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The main objective of this study was the design and validation of a mobile learning environment (ML) based on Augmented Reality (AR) visualization with the purpose of developing skilled trades in the field of carpentry in indigenous populations. A pedagogical model focused on lifelong learning was used, in order to promote the acquisition of skilled trades and knowledge in carpentry. The implementation of the ML environment was carried out in the Wayuu community, characterized by its high rate of poverty and limited access to education. During face-to-face meetings, three indigenous people participated in a learning process in which they were instructed on the use of trade tools and became familiar with the different types of trees and wood. To support this process, the AR was used together with the M-L environment. Subsequently, the participants built a chair applying the knowledge acquired during the learning process. During this stage, recordings of the indigenous people were made while they carried out the construction. Then, the performance of the apprentices was evaluated through a competency-based evaluation system, in which three experts analyzed the recordings. Finally, the three indigenous people were able to acquire skills in real time through their mobile device, following the instructions and observing 3D images and videos that showed the entire manufacturing process of a wooden chair, from sanding the material to final assembly and polishing. In addition, it was found that these indigenous people were able to successfully market the products they made in the carpentry workshop, thus improving their family income. The fundamental idea behind the pedagogical implementation of this model in the Wayuu indigenous community of northern Colombia is to provide them with training in various trades that allow them to obtain decent jobs and support their families. That is why the ML environment is ideal for vulnerable people, not only indigenous people, but also for those who are displaced, the elderly or deaf-mute. The visual approach used in this method dispenses with the need for voice and text making it accessible to everyone. [Note: The publication year shown on the PDF in the article citation, on page 1 (2023) is incorrect. The correct publication year is 2024.]

This scoping review paper explores skills gaps for graduates in creative industries as identified and discussed in global industrial and education contexts. Adopting the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) system, our review presents findings from 63 texts published from 2007 to 2023 that were located via five databases. These findings suggest that the top-ranked hard skills gaps for graduates are digital or related skills, such as those related to marketing and data analysis. The top-ranked soft skills are communication and collaboration, both of which are cited more frequently than any hard skill gap and appear key for graduate employability. Factors identified as contributing to these skills gaps include higher education offerings, industry needs and cultural policy. These contributing factors are correlated to the rise of creative industries, shifting values in cultural sectors, change in governments in western influenced cultures and digital transformation.

Initial vocational training (VT) in high school consists of short-term programs leading to employment in a skilled trade. To better align training with employment opportunities and to encourage students to stay in the programs until they graduate, most programs include traineeship. Since traineeships involve acquiring skills directly on the job, they require greater involvement of supervisors to guide the trainees. Given the importance of on-the-job guidance in achieving traineeship objectives, this study examines the potential influence of three dimensions of guidance provided by traineeship supervisors -- planning, support, and training -- on students' job perception (i.e., occupational image) and traineeship satisfaction. Overall, the results provide mixed results, partially supporting the mediation hypothesis suggested by the results of previous studies. Indeed, the results reveal that the quality of the training offered by the supervisor affects subsequent students' satisfaction with traineeship experience. Training has an indirect effect on satisfaction via the occupational image held by students. However, the expected indirect links between the other two dimensions of supervisor guidance -- degree of planning and support perceived by the student -- and the students' image of their chosen occupation could not be confirmed. The results support the importance of providing quality on-the-job training to students during their studies.

Prior research has shown that students from lower socio-economic backgrounds are less likely to graduate. We examine if this can be explained by background-specific pathways into higher education. Many students in Germany enter higher education with a vocational qualification and prior vocational qualifications occur more often among students from lower socio-economic backgrounds. We argue that vocational qualifications shift opportunity structures and opportunity costs of students who have to decide between continuing higher education and alternative options. We therefore examine if parental background and vocational qualifications are associated with the destinations after non-completion. We distinguish the destinations "re-entering higher education", "vocational training" and "skilled employment". Using the German Educational Panel Study (NEPS starting cohort 6), we apply competing risks models. Our results show that non-completers from higher socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to re-enter higher education than non-completers from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The higher rates of transfer to skilled employment among non-completers from lower backgrounds are mainly due to the fact that they more often hold a vocational qualification and have good chances to enter the skilled labour market without additional educational investments. Our results hence shed some new light on the question how vocational training "diverts" lower background students from higher education.

The work reported in this article explores stone knapping learning processes through the study of a Late Upper Palaeolithic workshop in the Italian Alps, so as to contribute to the framework of today's debate on social learning. Social learning is an essential process for human evolution as it fosters the development of brain districts, the building of knowledge and the acquisition of new skills. Results suggest that knapping learning was likely a structured activity at the site. Moreover, this analysis helped the reconstruction of the social organisation and composition of this past group of hunter-gatherers.

New competencies are required given new technologies, shifting business strategies, changes in external environment, such as COVID-19 crisis as well as many other factors. The aim of this paper is to identify key competencies and create a construct describing contribution of specific groups of competencies related to technical, managerial and specialised jobs to form future-oriented reskilling flexible competency models. The data were obtained from 134 organisations oriented on competency modelling. Multidimensional statistic was used to create and confirm designed future-oriented competency models usable in practice. Results developed new framework of competency models defining required competencies reflecting flexibility, leadership, talent and specialised competencies. This research contributes to academia by providing an integrated, and fundamental framework for competency development in different types of organisations based on which practitioner may adjust their models to support development of necessary future competencies.

The skilled trades have long been ignored and under-valued in society. This article explores the potential problem with maintaining the status quo and the impacts it will have on future generations. It considers the steps educational institutions and leaders can make in addressing the skilled trades shortage and how changes to the current graduation requirements in Manitoba can lead to greater career pathways for all students. The goal is to include skilled trades training in the conversation along with improving numeracy, literacy, and information technology across all grade levels.

