Vocational Training

This research was funded by, and implemented within, a UK national research organisation, while the author was the KE and Impact Evaluation Manager responsible for assessing impact on a £15m UK government-funded research programme.

This work was also submitted as the authors MBA dissertation which was accepted and awarded in 2009.

ABSTRACT: A methodology and methods ‘toolbox’ is proposed for conducting impact research and assessment from within research programmes. The emphasis is upon how to clarify and assess the wider impacts from the early stages onwards.

The approach explicitly acknowledges, and attempts to address, the known issues and challenges of impact assessment while drawing upon the resources and opportunities available to research managers and researchers within such programmes.

The study has two triangulating foundations. Firstly, it examines the academic literature to help identify and design the pilot methodology and methods. Secondly it trials these in a real programme to both test and improve them.

The study was conducted over one year within one leading UK research organisation, where two research programmes (and around 60 research projects of £15m total value) were being assessed for their impacts. The study draws upon actual impact management experience and reflection, prospective (ex ante) and retrospective (ex post) assessments, participatory contributions from leading researchers undergoing assessment, and consultation with external users. The findings of this study outline the pilot and its first iteration. Recommendations are made for improvement to the methodology and methods.

A subsequent follow-on bid to UK government incorporating the impacts identified from implementing this methodology, successfully led to a further £15m of government funding.

It is expected the pilot methodology and methods will be applicable to other organisations, conducting and funding such research programmes, required to research and assess the wider research impacts.

Although primary focus of implemetation trials was upon research in physical sciences, technology, high-tech engineering, computing/IT, and environment, the wider literature study, the methodology design and justification, the methods proposed and used, and the resulting general recommendations and lessons are expected to apply more broadly to many other research areas, where the impact is to be found more widely in the society, economy, government or public sector or within organizations, policies, professions or the public.

Interest in this work is expected from research programme managers, impact managers and assessors, management consultants advising in this area, and government funding managers, all seeking to embed a developing approach to understand, capture, and enhance wider impact.

We have, in recent years, seen a remarkable expansion in serious research attention to lifelong learning and its benefits. Many researchers and policy specialists find this work particularly persuasive, because it is based on large scale longitudinal survey data. After summarising and commenting on this work, as well as findings from other countries where available, I then consider the implications for policy, practice and research.

This research, conducted by the author when a Senior Researcher at Newcastle University, UK, was funded by a UK governance organisation to help them assess, integrate and improve their understanding of the governed population.

ABSTRACT: Governance organisations have been urged to develop more holistic evidence-based approaches with partners to better deal with issues affecting the governed population. This presupposes an understanding of the population, yet there has been little research work addressing how governance organisations come to understand their governed population, nor how this understanding can be improved upon within such organisations.

This case study examined in-depth how understanding of a governed population was developed within one UK local governance organisation and it explored how such understanding might be developed and improved through more holistic and evidence-based organisational learning within the organisation and its governance partnerships.

The research methodology involved placement within the governance organisation, participant observations on several projects and innovative initiatives, observations within, across, and outside the organisation, and also interviews with varied key stakeholders.

The study examined:

- stakeholder engagement and networks
- current and varied understandings of the population
- mechanisms actually used for developing understandings
- the influence of context on organisational learning

and analysed these to arrive at a recommendations to improve organisational understanding of the governed population.

In the case studied, significant strengths were found: including innovative past learning trials for development, extensive ongoing networking activities, and many varied and accumulating quantitative datasets available across partnerships.

However, entrenched organisational approaches and practices constrained the development of holistic evidence-based understanding, for instance: the absence of systematic maintained collective learning processes; weak recording and forgetting of understandings; methodological exclusion of stakeholders from the development of understanding; the relative neglect of qualitative data, explanations, investigations, interpretations, and reflexivity; and also implicit organisational acceptance of such limitations and low aspirations.

Nonetheless, untapped opportunities existed to enable change including: latent practitioner knowledge and innovative management champions, the desire for improvement and raised aspirations within learning networks, and the development potential of alterative learning approaches.

It was concluded that more holistic evidence-based understanding was possible, but required new learning approaches beyond those then in use in both local government or academia.   

Recommendations are made to utilise and develop improved organisational learning approaches trialed and reported in the case study.

It is argued that the case study findings, conclusions, and recommendations may be applicable to other similar local governance organisations and partnerships that seek to better understand local populations, services and interventions.

