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The author argues that competency-based education and training is a tool of administrative reform with complex and contradictory effects. It is important in today’s policy climate not because it will improve learning or make individuals more competent to act, but because it provides an infrastructure for making teachers and administrators more accountable to a policy process. Through competency measures, education and training objectives are set and program delivery is organised according to principles of ‘efficiency’, ‘effectiveness’ and ‘responsiveness’ to the needs of industry. Broad public purposes and the social vision of education and training institutions are replaced with the logic of the market and the social relations of private wealth creation. Thus it brings a profound and fundamental shift in where, how and in whose interests institutions of education and training are controlled and managed. Show less

The transition from a post-industrial society to a knowledge-based economy is driving the integration of vocational education and training (VET) and human resource development (HRD), resulting in new systems for lifelong learning. In the perspective of lifelong learning, VET and HRD are no longer separate systems but part of a common developmental approach. This approach supports people in developing their employability and transferability and acknowledges that learning may take place anywhere and can take different forms. The challenge is to develop systems, models and learning arrangements in which VET and HRD are seen as parts of a common frame for lifelong learning. This volume presents perspectives on the policies, dynamics and effects of VET and HRD systems. The introductory chapter is: Emerging research approaches in the European VET and HRD arena / Loek F. M. Nieuwenhuis & Wim J. Nijhof. Section one, 'Analysing systems', contains the following chapters: The VET system between private demands and public interests: the Dutch challenge / Wim J. Nijhof; 101 initiatives but no strategy: policy on lifelong learning in England / Frank Coffield; The learning-oriented company and policy perspectives for VET and HRD / Lorenz Lassnigg; Continuity and change in pathways from education to work / David Raffe. Section two, 'Organising learning processes', contains the following chapters: Competencies in a post-industrial society: the imperative of bringing professions back in by integrating work and learning / Ben Hovels and Paul den Boer; Action-taking orientation of vocational education and training in Germany: a dynamic concept or rhetoric? / Gerald A. Straka; Work-related learning: elaborate, expand and externalise / P. Robert-Jan Simons & Manon C. P. Ruijters; Some hints on the success or failure of self-directed learning at the workplace / Frank Achtenhagen; Innovation and learning in small companies / Loek F. M. Nieuwenhuis. Section three, 'Assessment of output', contains the following chapters: Authentic assessment in vocational examinations: approaches within the German dual system / Klaus Breuer; Assessing institutional effects of colleges: the labour market success of their graduates / Roel J. Bosker, Rolf van der Velden and Peet van de Loo; Vocational education from an economic point of view / Hans Heijke.

Individual chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 71.215 to TD/TNC 71.226. Show less

This report looks at various aspects of the role that certification systems, understood in the broad sense, can play in the very different ways in which competences are recognised in enterprise or in the labour market. There is undoubted interest in these certification systems in the European Union. Faced with the ‘maze’ of education systems and the fact that the certificates that they award are felt to be unable to adapt to new qualification needs, the problem of identifying competences is raising increasingly urgent questions as regards certification systems. Being able to identify the learning acquired from occupational experience and providing the best possible match between individuals and production functions, while ensuring that they are still adaptable, and therefore more employable, seem to be the current expectations. The answers that the various systems are providing in this respect are examined below from both an institutional and a methodological point of view: from an institutional point of view, the report looks at the role that the state has played in the past in constructing systems responsible for education and training and certification, and goes on to examine contemporary developments that are tending to make certification more independent from education and training with the result that skill identification is tending to make these skills independent from formal learning routes; this therefore raises new methodological problems. First, defining competences through performance standards raises the question of how and to what extent actual work can be taken into account. Second, the construction of assessment standards, analysed here using the accreditation of prior learning as an example, must include thinking about the nature of the competences that are being validated and the legitimacy of validation bodies. Competences are certified and recognised in different ways, depending on national traditions, but the procedures used in all cases have to address the same kind of problem: they must be precise enough to enable efficient adjustment and socially legitimate enough to pave the way for their general validity.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner.

The volume from which this chapter is taken is indexed at TD/TNC 66.507. Volumes two and three are indexed at TD/TNC 66.508 and TD/TNC 66.509. Individual chapters from the three volume set are indexed from TD/TNC 66.510 to TD/TNC 66.540.