The skilled technical workforce (STW) comprises workers in occupations that require significant science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) skills but not a bachelor's degree for entry. The United States had over 17 million STW workers in 2017, and is expected to be short about 3.4 million workers who are qualified for the available STW positions by 2022. Despite the important contribution of the STW to the U.S. economy, the policy discourse on the STEM workforce has largely focused on workers with bachelor's or graduate degrees, overlooking those without a 4-year degree. Consequently, knowledge about the STW is limited. This paper draws on a recently available national data source to provide a close look at STW workers through the lens of U.S. undergraduates who joined the STW after college. Multivariate results indicate that students who held STW jobs after college fared better than those who held nontechnical jobs on a range of employment outcomes, including salary, access to workforce benefits, alignment between college majors and intended careers, and job satisfaction. Multivariate analyses also confirmed that graduating from a less-than-4-year institution, earning a subbaccalaureate credential, and majoring in STEM, healthcare, and such technical fields as manufacturing, construction, repair, and transportation are common paths to STW careers. Despite the benefits of STW employment, however, relatively few students pursued STW jobs after college. Significantly fewer female than male students and fewer Black than White students pursued STW jobs, even after controlling for such factors as major field, type of last institution, STEM credits, and educational attainment. However, post-college STW participation did not differ between Hispanic and White students or vary by students' family income or their parents' education attainment.

Multi-institutional educational partnerships are a promising approach to developing the skilled technical workforce. Inexorably, the ability to maintain such partnership networks that support skilled technical workforce education was disrupted by COVID-19. The purpose of this study is to explore Southwest Virginia's science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-focused multi-institutional partnership networks, to inventory the disruptive impacts of COVID-19, and to identify how partnership stakeholders navigated these challenges to prepare students for the skilled technical workforce. This work presents a single-case study design, highlighting the evolving landscape of STEM workforce education partnership networks in Southwest Virginia throughout the pandemic. The team conducted interviews with 19 regional stakeholders focused on the participants' role throughout the pandemic, barriers to STEM workforce education presented by public health and economic factors, and innovative strategies to sustain and expand partnership networks through COVID-19. Two key themes emerged from this study: successful partners maintained network connections through adaptive interactions and actors within the network served as brokers to leverage their connections and expand partnerships in the face of adversity. By taking a contextual view of the role of partnership networks in creating equitable STEM workforce pathways during COVID-19, we develop rich insights into partnership formation, collaboration, resource allocation, and programming amidst challenges to their success.

Context: The processes of acquiring education in jewellery in Ghana has been dominated by the informal apprenticeship system and it forms the backbone of the workforce of the jewellery industry in Ghana. However, the patronage of informal jewellery apprenticeship in Ghana in recent times has been on decline even though it has the potential of training human resources to transform Ghana's precious mineral resources sector. This is based on the belief that jewellery trade and its training are shrouded in secrecy, in other words, the jewellery trade is considered to be a sacred profession where information on its operating systems are not allowed to be shared easily. It is believed to be associated with cult and magic, hence the reluctant to admit people who are from outside the family of particular jewellery enterprise. This study is sought to bring to fore the understanding nature, processes and challenges of the informal jewellery apprenticeship in Ghana. Approach: The study adopted the descriptive and phenomenology research designs (qualitative research methods). Jewellers who own a jewellery business and who are training other people through apprenticeships as well as people who are trained are observed and interviewed. A sample size was selected through purposive and convenience sampling techniques from four jewellery enterprises in Accra, Ghana. A thematic analysis plan was adopted to generate findings of the study. Findings: The results show that for a person to train as a jeweller, s/he has to enrol by going through induction, furthermore fees (money and perishable items) are to be paid. The training content is driven by orders received by the master jeweller, thereby making it unstructured and lacking criteria for assessing the performance and progress of apprentice jewellers. Teaching and learning methods are usually on-the-job training that rely on demonstrations and observation. Conclusion: Informal jewellery apprenticeship in Ghana uses a flexible, cost-effective approach for transferring jewellery making skills from masters to apprentice jewellers, and it has substantial potential for improving skills training in the country. Sometimes the reluctant of some jeweller to train others is to keep the trade to family members only.

BNSP technical competence gets high legality on the side of the industry, while not all test participants can acquire it. Until now, studies that discuss relevant competency test models on automotive engine technology are still limited, not specific or even non-existent. The objective of this research is to produce a Competency Test Model for Engine Tune Up-System Injection and determine the characteristics after the model is applied. The subject of development consists of assesses (vocational education graduates, workers and educators), experts, and assessors from related Professional Certification Institutions (LSP). Instrument validation was conducted through expert judgment and feasibility trials. Reliability tests were performed using alpha and interrater coefficient analysis. The results of the test analysis include (1) competency test model assessment using the CBA approach; (2) competency dimension elements in instruments development are in the form of TS, TMS, CMS, EMS, and JRES; and (3) the characteristics of competency assessment include equipment verification of adequacy, avoiding impartiality, meeting requirements, transparent and accountable, and able to produce recommendations as "competent" and "non-competent". The obtained findings showed that the developed competency test model could be used as a reference for use in vocational education.

The late Ottoman Empire witnessed many remarkable developments in entrepreneurship, especially at the beginning of the twentieth century. Turkish subjects, who had been mainly seen as oriented towards the civil service, were encouraged to take initiatives in areas such as agriculture, trade, and craft. Besides the effective use of the Ottoman press, education was also applied for this purpose. Curricula and textbooks that should make education functional came into operation. Entrepreneurship was one of the important subjects discussed in various dimensions in primary-school textbooks prepared in line with the renewed curricula after the Revolution in 1908. This study shows that efforts to raise entrepreneurial citizens were not something new in Turkish society. By focusing on four main textbooks taught at the primary education level in the late Ottoman Empire, economic contents have been analysed. Prepared and approved by officials, these textbooks suggested that children should be made aware of the enterprise idea ["fikr-i tesebbüs"], private enterprise ["tesebbüs-i sahsî"], the characteristics that the entrepreneurs should have, and acceptable entrepreneurship areas. Within this framework, they were directed to become entrepreneurs.