The work was also submitted for, and awarded, an MPhil (at Newcastle University, supervised by Prof. Patsy Healy)

The designations employed in ILO publications, which are in conformity with United Nations practice, and the presentation of material therein do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the International Labour Office concerning the legal status of any country, area or territory or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers.

We provide a selective review of the literature on personality and vocational behavior from 1993 to 1997. We framed the personality aspects of the research in terms of the Five-Factor Model of personality whenever possible, to enhance synthesis across the literature. Major clusters of literature reviewed included the links of personality to choice-related processes (i.e., interests, aspirations, attitudes and values, maturity, and decision-making), general career processes (i.e., job searches, career progression and changes, multiple roles, career commitment, congruence, and mentoring), occupational satisfaction and well-being (i.e., job satisfaction, occupational stress, strain, and burnout), and organizational outcomes (i.e., job performance, other desirable and undesirable outcomes). Neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness emerged most frequently in associations with vocational behavior. We summarize other themes and provide recommendations for future research in this domain.

The Effects of Using movies in teaching vocabulary research aims to find out the whether or not using movies in teaching vocabulary have significant effects in the learning test, whether or not this research has significant effects in the retention test, and whether or not using movies have the effect of attracting students' attention.

Abstract: This study explores the leadership actions-oriented behavior of school principals in Finland. Actions-orientated behavior
enables the leader to appropriately articulate relations and task orientation to meet the immediate contextual demands and
to accommodate followership toward change and development. The leadership actions-orientated behavior of Finnish school
principals were studied in three schools. In-depth interviews with school actors (principals, vice principals, teachers, special
educators, and nonteaching staff) were conducted to triangulate the analyzed data. It was found that leadership actions-oriented
behavior enabled school leaders to articulate appropriate behavioral patterns to generate motivation and commitment. The
results suggest that actions orientations toward high-on relations enabled leaders to achieve leadership success, while actions
orientations toward high-on task enabled leadership effectiveness. Actions-oriented behavior toward high-on task enables
leadership flexibility with greater leadership elasticity. The results suggest that school actors anticipated a relational approach,
whose actions orientations were high-on task. The results also suggest that relations-oriented behavior is rationally applied by
school leaders who have remained in the organization for a longer time to strengthen the systematic approach. It was found
that leaders’ actions orientation with high-on task were more effective, while leadership actions orientation with high-on
relations generated social harmony. The results suggest that leadership actions-oriented behavioral flexibility and mobility can
be maintained by articulating high relations to low relations and high task to low task, not necessarily from task to relations or
relations to task alone. In doing so, a leader’s personality is prevented from distortions and behavior dysfunction.

Keywords: leadership behavior, actions-oriented behavior, relations-oriented behavior, task-oriented behavior, contextual variation,
leader’s case study, behavioral articulation, Finland, Skills, Ability, Competences and Intelligence (SACI)

Dans de nombreuses formations à l’enseignement tout comme dans nombre de formations professionnelles en alternance, un accompagnement des personnes est mis en place pour apporter de la souplesse et de l’adapta- bilité aux dispositifs de formation souvent trop linéaires, pour aider à construire des liens entre les “savoirs de la pratique, ceux sur la pratique et ceux [...] pour la pratique” (Maubant, 2007, p. 41), pour développer une pratique réflexive ou encore pour « mettre en relation les diverses composantes du programme » (Perrenoud, 2004). Mais si l’accompagnement « suppose la reconnaissance de l’autonomie » de l’Autre (Jorro, 2012), les intentions des institutions poussent ce même Autre à contribuer plus ou moins volontairement « à la normalisation de son action » (Maulini & Vincent, 2014, p. 204). Ces deux formes d’étayage ou de relation pédagogique, accompagnement pour le premier et guidance ou formation pour le second, sont contradictoires (Vial & Caparros-Mencacci, 2007) et entrent en tension.
De plus, une autre tension se manifeste également dans les dispositifs d’accompagnement, au niveau cette fois non du type d’étayage, mais de la conception de l’évaluation. Composante indispensable des dispositifs de for- mation, elle impose à tout acteur de devoir conjuguer avec deux logiques elles aussi en tension : la logique de contrôle d’une part, fonction indispensable à tout institut dispensant des formations certifiantes, et « tout ce qui reste quand on ne fait pas du contrôle » d’autre part (Vial, 2010), fonction de l’évaluation primordiale pour le développement des compétences. Sur le terrain, accompagnateurs et personnes en formation impliqués dans ces dispositifs doivent soit choisir une de ces deux logiques évaluatives, soit tenter de les articuler au mieux...

