 as a consequence of a global economic downturn impacting on unemployment. The paper intends to contribute to better understanding of the challenges as well to create awareness and encourage discussion in different contexts and levels, that is vocational school, VET teacher training, policy making and VET planning.

Europeanization in VET Policy as a Process of Reshaping the Educational Space

The EU represents a transforming educational space, where national and supranational boundaries in educational governance are becoming blurred. The EU has become an important actor in educational governance and an important arena for policy learning and transfer. This paper explores how the process of reshaping the educational space manifests itself in the process of the Europeanization of VET policy in the case of Estonia. In Estonia, this process was followed by the growth of executive VET institutions and has developed from rather uncritical initial policy transfer to more active learning from the EU, although conformism can still be seen in cases of the introduction of standardizing policy tools.

Gender policies meet VET practices – the case of health and social care in Norway

Could the labour market gender balance be improved by introducing new types of apprenticeship-trained workers? This article investigates what happened in the wake of the Norwegian VET programme for health and social care, a new approach introduced via the 1994 educational reform. By upgrading this traditionally female-dominated area of education, it was hoped that working conditions for women would improve and that, over time, the gender balance among workers would improve. Hence, Norwegian VET policy became a means to meet and the ambitions set by national policies for gender equality. Twenty years on, health and social care remains the most popular VET programme for female applicants. However, only a minority of those attending the school-based part of the education applies for apprenticeships as health care workers; most opt to switch to general education in order to access higher education. Those who stay on typically hold part-time jobs. This area of the labour market remains segregated in terms of gender. Based on extensive quantitative and qualitative data, the article discusses what might explain this development.

The feminisation of migration and the migrants VET policy neglects: the case of skilled women secondary migrants in Australia

There is increasingly scholarship on gender and migration, yet the international migration of highly skilled women is still somewhat under-researched. This article focuses on this neglected area in the context of Australia’s discretionary inward migration policies to solve skills shortages. The article draws on empirical research using a qualitative case-study approach with in-depth narrative interviews to explore understandings of the experience of highly skilled female secondary migrants. The findings resonate with a growing body of work in North America, Europe and the UK. Applying a gendered and intersectional analysis to the case of Australia with its complex mix of skilled migrants from predominantly English speaking countries, as well as many countries in the Asia-Pacific region and Africa, reveals a more nuanced understanding of the temporality and gendered and racialised ways in which the processes of career disruption, deskilling, intensification of domestic responsibilities and re-feminisation of health and human service work play out through tensions between migration and education policies.

Workplace literacy and numeracy learning: An opportunity for trade union renewal in Australia?

This paper first examines the current literacy and numeracy ‘crisis’ in Australian workplaces where loss of productivity, lack of take-up in training, and skills shortages are being blamed on workers’ lack of literacy and numeracy skills. Literacy and numeracy in workplaces are more complex and require alternative understandings of literacy and numeracy as well as the perspectives of workers themselves. Secondly, this paper discusses the opportunity for unions to demonstrate their stake in the education and training of workers. We ask what possibilities are there for this to happen; and what models exist from which Australian trade unions can draw? In the UK the Trade Union Congress (TUC) successfully negotiated with the Labour Government, to establish a Union Learning Fund (ULF) and give recognition to union learning representatives (ULRs), to facilitate learning for workers. The paper considers what new directions Australian unions might explore in the emerging VET policy environment.

Knowing and doing vocational education and training reform: Evidence, learning and the policy process

Much of VET policy internationally draws on a toolkit that has been seriously questioned for its logic, international relevance and effectiveness by considerable amounts of academic research. Reflecting primarily on our experiences of leading a complex, multi-country policy study, we develop an account that seeks to explore ways in which the apparent incommensurability between academic and policy knowledge can be addressed. This leads on to a broader discussion of key issues of contestation in the debates about knowledge for policy as they relate to international education and development more generally. We consider three key turns in the discourse of international education policy and research: to “governing by numbers”, “what works” and policy learning, and ask what happens when these discursive trends travel to Southern and VET contexts. We suggest that this analysis implies that policymakers need both to be more modest and reflexive in their expectations of what knowledge can be mobilised for policy purposes and more serious in their commitment to supporting the generation of the types of knowledge that they claim to value. For international and comparative educators, we stress the importance of being clearer in seeking to shape research agendas; more rigorous in our approaches to research; and better in our external communication of our findings. Given the particular focus of this special issue on VET, we end by reiterating the particular challenge of reawakening research on VET-for-development from twenty years of slumber.

The dominance of apprenticeships in the German VET system and its implications for Europeanisation: a comparative view in the context of the EQF and the European LLL strategy

Germany’s apprenticeship system is and has always been considered to be the major sub-system of VET. In this context, the debate circling around the European and German Qualifications Framework (EQF and DQR) has become one of the central issues of VET research and policy. Tasks take on a concrete shape if (a) a serious approach is adopted towards the ideas underlying the European Qualifications Framework; and (b) if consideration is given to the ‘construction sites’ typical for the German VET system as a whole. This paper intends to sharpen VET policy awareness for the problem of dealing with those unresolved German VET issues within the context of the development of the DQR. A comparative view includes Austria and France as two countries with diverging learning cultures in VET from the German case, but obviously with more ‘European’ imprints within their respective VET systems. It can be shown that there is an interrelation between the attention apprenticeships as such receive against the background of European ideas such as ‘progression’, ‘permeability’ and ‘lifelong learning’ (LLL), including the implementation and use of ‘hybrid qualifications’.