Purpose: The study aims to explore how the collective representations of stakeholders associated with an Executive MBA (EMBA) apprenticeship are conceptualised, and what value elements are perceived as relevant for personal, professional and organisational development. Design/methodology/approach: Forty stakeholders participated in a mixed methods-based group concept mapping (GCM) approach, representing the tripartite relationship of an EMBA apprenticeship. This approach allowed the deconstruction and shared understanding of the value proposition of higher degree apprenticeships. Findings: Analysis identified seven conceptualised value clusters around an eight central cluster "Professional Development". Two regions of meaning were identified: the personal dimensions of apprentices and their contribution within and to their organisation. Findings showed that a work-based designed curriculum improves confidence and communication skills and that much of the value proposition is personal and self-managed by the apprentices. The tripartite relationship was shown to be incomplete and inconsistent, particularly regarding mentoring and reflective practice. Practical implications: The pandemic has brought about significant changes in business practice. This study identifies several areas for improving higher degree apprenticeship pedagogy in readiness for the new business landscape, as well as identifying limitations of the tripartite relationship. Originality/value: The study addresses a gap in the literature by exploring the value proposition an EMBA apprenticeship programme. The interrelatedness of cluster concepts has identified value elements missing from previous apprenticeship delivery. Deconstructing the senior leader apprenticeship enables educators to redesign and refine models of engagement for improving the apprenticeship experience.

Collective skill formation systems thrive if employers' skill needs are reflected in apprenticeship training programmes and firms offer apprenticeship positions. Occupation-level adaptation processes underpin these systems, which offer upper-secondary level vocational education leading to hundreds of occupations. Yet, it is considered challenging to introduce new apprenticeships in sectors without training tradition. Based on the case of the newly created cableway mechanic occupation, this paper suggests that the institutional context in combination with effortful institutional work allowed a business association to introduce a small new occupation in the Swiss vocational education and training system. The cableway association mobilised firms, legitimised the new occupation towards public authorities, lobbied for more financial support, and fought to gain apprentices. Ten years after the introduction, finally, financial difficulties were overcome, and the apprenticeship institutionalised in the educational landscape.

This article explores the underexamined idea of employer engagement as the institutional agency around the supply-demand relationship surrounding education and training (E&T) and VET in England (2012), arguing why VET needs are still likely to be unmet. A single case-study methodology and forty convergent interviews with high-skill employers and policy stakeholders revealed three types of highly constrained employer agencies, in England's Northwest Bioregion, during a period when policy institutions faced restructuring and closure. The research is set against the backdrop of a previously failed and historically repeatedly revised VET institutional environment. In further addressing the lack of empirical evidence on the employer engagement problems faced by policy stakeholders during 2012, it reveals an individualised, voluntary, yet expected weak employer agency around supply-side initiatives. Also, a voluntary yet collective employer agency underpins the wider challenged efforts of policy stakeholders in engaging employers around E&T/VET, while also evident is a collective progressive employer agency around high-skill VET linked to R&D production. Discussions highlight the influence of supply-/demand-side constraints for current VET, questioning what has really changed.

This study explores the incorporation of structural masonry into the undergraduate programmes of higher education institutions in South Africa, specifically focusing on civil engineering. This study is of an exploratory nature. A significant portion of the urban infrastructure in South Africa is predominantly built using structural masonry. Structural masonry is a building method in which the walls of a building or any masonry component, such as a masonry beam or a masonry column, serve a structural purpose. Unfortunately, many higher education programmes that train civil engineers, technologists, and technicians do not adequately address aspects of structural masonry design, detailing, and construction. Hence, it is imperative to address this deficiency throughout the industry in order to enable masonry designers, such as structural engineers, to adhere to the requirements of the National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act 103 of 1977. Ensuring compliance is crucial for protecting the well-being and security of the general population. The researchers collected and examined data through content analysis and verified it with the civil engineering departments of higher education institutions. While civil engineering can be pursued at various traditional universities and universities of technology, only two have confirmed that they offer a fair portion of structural masonry in their undergraduate curricula. The researchers consider this a significant issue because it is critical for civil engineers and technologists to have a thorough understanding of structural masonry. This study is the first in South Africa to propose and support structural masonry education in undergraduate programmes, including design, detailing, and construction.

This paper set out to reassess the effects of economic and social determinants of the probability of formal vocational training in India. Applying the four-level cross-classified logistic model to the 2011-2012 National Sample Survey data, the paper identified the association between formal training and 'good jobs' in large urban electrified firms that offer permanent employment and regular monthly salary to their skilled occupation workers. Nevertheless, India remains a country of severe training poverty. This study confirms that the traditional mindset of the society does contribute to the training poverty; however, this impact is much limited to the household level and religious groups, such as Christians, which are systematically excluded from formal training as compared to Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. In contrast, the lower castes and deprived social backgrounds do not affect, as predicted by previous studies. Moreover, it is shown that unskilled males from the rural area of India were less likely to receive formal training as compared to educated single women.

One definition of a network administrator describes a person who works with computer infrastructures with an emphasis on networking. To determine the specific skills required of a network administrator by employers, data was collected from 698 nationwide job advertisements on Dice.com. The data collection focused on technical skills rather than soft skills. The requested skills were then broken into various categories in the networking and computing world such as routing protocols, operating systems, virtualization technologies, etc. Educational requirements in terms of degrees and certificates were also tabulated. The results show a great breadth in the requested skills and the summary results will be helpful for curriculum development/review, for career advising, and to faculty teaching in the Information Systems field.