The paper reports on both methodological and substantive findings. It presents a method for generating simplified representations for regional urban populations, their geographical sub-populations and communities. the method generates greatly simplified high-resolution socio-economic profiles of populated geographical areas from complex large census data sets.

"PREVIEW

Chapter 2 looked at the role coaching plays in developing
skills and experience in a variety of vocational settings.
But is coaching the most effective way of improving
performance? Should it be used alongside other
teaching approaches such as demonstration or direct
instruction?

In this chapter, we take a closer look at coaching as part
of a coherent set of pedagogical approaches. What
are the additional benefits of incorporating coaching
into a trainer’s or manager’s approach to developing
skills, and how does coaching relate to other teaching
approaches?"

It is usually the role of the human resources department to implement training in-house, but many businesses and workplaces are now requesting that their employees work remotely where possible to minimise in-person interactions during the coronavirus outbreak.

The idea of working from home can be a huge challenge for some people, which can lead to higher levels of stress and worry. We have looked at how we can support managers by showing them how to create a training needs analysis and action plan to support their workforce and help staff members to manage their wellbeing, workload, stress, isolation and motivation during this unprecedented time.

This paper overview the NEED for qualitative Technical, Vocational Education and Training TVET in Nigerian education system and highlights the current National policy on education, the number of Technical colleges available in the country. It also examine the National board for Technical education, the contemporary criteria and standards for TVET accreditation system, the Implementation and Evaluation procedure, then it highlights  the present status of TVET in the country. The paper goes on and examines the Principles and Strategies for ensuring Qualitative TVET in Nigeria, its significance and role concerning the development, the challenges ahead as well as possible suggestions and recommendations for moving it forward with enhanced effectiveness for the benefit of the nation and incoming generations.

The purpose of this article is to respond to the lack of consistency in the academic and practitioner literature regarding the construct of employee engagement and to offer a platform for the research and use of a refined construct called employee work passion. This article analyzes the differences between the concepts of engagement of the two groups of writers and proposes a new definition and framework based on social cognitive theory. Three recommendations are made for human resource development researchers and practitioners who seek to improve both the data and the strategies used in constructing engagement or work passion surveys. Engagement or passion surveys should (a) specifically and convincingly assess the affective components of the appraisal process, (b) differentiate descriptive cognitions and intentions, and (c) separate and corroborate intentions from behaviors.

This Handbook provides a state-of -the art overview of the field of workplace learning from a global perspective. The authors are all well-placed theoreticians, researchers, and practitioners in this burgeoning field , which cuts across higher education, vocational education and training, post-compulsory secondary schooling, and lifelong education. The volume provides a broad-based, yet incisive analysis of the range of theory, research, and practical developments in workplace learningThe editors draw together the three essential areas of Theory, Research and Practice, and Issues in the field of Workplace Learning. In addition, final chapters focus on issues, future developments, and directions with recommendations for further development. Key researchers and writers in the field have approached workplaces as the base of learning about work, that is, work-based learning. There has also been emerging interest in variations of the idea such as learning about, through, and at work. Many of the theoretical discussions have centred on adult learning and some on learners' managing their own learning, with emphasis on aspects such as communities of practice and self directed learning.Early work in the field was often linked to the Vocational Education and Training (VET) traditions with concerns around skills, competencies and 'on the job' learning. The idea that learning and workplaces had more to do with real lifelong and lifewide aspects than the traditional "training" regimen has emerged in the last decade. Since the mid 1990s the field has grown as an area of theory, research and practical work which has not only expanded the interest but has also legitimized the area as a field of study, reflection and progress.The SAGE Handbook of Workplace Learning draws together a wide range of views, theoretical dispositions and assertions and provides a leading-edge presentation by key writers and researchers with insight into the field and its current state. It will be a basic source for researchers and academics interested in the scope and breadth of the Workplace Learning area.