The first background report, published in two volumes, is indexed at TD/IRD 88.38 and TD/INT 58.286. Show less

In this article, the implementation of a learning community as a model into the Industrial Technology curriculum at the Iowa State University (ISU) in the United States of America (USA), is described with the authors providing recommendations for other industrial technology faculty wanting to establish learning communities within their own programs. It begins by defining 'learning communities' and giving examples of different types of learning communities. The ISU experience is then discussed covering: credit coursework and out-of-class activities; peer, faculty, and industrial mentors and graduate assistants; and assessment. The article concludes with the authors' reflections, conclusions and recommendations based on the Technology Learning Community (TLC) model they implemented and evaluated. Show less

Assessment of practical work has traditionally been very subjective, often inaccurate and lacking validity. This paper addresses practical assessment and introduces an assessment tool for these issues, namely Computer Assisted Assessment System (CAAS). Practical assessment (the assessment of the practical component of competency) may be by observation, by demonstration, or project-based, or by simulation. These tried and proven methods by themselves will not guarantee validity or results that are comparable. To evaluate assessment methods and assessment tools, we have to examine the needs of a statewide or national assessment system and the needs of those involved in assessment. Show less

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an initiative of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It was implemented for the OECD by an international consortium led by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). ACER also conducted the PISA survey within Australia. PISA is a new survey of the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds mainly in industrialised countries. The survey seeks to determine: how well students are prepared for future challenges; which skills they have to help them to adapt to change in their lives, e.g. the ability to analyse, reason and communicate their arguments and ideas to others; whether some ways of organising schools and learning within them are more effective than others; if the quality of school resources has an influence on students' learning; and the extent to which student performance is dependent on their home backgrounds and ways to improve learning opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. PISA assesses the learning domains of reading, mathematical and scientific literacy along with some other areas such as students' familiarity with computers, their learning strategies, and their attitudes towards their schools. The first of a planned three-yearly cycle of assessments was undertaken in 32 countries (28 OECD member countries and four non-member countries that chose to participate) during the year 2000 in randomly selected samples of schools and students. This pamphlet summarises the Australian national report, providing results of student performance and insights into factors that influence the development of their reading, mathematical and scientific skills at home and at school, and discussing the implications of the results for policy development.

The full Australian report is indexed at TD/TNC 69.532 and the international report is indexed at TD/TNC 67.328. Show less

The dictates of the quality movement form the rubric for the conduct of many processes within vocational education and training (VET): teaching, assessment, reporting, recording, research, customer service, auditing, financial management, business and industry partnerships, and so on. Traditional concepts of industrial quality were founded in post-war manufacturing contexts, and premised on products and processes being observable and measurable. The assessment, control and assurance of quality were regarded as (and are still widely believed to be) empirically verifiable. Total Quality Management (TQM) is an outgrowth of such positivist philosophies, as is the entire ISO 9000 system of certification. Although the verification of standards and procedures that these systems promise served certain needs of the old economy, how have they managed to retain their place in the new economy? This paper will argue that the concept of `quality' as a central plank in the Protestant project of unending self-improvement has been transformed and re-vitalised in the new economy which is service-oriented, globally-focused and infinitely flexible, in which students/workers must continually re-invent themselves in response to shifting workplace demands and/or personal imperatives. It is, therefore, timely to problematise the ideology of quality and to examine its rhetoric. This paper will focus on that rhetoric as it is employed in several VET-related contexts.

Excerpts from printed abstract used with the permission of the copyright holder.

Volume one of these proceedings is indexed at TD/TNC 68.31, volume two is indexed at TD/TNC 68.32 and individual papers may be found from TD/TNC 68.17 to TD/TNC 68.29 and from TD/TNC 68.33 to TD/TNC 68.100 Show less

This paper arose from interviews with assessors working with the Automobile Training Package and deals with uncertainty and pragmatism in assessment. It portrays the assessment decision making process as a discourse in which the assessor is less likely to rely on documented performance criteria than on conversation with peers, employers and even the learner being assessed. Finally the paper compares the definitions of quality incorporated into the Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF) with the perceptions of quality that emerge from the described assessment experiences of the automotive teachers and assessors.

The volume of collected papers is indexed at TD/TNC 66.434, individual papers are indexed from TD/TNC 66.435 to TD/TNC 66.461 and a collection of Powerpoint presentations from the conference may be found at TD/TNC 66.462. Show less

The authors suggest that concern about educational quality is not new and the reforms that have dominated the education scene in recent years propose the use of assessment to improve educational quality. Educational policy makers, planners and managers are thus faced with a decision: should resources be allocated to assessment activities or should they invest in other aspects of education such as school buildings or teacher training. Conceptual analysis of relevant issues and the availability of information on practice in other education systems can be helpful in this regard. This booklet draws on experience from around the world to provide educational planners with this information. It describes assessment options and the research surrounding them, focusing on national and international assessments of student achievement and offering definitions of key concepts in current reform proposals. The booklet looks at national and international systems of assessment and the variety of ways in which student achievement may be described. Finally, the booklet offers a review of decisions involved in the design of an assessment and the way information derived from an assessment may be used. Show less

The enactment of the Framework Act on Qualifications in 1997, increased the diversity of the qualification system in Korea by allowing more private sector participation in the administration of qualifications. This stimulated competition between and among national and private qualifications and led to the overall improvement of the system. This booklet describes the current qualifications system in Korea and outlines how national and private qualifications operate in practice. It concludes with recommendations for the further improvement of the system. The contents are: Institutional framework; National qualifications; Private qualifications; Future prospects. Show less