The research paper proposes a skills gap methodology that utilized the respondent experiences in the internship program to measure the importance of the Information Technology (IT) skills gap as perceived by IT students and the industry. The questionnaires were formulated based on previous studies, however, was slightly modified, validated and pilot tested to fit into the needs of the research. Respondents of this study were the IT students enrolled in internship while industry partners respondents were the internship supervisors of the IT students in their respected industries. Internship IT students were selected since they have a strong background on the needs of the company based on their internship experience. The findings of this study revealed that teamwork and communication skills are very important soft skills to be possessed by IT graduates as perceived by the respondents. Further, results reveal that there was no significant difference in the perception of the respondents in terms of the importance of soft skills. However, this finding contradicts the results in the case of hard skills were in there were a big range of disagreement on the importance of hard skills. IT students perceived that hard skills were very important while industry perceived hard skills were somewhat important. The study suggests that the university should enrich the soft skills and entry level hard skills component in the curriculum.

Occupational prestige, the hierarchical perception of occupations, is a neglected issue in studies on vocational education and training, although the attractiveness of apprenticeship programs is strongly affected by their prestige. Based on a qualitative study, this article examines the identity strategies of apprentices whose training programs lack prestige. It understands not only identity but also prestige as dynamically and relationally constructed in everyday life and thus empirically contributes to contemporary theoretical debates about occupational prestige. It compares two occupations -- bricklaying, which requires lower/medium skills, and automation technology, which requires higher skills -- and shows that both are faced with a lack of prestige, although unequally, thus leading the apprentices to employ different strategies to valorize and engage with the training. These strategies draw on the meaning that the apprentices find in their work, the advanced skills the training requires, the variety of work tasks involved and the career possibilities the occupations provide. The results demonstrate that the apprentices are confronted with a vocational-academic divide that exists in many countries. This divide poses a threat to apprentices' identities, and their strategies aim to either maintain or reverse it. Although the prestige of apprenticeships is related to objective differences between both educational tracks and occupations, social actors can negotiate superiority and inferiority. Thus, the article also provides some practical recommendations for how apprentices confronted with a lack of social recognition can be encouraged to continue engaging with their training.

Many tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) have a strong focus on career and technical education (CTE), offering students a plethora of opportunities to develop skillsets that prepare them for the workforce. In today's job market, there is a dearth of skilled laborers such as hospitality workers, construction managers, dental hygienists, electricians, and plumbers to name just a few. CTE classes, combined with academic knowledge, are intended to prepare students to fill these positions immediately--meaning, in the vernacular of employers, students are able to "hit the ground running." It's worth digging deeper into the assumptions around the impact of CTE. Specifically, are these classes at TCUs leading the students down a well-balanced path to employment? Is there a purpose in CTE at TCUs that speaks to values beyond job-ready skills? How do these courses prepare students to help maintain and build up the communities that sustain the TCUs? Speaking to leaders at American Indian higher education institutions, these and other questions around the way Indigenous culture is incorporated into career and technical programs reveal interesting and dynamic viewpoints. This article discussed preparing for life with CTE at Tribal Colleges and Universities.

The importance and relevance of research of questions is determined by the intensive development of the tourism and hospitality industry, the consequence of which is the increase of business needs for skilled personnel. The purpose of this paper is to examine and assess the main strategic trends in educational technologies and methods used for education of qualified personnel for the hospitality industry. For analysis of the modern educational processes in the hospitality industry the authors of the article have used theoretical and empirical research methods, economic-statistical and factor analysis, expert evaluations. In the article the conclusions about the quality of Russian education are made, the main trends in change of system of personnel education by the Russian higher education institutions are proved, including those in which personnel education for the hospitality industry is conducted. The main strategic directions of Russian education development are determined, the European experience of education for the hospitality industry is summarized, the main tendencies of the development of education system for the hospitality industry in Europe are formulated. Moreover, the application of professional standards in the Russian system of education for the hospitality industry is proved, and a draft of "road map" of the development of higher education system (on the example of personnel education for the hospitality industry) until 2025 is developed.

This paper deals with the migration motives of German and Polish final semester students and university graduates in the partner cities of Bielefeld (GER) and Rzeszów (PL), who are on the threshold of their professional careers. The survey presented here was motivated by the question: are the current migration motives of highly-skilled graduates still economically driven or have migration motives changed due to the increasing education level of migrants and new migration patterns, and will be described in this article. The survey provides insights into emigration destinations favoured by graduates from the two cities. In addition, the importance of informal networks for a migration-related job search was analysed. The survey's accomplished results contribute, at a micro-level, to the broad literature and to migration theories at macro and meso-level. In times of high (youth) unemployment in several European regions as well as skills shortages and demand for highly-skilled workers in other European regions, new approaches on migration motives are required. The content of this study can help destination countries and regions reflect on their attraction strategy for highly-skilled workers and set new incentives based on an individual view.

This article explores teachers and trainers didactical practices in different contexts in Norwegian VET: schools and workplaces. With the introduction of e-resources and e-portfolios in VET, learners as well as teachers and trainers experience a more hybrid learning-arena, which claims for a re-contextualization of vocational didactics as well as re-defining roles and responsibilities of the actors. The article discuss new forms of boundary crossing, dealing with e-portfolios as boundary objects, increasing learner autonomy, transformative learning outcomes, interaction between actors and designing learning processes in hybrid learning-arenas. Vocational didactics as understood in a teacher-training context are challenged by more actors and new forms of interactivity with technological tools crossing sites. The study is based on a longitudinal study in a national project on quality assessment, interviews with teachers and trainers as well as apprenticeship training offices supported by documentary evidence from three trades: sales, plumbing and industrial mechanics.

This research was conducted to ascertain teachers' and students perception of instructional supervision in relation to capacity building in electrical installation trade in technical colleges. Three research questions and a null hypothesis were employed to guide the study. Descriptive survey was adopted. A 23-item questionnaire was used to elicit responses from the teachers and students made up of 10 and 76 respondents respectively. The research questionnaire items were analyzed through descriptive statistics while the hypothesis was tested with the t-test statistic. Major findings of study revealed discrepancies between teachers and students perception on some vital issues of instructional supervision such as the method of supervision that affect enhancement of capacity building in electrical installation trade. Based on the findings, it was recommended that teachers of electrical installation trade should strive to develop co-operative partnership epitomized in trust and descriptive feedback during instructional supervision for capacity building.