—It is widely accepted that we live in a world where knowledge and technologies are renewing at an accelerating pace. Industrialization in Pakistan has become one of the crucial topics of discussion and concern in recent times and on the same time we are facing the challenges of underemployment and unemployment. Therefore, if we meet these challenges successfully, it will make significant improvements in terms of economic development, industrialization, and boost individual lifestyle and attract foreign investment. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the parental influence and student's attitude towards Technical Education and Vocational Training. In this study data was collected through questionnaire from all three zones of Technical Education & Vocational Training Authority Punjab (Central, North, and South) and Two institutes from each zone and 50 students from each city (25 students from Vocational institutes and 25 Students from Technical Institute) and total 300 students were the sample of this study. Descriptive statistics and Multivariate Regression analysis is used to find the statistical impact of parental influence on Students Attitude towards Technical Education and Vocational Training. The results of this study reveals that parental influence is statistical significant that impact on students' decision towards Technical Education & Vocational Training. The findings of this study would be helpful for policy makers and head of Technical Education & Vocational Training Authority Punjab institution for promotion of Technical Education and Vocational Training system in Pakistan and deal with ongoing challenges.

A study on the history of diplomatic training, namely on the evolving links between diplomacy and foreign policy, as well as in the educational dimension of such traning and its relationships to the ministerial needs for manpower in their ranks - often circumventing the obviously necessary training in favour of bureaucratic requirements. This, against the two main background formats of diplomatic training, that begun in the early-mid 18th century, the Paris and the Vienna ones.

This paper aims at exploring the Dynamics of Youth Unemployment Outlook in South Sudan through a case study approach by assessing the nature and extent of youth unemployment problem, the major factors contributing to youth unemployment, the impact of the various policies, legal frameworks and programs that have been implemented for purposes of addressing youth unemployment, and recommendations of the alternatives policies and programs that can address youth unemployment in South Sudan.
As this paper asserts, there is a growing global concern about youth unemployment as the global economy is being threatened by the challenge of creating productive jobs in a bid to sustain economic growth and maintain social cohesion. Further, the implications of youth unemployment are both social economic and political and as such ignoring the roles played by the youth in the society amounts to threatening the very survival of a country like South Sudan. The problem of youth unemployment is also one of the few development and policy concerns that are common to both developing and developed countries, especially during this period when the study is undertaken. The study is also concerned with the concept of the youth bulge which has been seen as a common phenomenon in many developing countries.
In South Sudan it has been established that unemployment levels are higher among the youth. The prevalence of youth unemployment in South Sudan with its associate factors continues to entangle the South Sudanese society. Its negative impact is posing complex economic, political, environmental, social and moral policy issues for South Sudan. Addressing youth employment will mean better utilization of human capital, reduction in the growing social problems and improving the diminishing economic growth for South Sudan. Key conceptual framework issues for addressing unemployment in South Sudan are; employment creation, employability, entrepreneurship, and equal opportunity and acceleration of inclusive economic growth.

""This report has the following structure. First, in chapter 1 and 2, the background and demarcation of the study is discussed. Subsequently, chapter 3 provides an overview of quality systems in the different countries. Then, chapter 4 addresses concrete examples of processes and mechanisms for quality assurance systems, accompanied by an analysis of the bodies responsible for supervising, managing, implementing and supporting these
processes. Chapter 5 goes in depth into quality criteria and indicators deployed in quality assurance. Based on the previous chapters, chapter 6 presents issues and challenges that are specific to adult learning in relation to quality assurance, and links these to a range of good practices as identified during the study, including accreditation systems, seals, quality labels and prizes and examines the pros and cons of extending such measures more widely across Europe. Chapter 7 describes the main difference and common characteristics of quality assurance systems in non‐formal adult learning compared to VET and HE. Based on chapters 3‐7, a set of conclusions and recommendations is provided in chapter 8. This report includes four annexes, consisting of a long list of 43 cases, overview tables of quality policies in different European countries, further details of the methodology, and a list of sources. A separate volume to this report includes detailed descriptions of 15 case studies and country factsheets as drawn up in the context of this study. ""

