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This chapter discusses the changing and emerging characteristics of work, work practice and work requirements, and their consequences for vocational education. Changing patterns in work and working life are proposed as comprising: (1) the kind of work available; (ii) how individuals participate in work; (iii) what constitutes competence within that work; and (iv) those participating in work. The consequences for vocational education are systemic in terms of the kinds of occupations that need to be developed, variations in and complexity of work requirements, shifts in employer/employee relations, and the demographic shifts in those who will need to be supported by vocational education. The chapter examines these patterns of change to work and working life, and discusses policy and curriculum practice associated with each. Overall, it argues that the changes to work make it more demanding, and the frequency of change in work and how work is carried out demands careful, comprehensive and targeted preparation and on-going development. Moreover, with broader participation in the work force and longer working lives, the arrangement for this preparation and on-going development will need to be targeted, differentiated and sustained.

Published introduction.

The book from which this chapter is taken is indexed at TD/TNC 100.51. Individual chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 100.52 to TD/TNC 100.244. Show less

A complex set of relational factors shape adult students' transition to higher education. Through accounts provided by adult vocational education students, a set of related interdependencies between what the university and other forms of support (e.g. family, friends) afforded these students and their agency, capacities and engagement were identified as shaping their transition to higher education. Bases for these students' engagement in their studies were found in their intentions and previous experiences that together shaped how they construed what is afforded by the university and other sources of support. Consequently, beyond what universities provide to support these transitions, considerations for promoting successful student transition into higher education necessarily require accounting for students' experiences, access to different kinds of support outside the university and their previous experiences. Therefore, rather than proposing general prescriptions about what universities need to do to promote successful transitions, [these] complex factors likely [play] out in quite person-particular ways. All of this reinforces the view that successful transitions to higher education are quite individual processes, and not just wholly dependent upon what educational institutions provide, and those affordances need to be [informed] by and aligned with different kinds of student needs.

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In the overview chapter of this section, the author discusses the teaching profession as it relates to the provision of technical and vocational education and training (TVET). TVET teaching covers a broad spectrum. In some countries, TVET is firmly based in the development of skills for specific occupations. This requires teachers with specialist trade skills. In other countries, TVET may be intermingled with other types of general education. In many Asian countries, vocational education is part of the secondary school curriculum and is taught by teachers with little or no experience outside the school system. The roles undertaken by TVET professionals are varied and so will be their initial teacher education and their continuing professional development. The author also mentions the low standing in which TVET teachers are often held, partly due to the low standing in which TVET itself is held. The chapter concludes with an overview of the other chapters in this section.

The book from which this chapter is taken is indexed at TD/TNC 100.51. Individual chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 100.52 to TD/TNC 100.244. Show less

This chapter proposes workplace learning in terms of participatory practices. Learning through work is interdependent between the individuals' participation and workplace affordances. Rather than being informal, workplace activities, opportunities and support for learning are directed towards its continuity and in ways often inherently pedagogical. Individuals, likewise, engage and learn in workplaces as directed by their personal goals and directions. Core tensions in this relationship are between these two sets of continuities. A critique of the current discourse on workplace learning is used as a basis to propose an alternative view of workplace learning environments as participatory practices.

Published summary reprinted by permission of the copyright owner.

The volume from which this chapter is taken is indexed at TD/TNC 82.297. Selected chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 82.298 to TD/TNC 82.311. Show less

This paper discusses theorising and empirical work which proposes that the dispositions underpinning cognitive activity need to become more central to deliberations about how individuals think about and engage in skilful vocational practice. Such activity has consequences for how and what is learnt, as well as individuals’ ongoing development. Having reviewed ideas about the dispositional underpinnings of skilful knowledge, the paper reports a study examining how individuals construct knowledge associated with their vocational practice. This study provides tentative findings about the source of dispositions and their role in vocational activity. The paper concludes by advancing some implications for instruction. Show less

This paper reports a pilot study which aims to understand further how experts think, act and learn. The study, focusing on three vocational experts (a painter, a midwife and a mechanic), comprises an investigation of the characterisation of experts, their ways of knowing and the knowledge deployed when engaged in work. The study suggests that current accounts of expertise are narrowly defined and that situational factors and dispositional attributes need to be included, further suggesting that goals for and curriculum practice within vocational education need to account for situational factors and the range of experiences of individuals in developing expertise. Show less