The study focused on identifying the employability and technical skills needed to establish small-scale automobile workshop in Nsukka Urban of Enugu State. Five purposes of the study were stated to guide the study. Five research questions were stated and answered in line with the purpose of the study. The population for the study is 1,500 registered automobile mechanic in the study area. Simple random sampling technique was employed to select 150 automobile mechanics and was used for the study. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire developed from literature review .The Questionnaire was administered on 150 automobile mechanics in the Nsukka Mechanic Village, and was retrieved and analyzed using frequency distribution, percentage and mean. The study revealed among others that to establish and to progress in automobile business, employability skills, technical skills, managerial skills, basic tools, equipment and facilities as well as finance are of great importance to the prospecting auto mechanic. Recommendations were given based on the findings from the study.

Employers and labor organizations in the United States use apprenticeships to provide workers with technical education and paid on-the-job training leading to wage increases and higher-skilled jobs. When English learners participate in apprenticeships, employers benefit from an expanded pipeline of qualified employees and a more diverse workforce, and immigrant workers gain the qualifications and experience they need to realize their potential at work. This research study involved 66 interviews with ESL instructors, program staff, and thought leaders to learn to what extent English learners are participating in apprenticeships, what are the key elements of apprenticeships serving English learners, and what will be needed to sustain and scale apprenticeships equitably. Findings suggest that adult education providers have the tools to support ESL students' successful participation in apprenticeships, and that additional guidance and alignment of public and private resources will be needed to sustain and scale a more inclusive apprenticeship model.

Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) plays a critical role in developing essential labor market skills. In Saudi Arabia, participation in TVET has traditionally been stigmatized in favor of white-collar jobs. However, the importance of skilled labor has increased in Saudi Arabia's private sector as the country's Vision 2030 focuses on moving the economy from oil to investment. This quantitative study investigates the role of recent socio-economic transformations in changing attitudes toward TVET. Statistical analysis of a questionnaire distributed to 1007 TVET students identified a significant relationship between perceptions of TVET and gender, family income, and parental educational level.

Research on the labour market experiences of highly skilled migrants has revealed the crippling employability challenges they face in the UK workplace resulting from the devaluation of their homeland qualifications and experiences. Studies on highly skilled migrants from Zimbabwe have revealed how migrants have to resort to semi-skilled and unskilled work for survival. Little is known, however, about the education and labour market experiences of migrants who come into the UK without degrees and subsequently acquire a UK degree. Drawing on Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital and habitus, this article explores the higher education and labour market experiences of this group, as revealed by in-depth interviews with 20 participants. Findings reveal that these participants' habitus is a complex dynamic interaction of diverse (pre)dispositions and strategies which result in them reporting better labour market success than Zimbabwe-degreed migrants. Arguably, their experiences suggest the emergence of a new UK-based habitus for Zimbabwean migrants.

An ongoing debate is centred around the question of how we can understand the value of university credentials in accessing jobs. We know that occupations are strong determinants of which skills, knowledge and abilities are utilised in work but we do not know enough of how occupational contexts shape what university degrees represent to employers and labour market entrants. Drawing on semi-structured interview data, this article compares and contrasts how Higher Education degrees serve as credentials in accessing three different graduate occupations: laboratory scientists, software engineers and press officers. Rather than functioning as direct signs of work skills and knowledge, signals of trainability or as instruments of social closure, the article shows that higher education credentials serve multiple roles within the three occupations. These occupational-specific forms of credentialism shape the competition for jobs for university graduates. The article argues for a renewed theoretical approach to educational credentialism.

In times of increasing skills shortage, regions and particularly non-core regions, need to attract highly-skilled workers. It is better for these regions to (re)attract highly-skilled workers that gained knowledge and contacts elsewhere and because they once lived in the region for study have already ties to the university region than trying to attract outsiders without such ties. In general, social networks can contribute to nurturing a "warm place" perception among potential workers. This paper looks at special kinds of social networks. It focuses on higher education alumni networks and discusses their role in retention and (re)attraction for increasing the highly skilled workforce in their university regions. Being part of a university community means that alumni networks are able to maintain continuous contact with their alumni and have a positive effect on students remaining in the region. This can occur through co-operation with the regional economy. However, the current study found that the analysed alumni networks were set up primarily as communication instruments for graduates and alumni and not for regional economy purposes. If elements of retention and (re)attraction are found in the network activities, this is more an unintentional side effect than a purposeful attempt to contribute to the regional economy. This paper argues that alumni networks could take on such a retention and (re)attraction function if they broadened their scope of activities and reorganized their management structure. Alumni networks are an untapped potential, which can be activated for regional purposes.

This research investigated educational pathways into a Global Middle Class characterised by professional or managerial careers and cosmopolitan sensibilities. The focus was International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) alumni with upper-middle-class backgrounds at 'world-class' universities in Hong Kong. The first objective was to investigate if and how the education of IBDP alumni at Hong Kong universities shapes self-perceptions of cosmopolitan sensibilities, university experiences, and economic futures. The second objective was to investigate how the IBDP and Hong Kong universities offer an educational pathway for the existing Global Middle Class to "reproduce" their social position and for local families to "enter" the Global Middle Class. Interview findings illuminated how cosmopolitan sensibilities meant that the students may be well-positioned for careers and lifestyles of the Global Middle Class. Nevertheless, there were paradoxes of cosmopolitan sensibilities as the students perceived a lack of belonging to their universities and a disconnection with the local society.

