A collection of the theories, practices, and policies of vocational education and training written by international experts The Wiley Handbook of Vocational Education and Training offers an in-depth guide to the theories, practices, and policies of vocational education and training (VET). With contributions from a panel of leading international scholars, the Handbook contains 27 authoritative essays from a wide range of disciplines. The contributors present an integrated analysis of the complex and dynamic field of VET. Drawing on the most recent research, thinking, and practice in the field, the book explores the key debates about the role of VET in the education and training systems of various nations. The Handbook reveals how expertise is developed in an age of considerable transformation in work processes, work organization, and occupational identities. The authors also examine many of the challenges of vocational education and training such as the impact of digital technologies on employment, the demand for (re)training in the context of extended working lives, the emergence of learning regions and skill ecosystems, and the professional development of vocational teachers and trainers. This important text: Offers an original view of VET’s role in both the initial and continuing development of expertise Examines the theories and concepts that underpin international perspectives and explores the differences about the purposes of VET Presents various models of learning used in VET, including apprenticeship, and their relationship with general education Explores how VET is shaped in different ways by the political economy of different countries Reviews how developments in digital technologies are changing VET practice Discusses the challenges for universities offering higher vocational education programs Draws on both recent research as well as historical accounts Written for students, researchers, and scholars in the fields of educational studies, human resource development, social policy, political economy, labor market economics, industrial relations, sociology, The Wiley Handbook of Vocational Education and Training offers an international perspective on the topic of VET.

Provides a typology of six personality types: the realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising and conventional; assesses their interactions within the working environment, including likely performance, and social and educational behaviour, and shows how they are likely to act in different environments. Affirms the usefulness of the classification when applied to specific occupations and suggests practical applications.

This text reviews the strategies adopted in a range of behaviourist approaches to the setting and realization of standards - identifying the background from which they emerged and ways in which they might be further developed.

China is experiencing an unprecedented phenomenon: breakneck industrialization on a scale and at a pace not seen before. It is trying to achieve in just a few decades what Western nations took more than a century to do. The arrival in the country’s cities of tens of millions of rural dwellers, at most semi-skilled, has put huge strain on the country’s system of vocational education, known as TVET. How have the Chinese authorities and their education administrators responded? Is China’s TVET system adapting to the rapidly evolving needs of its industry? Using the province of Yunnan as a subject, this detailed case study is a closely argued and sanguine analysis of the operation of TVET in China. The authors deployed a set of internationally comparable criteria to offer a searching assessment of current performance, at the same time documenting areas of strength and weakness. The question the authors’ methodology answers is how well China’s TVET system is performing compared to technical and vocational education structures in other countries. In fact, they discover that in Yunnan, a province representative of the challenges faced nationwide, much has indeed been done, from a wholesale overhaul of programs to make them relevant to industry requirements, to major investment in infrastructure. Teacher training has been reformed, and take-up of professional master’s and doctoral courses has been encouraged. Joint initiatives with bodies such as UNESCO have improved training and vocational education at high school level. While there is a strong international history of such comparative evaluations, which are essential for policy makers to benchmark their administration, few studies have included China despite the enormous amount of value that can be learned from that country’s experience. This work will provide vital material for researchers, governments and development agencies alike.

Paul Ryan has brought together the writings of the most prominent British research into vocational preparation in Britain in comparison to the other advanced economies, primarily within the EEC. The book, originally published in 1991, documents various aspects of inadequacy in British practice at the time, concentrating upon intermediate skills, which are of crucial importance for economic performance. The introduction outlines the strengths and weaknesses of comparative research. Part 1 discusses the use which has been made of it by policy makers in Britain and various aspects of comparative methods in practical comparisons, including an Anglo-Scottish one. Part 2 concerns vocational preparation in connection with productivity and produce markets, noting its importance for economic performance and its dependence upon companies’ product choices. Part 3 contains studies of the organization of skills and work and the finance of training within the EEC as a whole. Part 4 comprises studies of training in relation to labour market structures, each of which indicates similar alternatives for training policy in Britain – alternatives whose relevance and political prospects can only be enhanced by the demise of Thatcher government deregulatory policies.