Professional burnout is a stress-related disorder, having mental exhaustion due to work stress as its most important characteristic. Burned out individuals also often complain about attentional problems. However, it is currently not clear whether such complaints are based on true cognitive deficits or whether they merely reflect the way burned out individuals rate their own cognitive performance. To confirm the cognitive complaints we used a cognitive failure questionnaire (CFQ) to assess the level of self-reported attentional difficulties in daily life. We also measured performance on tasks of sustained attention and response inhibition (the SART and the Bourdon-Wiersma Test). We compared three groups: (1) a group of 'burned out' individuals (n 0/13) who stopped working due to their symptoms and sought professional treatment; (2) teachers at a vocational training institute (n0/16) who reported high levels of burnout symptoms but continued to work; and (3) teachers from the same institute (n 0/14) who reported no burnout symptoms. The level of burnout symptoms was found to be significantly related to the number of cognitive failures in daily life, and to inhibition errors and performance variability in the attentional tasks. To our knowledge, explicit tests of objective cognitive deficits in burned out individuals have not been conducted before. Consequently, this is the first study to indicate that burnout is associated with difficulties in voluntary control over attention and that the level of such difficulties varies with the severity of burnout symptoms.

Strategic decision making is perceived as a crucial component of organizational development and change management. Consultants and managers are expected to make strategic decisions that affect organizational performance. This analytical paper weighs the strategic decision making processes and their effectiveness in organizational cultural context.

This contribution to the symposium on Michael Young’s article ‘Overcoming the crisis in curriculum theory: a knowledge based approach’, supports his contention that curriculum theory has lost sight of its object – ‘what is taught and learned in schools’, and argues that this has particularly deleterious consequences for vocational education and training (VET).  VET is unproblematically positioned as applied, experiential and work-focused learning and it is seen as a solution for those who are alienated from or unsuccessful in more traditional forms of academic education. This paper argues that rather than being a mechanism for social inclusion, VET is instead a key way in which social inequality is mediated and reproduced because it excludes students from accessing the theoretical knowledge they need to participate in debates and controversies in society and in their occupational field of practice. It presents a social realist analysis to argue why VET students need access to theoretical knowledge, how a focus on experiential and applied learning constitutes a mechanism for social exclusion, and what a ‘knowledge rich’ VET curriculum would look like.

This report commissioned by Education International provides a conceptual framework to understand how vocational education is positioned in many countries, and the different ways in which the relationship between vocational education and the structures of the labour market mediate the variable outcomes that vocational education graduates achieve. It demonstrates the unequal access to vocational education in low, medium and high income countries. The report uses the capabilities framework as developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum to underpin the notion of ‘productive capabilities’ in developing a conceptual basis for vocational education that supports social justice. It argues that strong publicly vocational education institutions are the anchor institutions of their communities that can support vocational education teachers in contributing to local social, economic and cultural development. It suggests a program of research for Education International in providing better understandings of vocational education in different contexts,
to support Education International in working with social partners to strengthen vocational education’s role in developing inclusive and tolerant societies based on socially just and sustainable economic and social development.

Due to lack of appropriate qualifications, a large proportion of people face severe disadvantage in getting decent jobs, migrating to other regions and accessing further education, even though they might have the necessary knowledge and skills. The Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) can help such persons acquire a formal qualification that matches their knowledge and skills, and thus contribute to improving employability, mobility, lifelong learning, social inclusion and self-esteem. Therefore, many countries have initiated steps in establishing an RPL system, but are facing challenges to successful implementation. It is against this background that this paper has been produced, taking into account experiences of many countries around the world, with the aim of building the capacity of policy makers and social partners to establish an effective, successful RPL system. The paper suggests 12 key success factors or the building blocks of an effective RPL system.

This qualitative study examines a reading comprehension strategy use in English as a second language in upper-secondary schools one year after teachers participated in a professional development course. The data comprises observations, teacher narratives, and student interviews. A key finding is that the teachers used a repertoire of strategies from the course, suggesting an impact of the course. A second finding was a clear difference between how students in general and vocational programmes used the strategies taught: the vocational students used them in ways that indicated their relevance to them as learners, while the students in general programmes did not. The findings also suggest how and why students employ strategies. The article discusses implications for strategy instruction and how to enhance the reading proficiency of adolescent readers.

... Dorothea Voss-Dahm, Polina Obolenskaya Gerhard Bosch ... We do not distinguish between learning that is the result of VET from any other kind of education. ... it provides them with a sense of autonomy that ultimately improves their psychological well-being (Deutschmann, 2005). ...