Purpose: In the UK, the majority of university students specialise and study just one subject at bachelor degree level, commonly known in the UK as a single honours degree. However, nearly all British universities will permit students if they wish to study two or even three subjects, so-called joint or combined honours degrees, internationally known as a double major. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether educational advantage, measured by the "Participation of Local Areas" (POLAR) classification, correlated with rates of graduate destinations for joint and single honours graduates. This study focused particularly on Russell Group and Post-92 Universities. Design/methodology/approach: The authors analysed the complete data set provided from the Higher Education Statistics Agency Destination of Leavers from the Higher Education survey, and combined this with data from the POLAR4 quintiles, which aggregate geographical regions across the UK based on the proportion of its young people that participate in higher education. The data were analysed to establish whether there was a difference in the highly skilled graduate employability of the joint honours students, focusing particularly on Russell Group and Post-92 Universities, in order to build on previous published work. Findings: Single honours and joint honours graduates from higher participation POLAR4 quintiles were more likely to be in a highly skilled destination. However at both the Russell Group and the Post-92 universities, respectively, there was no trend towards a smaller highly skilled destinations gap between the honours types for the higher quintiles. For the highest POLAR4 quintile, the proportion of joint honours graduates was substantially higher at the Russell Group than at Post-92 universities. Furthermore, in any quintile, there were proportionately more joint honours graduates from the Russell Group, compared with single honours graduates, and increasingly so the higher the quintile. Research limitations/implications: This study focused on joint honours degrees in the UK where the two or three principal subjects fall into different Joint Academic Coding System (JACS) subject areas, i.e. the two or three subjects are necessarily diverse rather than academically cognate. This excluded the class of joint honours degrees where the principal subjects lie within the same JACS subject area, i.e. they may be closer academically, although still taught by different academic teams. However, the overall proportion of joint honours graduates identified using the classification was in line with the UCAS (2017) data on national rates of combined studies acceptances. Practical implications: All Russell Group graduates, irrespective of their POLAR4 quintile, were far more likely to be in a highly skilled destination than single or joint honours graduates of Post-92 universities. Even the lowest quintile graduates of the Russell Group had greater rates of highly skilled destination than the highest quintile from Post-92 universities, for both single and joint honours graduates. This demonstrated the positive impact that graduating from the Russell Group confers on both single and joint honours graduates. Social implications: This study could not explain the much smaller gap in the highly skilled destinations between single honours and joint honours graduates found in the Russell Group, compared with the Post-92. Why do a higher proportion of joint honours graduates hail form the upper POLAR4 quintiles, the Russell Group joint honours graduates were more disproportionately from the upper POLAR4 quintiles and the joint honours upper POLAR4 quintiles represented such a larger proportion of the Russell Group overall undergraduate population? Other student characteristics such as tariff on entry, subjects studied, gender, age and ethnicity might all contribute to this finding. Originality/value: This study demonstrated that, averaged across all universities in the UK, there was a trend for both single honours and joint honours graduates from higher participation POLAR4 quintiles to be more likely to be in a highly skilled destination, i.e. the more educationally advantaged, were more likely to be in a highly skilled destination, as a proportion of the total from each honours type. This accorded with HESA (2018b) data, but expanded those findings to include direct consideration of joint honours graduates.

Initiatives to standardise the conditions for practising certain regulated activities are being taken at European level, particularly in light of the free movement of people and the recognition of qualifications in Member states. This paper looks at the introduction of european licences for aircraft maintenance engineers. It follows an in-depth analysis of the process for the construction and application of these standards, and is an attempt to define the real motivation behind these special initiatives. It reports on how Community provisions which, in many respects, conflict with national structural characteristics in the area of qualification construction and management, are being transposed. (Contains 14 footnotes.)

The change-over to a knowledge and service society means greater opportunities for the highly skilled. Participation in tertiary education is increasing in all countries, and it can be seen that graduates are being absorbed into knowledge intensive services in the labour market. The international trend towards making vocational education and training part of tertiary education is a response to changes in the demand for skills and to educational ambitions: post-training training is becoming more widespread. The vast majority of jobs will nonetheless continue to be for "trained operatives" with mid-level and lower-level skills. The decline in the production sector is reducing the scale of simple jobs and is hence a major factor in the increase in specialist training. Many service jobs may not demand lengthy job-specific training, but they do require generic basic academic and behavioural skills. The smaller the job-specific element of the job profile, the greater the element of generic skills required (such as team-working and customer and service focus). Such basic education and training for all young people is therefore becoming increasingly necessary for employability and as a platform for lifelong learning: general adult education ("personality stabilisation") and the importance of job-specific in-service updating training are growing at all levels of the employment system. (Contains 5 tables and 1 figure.)

nation moves into the 6th year of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) school reform era. The demand for skilled labor in many occupational sectors is strong and growing. Studies have shown CTE helps increase students outcomes and achievements. This ought to be good news for CTE. However, due in large part to NCLB, secondary CTE is increasingly under pressure as schools try to address the perceived education gaps by adding more academic courses to the school day squeezing out time for electives and especially CTE. How should CTE professionals best respond to these pressures? A possible road to success is to embrace change and position CTE as a means for helping achieve the goals of high school. In this paper, I examine how high quality CTE can benefit students directly and provide a framework for addressing larger school reform issues.

Policies of educational expansion are enhanced in most European countries. Little attention is, however, paid to skill utilisation at work, learning context and gender-related barriers at work. Oversupply and under-utilisation of skilled labour might create mismatch problems and frustration at the workplace. The aim of this article is to give an overview of Swedish research on the interplay between education, work and learning. The intention is also to bridge over the gap between education research and research with emphasis on learning, development and change at workplaces. Our focus in the paper is on competence supply to and within working life. Attention is also given to overeducation and underlearning and the classical question of balancing supply and demand. The paper illustrates how occupations, professions and job skill requirements change or are stable and also different obstacles and conditions for work place learning. (Contains 7 footnotes.)

