Shaping Flexibility in Vocational Education and Training: Institutional, curricular and professional conditions

Description

Flexibility seems to be the core concept of economic and educational change in our time. The promise of solutions to many problems at the individual, institutional, and national level evokes as much controversy as acclaim. This might be related to the different perspectives of actors and researchers involved in problem-solving in Vocational Education and Training (VET), where, on the one hand, solutions should be sought in key qualifications and transferability, in changing teaching and learning processes, while, on the other, political, institutional, organisational, and professional conditions are seen as the key interventions to build a responsive workforce on the basis of a re-engineered VET system. Consequently, flexibility in connection with vocational education and training and the labour market has several divergent connotations. Shaping conditions for a flexible VET....Pages 3-14 Vocational education and training in transition: From Fordism to a learning economy....Pages 17-33 Learning organisations for VET....Pages 35-52 Perspectives on institutional and organisational flexibility in VET....Pages 53-63 Institutional responses to a flexible unified system....Pages 67-84 Demand and supply of qualifications: systems’ change towards flexibility....Pages 85-102 Developments in vocational education in Ireland....Pages 103-112 From a unified to a flexible vocational system: the Hungarian transition case....Pages 113-126 Design and effects of a flexible VET system: a case study in Dutch agricultural education....Pages 127-148 Valuing learning outcomes acquired in non-formal settings....Pages 149-165 Resources for flexibility: critical comments....Pages 167-180 Professionalism as a path for the reform of VET systems....Pages 183-205 Transforming VET policies and professionalism: a view from Finland....Pages 207-225 HRD as a professional career? Perspectives from Finland, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom....Pages 227-242 Challenges of supporting learning of newly qualified professionals in health care....Pages 243-257 The practices of a new VET profession....Pages 259-268