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has been promoting equal rights of people with disabilities in the world of work for nearly a century. Currently guided by the ILO Disability Inclusion Strategy 2014-17, the organization focuses on promoting international standards for persons with disabilities, creating enabling legislative and policy environments, increasing the employability of people with disabilities and opening up employment opportunities in the private and public sector. In all these areas, the ILO adopts a twin-track approach that provides both for the inclusion of disability issues in mainstream policies and programmes as well as for measures that specifically target people with disabilities. The work of the ILO is part of  the support provided to an increasing number of policies and practices in developing countries which need to be comprehensive and break down barriers in all work-related areas to promote decent work for people with disabilities effectively.

This article is based on a textual analysis of European Commission documents that, from 1993 to 2006, construct the discourses of lifelong learning and the knowledge economy. Exploring an apparent conceptual laxity, it finds absolute consistency in the construction of two categories of learner: the high knowledge-skilled learner (graduate/postgraduate) for the knowledge economy, and the low knowledge-skilled learner located in (or beyond) the knowledge society. The low knowledge-skilled learners are not only those 'at risk', they are increasingly constructed as 'the risk'. The analysis suggests that the binary classification is initially classed and raced - and only then is it gendered. In contrast, labour market studies of the knowledge economy, providing either gendered or national data, obscure the vital cross-cutting matrix of social class, 'race' and age. The article advkcates further studies of lifelong learning practices and labour market data based on finely-crossed analyses of social class, poverty, age and race.

Technical-Vocational Education and Training (TVE) system plays important role in providing highly skilled workforce to fulfill the needs of industries. An empirical research of TVE system is necessary to identify effective TVE system to successfully equip students with technical skills that would enable them to fulfill the current work demands and professional expectations. The objective of this paper is to present the findings of TVE system implementation in one of the technical training institution in Malaysia. Research sample has been selected using a simple random method from the third year students. A total of 162 students participated in this research. The result shows that mean score for overall employability skills was quite high. Two aspects of the employability skills, namely, thinking skills and resource management competence and system & technology competence were slightly lower than the mean score. Respondents have slightly higher than the mean scores on basic informational competence interpersonal competence. The mean score of personal quality is the highest among all the aspects of variables of employability skills.

Internationally, vocational education and training (VET) has been castigated for its failings in quality terms. It has been seen as having poor standards, high costs and weak employment outcomes. However, the resultant combination of human capital, marketisation, new public management and employability has itself been critiqued as practically inefficacious, theoretical inadequate and environmentally illiterate.
The moment is ripe to go beyond critique to develop a new approach. There are two major global policy moves that support this. First, the arrival of the SDGs forces us to ask how VET might fit into a global vision for sustainable development. Second, UNESCO’s new TVET Strategy, 2016-20 seeks to balance the traditional focus of VET on youth employment with a strong commitment to equity and reducing gender inequality, and to promoting sustainable development. Moreover, this is all underpinned by an emphasis on human development and the need to think more seriously about skills for life as well as for work.
If we are going to talk about VET quality in the light of the SDGs, it becomes necessary to ask very different questions than have characterised the debate in recent decades. The logic of the SDGs and the vision of UNESCO fundamentally change understandings of the purpose of VET and require us to think about quality in ways that talk to how far this transformed vision is being achieved. Moreover, in thinking about quality not just as a summative evaluation but as a process of improvement, the new vision suggests the need to revisit existing processes of improving VET quality.
Whilst we are critical of the existing focus on employability and human capital, this is not because we think that these are unimportant. Rather, it is because we insist on these being a partial rather than the exclusive answer so many of their proponents imply. To make it clear that we are not rejecting employability as a component of the quality VET debate, we will organise this paper around the search for an expanded notion of employability. This is informed by a range of work in the employability literature that rejects the narrow “initiative employability” account that has predominated in Anglophone accounts.
Through exploring what “expanded employability” looks like, we can then start to ask what this implies for thinking, and action, about VET quality. Drawing on the human development and capabilities approach, here we offer a five-part characterisation of what an expanded employability notion might look like:
1. a broader awareness of who accesses public VET and why, focusing on data on motivations for accessing VET;
2. a broader conception of what is valued, with a particular emphasis on what learners value. This leads to an exploration of capability lists but also questions of aspirations;
3. a broader understanding of what is in the way of achieving successful outcomes from VET, with a particular emphasis on the multi-dimensional nature of poverty, of endowments and the challenges of conversion;
4. a broader sense of shared responsibility for employability, grounded in an insistence on a political economy of skills reading; and
5. a broader engagement with questions of sustainability, with particular attention to notions of sustainable work, production and consumption.