The Irish Economy is at an interesting and dynamic phase of its development and people are faced with major decisions that will impact on the Irish society for many years to come. These decisions are and must be made by all who are in a position to influence. Economic evolution or revolution is not new and is most certainly not new to these shores. The Irish Economy has undergone a number of significant evolutions and revolutions since the 1950s. In the 1990s people started to see the emergence of the "knowledge economy" and the "Dot Com" companies. The Iona Technology Organisation comes to mind, along with the Intels of this world. In the first decade of this millennium people have been introduced to a new phenomenon--the Service Economy. While people can debate the time of the various evolutions and the impact of each, they need to accept that this evolution is part of the changing Irish Economy. In this article, the author discusses the debate about the impact of the changing Irish Economy and what can be done to influence the impact of the changes that are thrust upon by the evolution. The author offers some suggestions to open the debate.

This article studies the problem of the discrepancy between attained education and employment in Russia. Our research relies on the results of an international study of adult competencies (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC) that measured the reading literacy and numeracy of working-age people using representative national samples. The test results of OECD countries demonstrate that there is a connection with the level of formal education. However, we observed several deviations from this general trend in Russia. An analysis has allowed us to identify three types of discrepancies. We discovered that there is no linear relationship between the level of formal education and measured literacy in Russia. Gains in competency slow down at the higher education level in Russia. At the same time, the literacy level that was observed at the lower educational stages was in line with what was observed in leading countries from around the world. It was discovered that a larger share of people with a low level of literacy occupy high-skilled jobs in Russia than in developed countries. When we assess the distribution of people with a particular formal education on the labor market in Russia, we see a picture that is very similar to what we can observe in the OECD countries. Apparently, this discrepancy has remained hidden because of the unreliability of the educational indicator of possessing a higher education degree. This indicator has been used as the main (and in most cases the only) factor in both sociological and economic studies that have been conducted in Russia. The third empirical finding of our study indicates that there is a correspondence between the importance assigned to measured literacy and possessing a higher education degree in the job placement process. In Russia, both factors seem to be significant, but measured literacy is more strongly correlated with the likelihood of being employed than possessing a formal degree. At the same time, the difference in income level among respondents with low and high rates of literacy in Russia is much less than in the OECD countries. We interpret the quantitative measurements in light of qualitative data from a research project that studied life trajectories. [Translated by Kenneth Cargill.]

In an increasingly competitive world, it has been proved that invention, development, and profusion of new technologies through science and technology are the fundamental source of economic progress. Australia, which is one of the world leaders in education and India, which has the capacity to produce the highest number of young skilled manpower to lead the world, both understand the current situation and have signalled their commitment to restoring the national strategy for STEM education. The proposed study focuses on a comparative understanding of the interplay of inclusive policies, government's initiatives, knowledge gap from the literature and potential future challenges that Australia and India could face in STEM education at the school level. The question we asked is: what are the important inferences and best practices in STEM education that can be mutually beneficial to broaden the Strategic Partnership? It is identified that the governments of both the countries are determined to utilise the young population to train them as skilled workforce in order to meet the future demand of industries. Australia's constructivist approach to education and the well-defined system of vocational training outperform India, which is still following the traditional approach. However, Australia has failed to engage students adequately in STEM and needs to revisit the efficacy of the current education model, while India needs to espouse the well-defined Australian framework, which could help to enhance quality infrastructure, curriculum, constructivist teaching and transparent policy implementation. In addition, both the nations must work hard to attract bright students in the teaching profession in order to promote a conducive environment for scientific learning.

Since 2011, the government of British Columbia (BC) has focused on building the Canadian province's economy through the development of a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) sector. In service of this endeavour, the government launched the "Skills for Jobs Blueprint," which attempts to more clearly align BC's education system with resource extraction industries. In this paper, I argue that at the heart of this policy is the idea of education for, through, and as extraction. Conceptually, "extraction education" focuses on "supply" (what we can take out of the earth, institutions, and individuals) rather than "demand" (what is needed to put into the educational system to meet needs of the land, institutions, communities, and individuals), and is problematic on environmental, economic, employment, equity, and educational fronts. In theorising "extraction education" I extend Freire's ideas on "banking education" and briefly explore dialogic, problem-posing counters to it.

Some firms have applied different in-house training models to keep up with new technological innovations in their specific fields. This study investigated how a target-oriented in-house training programme should be developed and how it should be evaluated for effectiveness. The aim of the study was to develop, implement and evaluate a competency-based and target-oriented training programme with the cooperation of both the academic and the automotive industrial sectors. During this process, 124 employees of Bosch Rexroth Company were trained via a specific target-oriented programme. The effectiveness of the training was assessed using pre- and post-tests, a course evaluation survey and peer evaluation performance analyses. At the end of the study, the success rate of the participants, according to the pre- and post-tests, had increased by 54 points on a 100-point scale. Furthermore, in a participant feedback survey, 93% of the respondents said that the programme had contributed positively to their working life. The most important result was that, according to performance analyses, 26% of the participants had improved their performance relative to an untrained cohort. The goals and outcomes proved to be encouraging for future programmes.

This study of job advertisements extends our understanding of how employers, rather than researchers, describe the specific skills and attributes sought in candidates for employment in graduate marketing roles in Australia. The article presents the findings of a content analysis of 359 marketing job advertisements downloaded in 2016, in two periods 6 months apart, from the dominant job finding website in Australia, seek.com.au. These data offer detailed primary records authored by employers, and set the research apart from most studies, which rely on generic variables imposed by academics, despite the mooted gap between academia and the business sector. The most demanded attributes included motivation, time management, communication skills, and digital marketing experience. This raises questions about the purpose of a degree, and whether marketing curricula are fit for purpose. The article explores these findings and other preconditions for being "work-ready," and the study contributes to the underdeveloped employability research from Australia.

Modern development of vocational education requires the joint participation of multiple departments and entities, and industry-education cooperation is a basic requirement. Against the backdrop of the third industrial revolution, cultivating skilled, innovative graduates and transforming the model of industrial technical innovation requires building a new, coordinated collaboration between higher vocational education and industrial development. From an open science perspective, collaboration between higher vocational education and industrial development takes place based on the basic inherent logic of entities' heterogeneous innovative capabilities. Based on theoretical research and case studies, the collaboration between higher vocational education and industrial development must focus on establishing common visions for diverse industrial and educational entities, common interest foundations for school-enterprise microentities, and order parameters of collaborative frameworks and on establishing a long-lasting process for coordinating diverse school-enterprise entities, value integration, interest integration, resource integration, and collaborative implementation. [This article was translated by Jeff Keller.]