The Politics and Economics of Comparison

The Politics and Economics of Comparison

User choice: Who’s the user? Who’s the chooser?

In North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), one of the German states, catchment areas for part-time vocational schools were abolished in 2008. With the intention to foster competition between schools in order to improve school quality, training companies now may freely choose the school of their choice. NRW is the first German state to take this step.In this paper, the principle of part-time vocational school choice, as it has recently been introduced in the NRW dual system, is compared to the principle of User Choice which has been applied to Australian New Apprenticeships from 1998. A three-step approach is used: First, the country specific VET policy backgrounds are depicted. Secondly, a synoptical comparison is drawn between the two principles of choice. Thirdly, existing research studies and findings on the Australian User Choice principle are presented.

Competence and competency in the EQF and in European VET systems

PurposeThough the notion of competence is common terminology in European VET policy at national and supra‐national level, understandings vary widely, both across countries and within. The particular conceptions of competence adopted in the EQF are themselves problematic and the framework allows for a variety of interpretations. The purpose of this paper is to clarify those applied in the EQF and the vocational education and qualifications systems of particular European countries and to contribute to the development of a transnational understanding of the term, one which is compatible with a rapidly changing labour market.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on evidence from work funded by the Nuffield Foundation entitled “Cross‐national Equivalence of Vocational Skills and Qualifications”, the paper explores the various conceptions of competence in the EQF and the national systems – in particular in the sectors of construction, ICT and health – of England, Germany, France and The Netherlands.FindingsInterpretations are located on a continuum from the comprehensive occupational model traditionally found in many European countries to the task‐focused model of the English NVQ system.Research limitations/implicationsMuch developmental work involving all stakeholders is necessary to arrive at a commonly agreed conception. A broad understanding of competence would relate to the potential of labour, itself determined through the occupational capacity embodied in the qualification.Practical implicationsZones of Mutual Trust need to be based on transnational categories of VET.Originality/valueThe value of the paper is in seeking to go beyond identifying differences by developing transnational categories and suggesting the nature of Zones of Mutual Trust for implementing the EQF.

Empirische Modellierung von Outputqualität betrieblicher Ausbildung

Output quality is accorded a high degree of significance within the current vocational education and training debate, although the construct itself remains largely unexplained. Based on a theoretical framework model and empirical data gathered from 318 representatives of VET policy vested interest groups, the present paper investigates the issue of which structural components are able to act as a vehicle for the precise definition of the output quality construct in terms of the in-company element of dual vocational education and training. The analyses conducted permitted four dimensions of output quality of in-company training to be identified at a cross-interest group level whilst also revealing that these dimensions are able to serve as a basis for the mapping of interest group specific and differing points of view with regard to the output quality construct.

The ‘Europeanisation’ of Vocational Education between Formal Policies and Deliberative Communication

This article deals with current European policies of vocational education and training, namely the Copenhagen Process, the Open Method of Coordination and the framework of the Lisbon Agenda. The analysis shows that there is no standard European path of achieving the Lisbon Goals, but rather that there are considerable variations depending on the prevailing VET systems and the respective VET policy. Two antagonistic scenarios on the possible effects of the current activities to implement a European Credit Transfer System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET), and the European Qualification Framework (EQF) are sketched. The best and worse case scenarios can be used to assess the current national activities to improve the quality of European VET systems and stimulate processes of discursive communication. The concluding section outlines some prospects of a European VET policy by utilising the presented findings and proposes some cornerstones of a European VET policy aiming at improving the teaching and learning processes. It is argued that the coherence of policies formulated through the so-called Lisbon Goal is not mirrored in concurrent European policies of VET and that more ‘deliberative’ processes of communication between different actors in VET spanning from the level of practice to the level of European policies are needed in order to truly ‘Europeanise’ VET in Europe.

Global Trends and Local Bends: Australian Vet Developments

This article explores how Australian governments have responded to global trends for reform of vocational education and training and the pressures for change. Australian VET policy is changing as a consequence of three interrelated factors: the need for VET to develop a sectoral identity in relation to the school and higher education sectors; the interplay of state and federal government relations; and, challenges to the current ‘industry-driven’ paradigm for the sector. There is pressure for VET to move beyond the current framework where VET is regarded principally as an instrument of micro-economic reform, to a broader and more inclusive role. The extent to which change is possible is limited however, by the mandated requirement that all VET qualifications remain within the framework of competency-based, industry-derived national training packages, which are similar to the National Vocational Qualifications in the UK.

The Dynamics of Implementing VET Reform and Lifelong Learning in Korea

This paper deals with the dynamics and paradoxical problem of VET policy in Korea. The discussion focuses on various policy changes that have affected schooling within the context of rapid industrialization. A particular focus of the analysis is on how educational policy has been linked to human resource development. In this regard, the paper will deal, especially, with the challenges of vocationalizing public education. The paper then examines recent policy reform efforts to restructure and diversify the VET system in an attempt to strengthen the link between schools and industrial needs. This is followed by a brief discussion of issues and prospects for skill formation in light of recent economic difficulties.