Policy Press
Twelve Becoming a chef: the politics and culture of learning
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Abstract
A recurrent theme through the chapters in this book is the desire on the part of policy makers to reform their nation’s education and training systems. A clear objective is to bring education and training systems into closer alignment with perceived labour market needs. To achieve this, a leitmotif in the political rhetoric of education and training reform is the implementation of new technologies of outcomes-based assessment. For example, the discussions of the EC’s Technical Working Group (cedefop.communityzero.com/credit-transfer) on credit transfer in vocational education and training (VET) have indicated that:
in addition to measuring the duration of training or equivalent work load there must also be a basic understanding about qualitative elements describing the outcomes in terms of knowledge, skills and competences which are necessary to perform in different job roles and work situations within a sector, labour market segment or an occupational family [and] that learning performance it was agreed thus far should be measured towards outcomes.
Identifying and measuring such outcomes and competences, it is believed, will enable a transparent system of qualifications to be developed at both national and international levels. This may be a desirable aim but achieving it, once a technology for describing and assessing outcomes has been developed, is too often seen as a mere matter of changing systems and producing new qualifications that will then be adopted by both the supply and demand side of the skills equation. However, the chapters by Stanton and Bailey (Chapter Two), Ertl (Chapter Seven), Haug (Chapter Ten) and Deer (Chapter Eleven) speak to the social, political and economic challenges inherent in implementing such reform.
Abstract
A recurrent theme through the chapters in this book is the desire on the part of policy makers to reform their nation’s education and training systems. A clear objective is to bring education and training systems into closer alignment with perceived labour market needs. To achieve this, a leitmotif in the political rhetoric of education and training reform is the implementation of new technologies of outcomes-based assessment. For example, the discussions of the EC’s Technical Working Group (cedefop.communityzero.com/credit-transfer) on credit transfer in vocational education and training (VET) have indicated that:
in addition to measuring the duration of training or equivalent work load there must also be a basic understanding about qualitative elements describing the outcomes in terms of knowledge, skills and competences which are necessary to perform in different job roles and work situations within a sector, labour market segment or an occupational family [and] that learning performance it was agreed thus far should be measured towards outcomes.
Identifying and measuring such outcomes and competences, it is believed, will enable a transparent system of qualifications to be developed at both national and international levels. This may be a desirable aim but achieving it, once a technology for describing and assessing outcomes has been developed, is too often seen as a mere matter of changing systems and producing new qualifications that will then be adopted by both the supply and demand side of the skills equation. However, the chapters by Stanton and Bailey (Chapter Two), Ertl (Chapter Seven), Haug (Chapter Ten) and Deer (Chapter Eleven) speak to the social, political and economic challenges inherent in implementing such reform.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Acknowledgements iv
- Preface v
- Notes on contributors vi
- Producing skills: conundrums and possibilities 1
- Fit for purpose? Sixty years of VET policy in England 13
- The European policy regarding education and training: a critical assessment 35
- ‘I can’t believe it’s not skill’: the changing meaning of skill in the UK context and some implications 53
- Qualifying for a job: an educational and economic audit of the English 14-19 education and training system 77
- Does apprenticeship still have meaning in the UK? The consequences of voluntarism and sectoral change 101
- Tradition and reform: modernising the German dual system of vocational education 117
- Learning in the workplace: reappraisals and reconceptions 149
- Interests, arguments and ideologies: employers’ involvement in education–business partnerships in the US and the UK 171
- Compatible higher education systems and the European labour market: Bologna and beyond 187
- The expansion of higher education: economic necessity or hyperinflation? 203
- Becoming a chef: the politics and culture of learning 219
- Index 245
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Acknowledgements iv
- Preface v
- Notes on contributors vi
- Producing skills: conundrums and possibilities 1
- Fit for purpose? Sixty years of VET policy in England 13
- The European policy regarding education and training: a critical assessment 35
- ‘I can’t believe it’s not skill’: the changing meaning of skill in the UK context and some implications 53
- Qualifying for a job: an educational and economic audit of the English 14-19 education and training system 77
- Does apprenticeship still have meaning in the UK? The consequences of voluntarism and sectoral change 101
- Tradition and reform: modernising the German dual system of vocational education 117
- Learning in the workplace: reappraisals and reconceptions 149
- Interests, arguments and ideologies: employers’ involvement in education–business partnerships in the US and the UK 171
- Compatible higher education systems and the European labour market: Bologna and beyond 187
- The expansion of higher education: economic necessity or hyperinflation? 203
- Becoming a chef: the politics and culture of learning 219
- Index 245