The importance of developing a knowledgeable, skilled, adaptable and flexible workforce that engages in continuous learning is outlined in the 2015 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) document "Unleashing the Potential: Transforming Technical and Vocational Education and Training". While this statement reflects an aspiration for technical and vocational education and training (TVET) graduates as skilled members of a twenty-first-century workforce, educators, trainers and organisations are implicated. Indeed, it is incumbent on them to be closely involved in the development of such a workforce. To understand, prepare for and provide such workforce development, learning organisations and educators must undertake their own learning and development. Education and training with a focus on providing for a knowledgeable, skilled, adaptable and flexible workforce is only possible when the educational workforce has the means to achieve such a goal. In "Strengthening TVET Teacher Education: Report of the UNESCO/UNEVOC Online Conference", it is stated that the development of a strong TVET teacher workforce is a vital part of a strong TVET system. Pre-service teacher education and continuing professional development are identified as key components.

Purpose: In response to recent calls for research relating to employers' perceptions of the workplace readiness of new graduates in a variety of fields, the purpose of this paper is to report North Florida employers' perceptions of information technology (IT) program graduates' workplace readiness. These findings are relevant to stakeholders in growing technology regions. Design/methodology/approach :Researchers conducted 18 semi-structured interviews with IT employers in North Florida. Data were deductively coded with codes derived from national standards. Interviewee verbatim was also inductively coded by theme. Findings: While employers valued a blend of technical and general skills and hands-on experience, they also sought new professionals who possessed fundamental understandings of business and computer programming to tailor their problem-solving skills to the specific company environment. Research limitations/implications: This research represents a limited number of employer viewpoints in one representative community. Practical implications: Ongoing industry input into curricula and expanded experiential opportunities may ensure that graduates are prepared to address current and future IT developments. Because the region under study was typical of many regions with growing technology sectors, these findings may inform partnerships, curriculum, and program design. Originality/value: Given the rapid growth and constant advances of the IT sector, institutions with IT degree programs are challenged to ensure that their curricula are current and meeting the needs of employers. This study's findings may offer timely insight into elements of workforce preparedness.

The purpose of this paper is to provide another perspective on the problematic nature of the concept of skill and in particular a tendency to place a lower value on certain types of job in the service sector than those in other industries. Qualitative research was conducted in three service industries in Australia, comprising interviews with key industry stakeholders, case studies in two companies for each of four occupations, and validation by a forum of industry experts. We present evidence of the existence of substantial levels of skill in occupations which are traditionally considered low-skilled. The data are utilised to create a new model which represents factors which contribute to perceptions of skill in occupations. The analysis extends and deepens current understanding of aspects of skill, primarily, but not only, building on social construction theory to posit a new model for analysing skill. New factors are added to the analysis of skill in occupations. The project was exploratory and covered only four occupations in three industry areas. The method could be utilised in a broader-scale project. The paper is designed to contribute to debates on the nature of skill and also has policy and practical implications in the fields of human resource practice and training.

There is a growing body of research interrogating the discursive construction of "rural" in negative terms--as lacking, in decline or in crisis. This paper contributes to this body of literature by taking as its point of departure skilled trades training in Canada's most easterly province, Newfoundland and Labrador. To meet the labour demand associated with industrial projects in rural and remote areas, the provincial government has invested in strategies to encourage youth to enrol in certified training programmes in the skilled trades. This paper examines the contradictory and incomplete ways in which individualized labour market subjects are produced through a combination of economic restructuring and government policy initiatives related to training and apprenticeships, and considers what this means for how young people think about and experience the rural. I argue that rural places are largely framed in economic terms, either as in decline and crisis or as industrial sites of resource extraction, and that by discursively linking youth outmigration and skilled labour shortages, the sustainability of rural places and the province is individualized and downloaded onto youth, ignoring the structured inequalities that mediate access to training and employment.

Occupations differ in their prestige, but little research has examined how workers manage working in a low-prestige occupation. This case study with retail-clerk apprentices in Switzerland uncovers the identity strategies the apprentices employ to help them normalise the situation they find themselves in: they are learning an occupation that is not assumed to require any specific knowledge or skills. We base our arguments on theories about occupational prestige, identity and stigma management, as well as on a qualitative study in VET (vocational education and training) schools. Three identity strategies are dominant among retail-clerk apprentices and are deeply embedded within the retail context and the Swiss apprenticeship programme. First, apprentices embrace ideas of discontinuous careers and lifelong learning, which encourage them to improve their occupational position through mobility within or outside the retail sector. Second, the VET programme builds on apprentices' consumer interests and encourages their self-valorisation through the prestige of products and shops. Third, apprentices emphasise that retail work is skilled work, a strategy that is consistent with the positive societal perception of the Swiss VET system. These strategies provide insights into how apprentices construct positive occupational identities although they are placed low on the occupational prestige hierarchy.

The dominant organizational form of vocational education and training in Switzerland is the dual-track system, in which trainees sign an apprenticeship contract with a training company. Notably, 10% to 40% of those contracts are terminated prematurely each year, depending on region and occupational category, which is an important topic of concern for politics, practice and research. Thus, premature contract terminations (PCTs) are associated with high costs for society, companies, and young people. This study of 335 companies involving cooks and painters from German-speaking Switzerland aims to investigate the relationship between training quality and PCT. Of these companies, 136 had been affected by a PCT, and 199 had not. The results indicate that training at the workplace is universally of rather high quality. In line with the previous literature, trainees evaluate quality significantly lower than trainers. Furthermore, there are considerable differences between the two occupations: cooks evaluate their training quality more positively than painters. Moreover, cluster analyses indicate that high quality training can help companies avoid PCTs.