This chapter critically appraises the potential of action learning as a professional development strategy for teachers. Using the case of a professional development programme that prepared vocational teachers to become industry consultants, the chapter examines the potential and the impediments of this approach to managing change in technical and vocational education. The chapter commences with a brief commentary on individual change or learning from cognitive and social constructivist and change-theory perspectives. Next the case study is described and findings from an evaluation of the programme are discussed. Finally, some conclusions are drawn about how the action learning-based approaches to educational change might be best enacted and evaluated.

Published introduction.

The book from which this chapter is taken is indexed at TD/TNC 100.51. Individual chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 100.52 to TD/TNC 100.244. Show less

There are growing expectations that tertiary education graduates will be ready for working life, that is, possessing the capacities to participate effectively in an occupational practice in a specific work situation. Yet, graduates are often unprepared to fulfil this expectation. In response, tertiary education increasingly includes workplace experiences (i.e., practicums, internships, and work placements). It is necessary to understand these experiences' efficacy and their optimisation to promote work-life readiness. Drawing on students' experiences of internships, this paper discusses what constitutes the value of internships in post-secondary diploma courses in Singapore.

A quantitative analysis of interview data identified the contributions afforded through these experiences in workplaces - students' intentional engagement, and their readiness for working life. Central here is how these contributions promote the development of the adaptability required for effective participation in contemporary working life. The analysis identifies challenges including students' adapting to new work environments, navigating workplace practices, and developing occupational capacities. Workplace supervisors' and host educational institutions' support suggests interns' adaptability can be enhanced by promoting the relations between the support they received, on the one hand, and their engagement with challenges during internships, on the other. These findings offer an understanding about the experiences and outcomes of interns' learning through workplaces and offer implications for supporting and augmenting transitions into working life.

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The origins and focuses of adult education across Western countries are often about meeting adults' needs, and for purposes they have nominated, not those compelled by others. Unlike other sectors (e.g. schools, vocational colleges and universities) that were mainly initiated and sustained by church or state, adult education has long been grounded in communities and provided through hybrid institutions. Across Western countries, the term 'movement', is often associated with adult education's origins, and it is sometimes regarded as a 'fourth sector' of education, apart from schools, vocational education and training and university studies. In recent times, the concept has expanded and diversified, however, making it more amorphous and less distinctive as an educational 'sector'. Nevertheless, one of the continuing features of 'adult education' has been its concern for adults' learning needs and preferences.

This paper proposes that the formation and continuity of adult education have been based particularly on three key premises: (i) meeting adults' specific but heterogeneous learning needs; (ii) educational purposes and purposes being understood in the local context; and (iii) the enactment of adult education being shaped by local considerations. Furthermore, the values underpinning 'traditional' adult education have not only been sustained in what is now more commonly known as Adult and Community Education (ACE) but have expanded into other educational contexts. Informed by considerations of selected research projects the authors have been involved with in recent years, this paper identifies how the three premises have emerged as features of other educational provisions for adults.

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This paper examines how identity and learning are constituted and transformed at work. Its central concern is how individuals engage agentically in and learn through workplace practices, and in ways that transform work. Drawing upon recent research into work and participation in workplaces, the negotiated and contested relationship between workplace practices and individuals’ identity and intentionality, and learning is illuminated and discussed. For instance, aged care workers and coal miners acquire work injuries that are almost emblematic of their work identity. Only particularly dramatic events (i.e. serious illness or workplace accidents) wholly transform their identity and views about work practice - their subjectivities. However, it is through the agentic actions of these individuals that workplace practices can be transformed. Yet individuals’ agentic action is not necessarily directed to the abstracted and de-contextualised economic and civic goals privileged in lifelong learning policies. Instead, there is relational interdependency between the individual and work that can act to sustain or transform both self and their work. Individuals’ agentic action is exercised within these relations in ways directed by their subjectivities. So these relations and that agentic action have policy and practice implications for the conduct of work and learning through and for work.

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