Search Results for
"learning"

The United Kingdom has devised a set of National learning Targets to be achieved by 2002. Revised from an earlier set of National Targets for Education and Training (NTETs), the latest ones embrace 11-21-year-olds, adults and employers and promote a credentialist approach to both economic and social development. Their primary purpose, according to the National Advisory Council for Education and Training Targets (NACETT) is to make the country more competitive internationally and to promote social cohesion. This paper draws on a study of how one occupational sector, the steel industry, measures up to the national targets for the adult workforce. The findings of the study question the appropriateness of using qualifications-based targets as a proxy for adult capability in the workplace and industrial viability. The paper argues that this credentialist approach detracts from the real challenges which the UK faces in becoming a learning society. © 1999 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This paper investigates the nature of teaming outcomes of thirty six electronics students who were receiving training under the recent reform processes advocated by the Australian government. The reform processes place great emphasis on macro issues thereby unintentionally relegating the micro issues, such as learning in the classroom, to a lower priority. Such misdirected emphasis may hinder the development of an intelligent workforce. A multi method approach which involved a problem task, interviews and concept maps was used to establish the learning outcomes. The learning outcomes were analysed to identify the nature of students' knowledge structures and the sophistication in their understanding of the topic "Frequency Division Multiplexing". Students' knowledge structures and levels of understanding were compared with those generated by 3 experts. The findings indicated a low level of understanding and a very lean knowledge structure with limited relational links to other elements in the given information. Furthermore, a comparison of students' knowledge structures and levels of understanding was made between students with more than 2 years work experience and those coming to their course straight from secondary schools. The findings of this analysis did not support the argument that work experience enriches students' knowledge and understanding, as students with no work experience performed better then the work experience students. Thus, there needs to be more empirical research on the nature of real work experience routines and how it affects learning rather than theorising on ideal work situations.

Lifelong learning within work environments is a complex and yet increasingly important issue in today's rapidly changing society. This article highlights the shift in meaning in the notion(s) of lifelong education in the early 1970s and the notion(s) of lifelong learning in the late 1990s. This shift can be largely accounted for by the changed milieu in which these terms have emerged and from which they derive their meaning. Within the current economic-technological climate, the learning that occurs in workplaces is an important phenomenon to research if we are to understand the possibilities in lifelong learning. The article analyses several key elements of current Australian policy in terms of their potential contribution to the fostering of a training (or learning) culture, seen officially as a support for lifelong learning. The article also draws on a number of research studies into the nature of workplace learning and the role of the workplace ‘trainer’ as key ingredients in this process. © 1999 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Puts forward the author's view of key issues affecting hospitality education into the new millennium. Issues identified as particularly impacting on UK centres are graduate standards, quality and quality assessment, research assessment, key skills and learning and teaching including the impact of information technology. Amongst these issues, information technology is identified as having the greatest potential impact to bring about radical change. It is suggested that there is now the capability to develop global hospitality education brands. This capability is not confined to existing education suppliers. Corporations, business schools and commercial management development organisations may also be attracted by this opportunity. © 1999, MCB UP Limited

Education systems can be characterized on the basis of whether the academic and occupational/vocational education and training they provide is compartmentalized (tracked systems), systematically connected (linked systems) or fully integrated (unified systems). This paper describes how such a typology might be used to model strategic change at the higher levels of the UK system for education and training. Successive governments have pursued a number of separate agendas (e.g. massification of HE, public accountability, standards in HE, key/employability skills, lifelong learning…) the net result of which is leading to a more unified system. © 1999 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

In Hong Kong the secondary school curriculum has long been criticized for its heavy emphasis on academic performance and examination-oriented approaches to subject learning. As a consequence, pupils in Hong Kong only possess knowledge and skills that could carry them through examinations. They lack qualities and dispositions as well as related skills and understandings which will help them to make sense of this complicated society. It is noted that time has come for a reflection of the secondary curriculum and this article argues for the introduction of Personal and Social Education in secondary schools in Hong Kong which can bring relevance, breath, and balance to the curriculum from three aspects - aims of education, change in society, and nature of work. © NAPCE 1999.

Vocational educators and trainers directly face the challenges of changing structures of work and economy in “new times”. This paper discusses changing relations of competence, learning and innovation in contemporary workplaces and the implications these have for vocational education and training (VET) policy and provision. Using empirical material collected in the course of a recent research project on competency-based training (CBT), the argument is made that CBT, as currently constituted in policy, limits possibilities for the creation of certain kinds of competence, learning and innovation by emphasising the development of outcomes rather than processes. The conclusion is drawn that new principles of competence, learning and innovation need to be promoted in VET in order for policy to better represent emerging understandings of these processes and their relations and actively encourage workplaces not only to adapt to the new socio-economic environment but also take a proactive approach with an ability to reshape this environment. © 1999, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.