Preparing women for dead-end jobs? Vocational education and training (VET) for information and communication technology (ICT) jobs

This paper discusses the role that vocational education and training (VET) in ICT subject areas plays in contributing to the gender and social class structuring of ICT occupations, focusing in particular on education and employment data from the UK. The paper also makes reference to similar data about ICT VET in Germany and Japan to argue that the new areas of ‘soft’ ICT skills – in education and in occupations - have become feminised, and channel women into low skilled and low paid work. Unlike university level ICT education, which has opened opportunities for women and students coming from families with no experience of higher education, sub-degree level ICT VET seems to be continuing to reproduce gender and socio- economic class within and through ICT occupations. I argue that those concerned with gender equity research and interventions in ICT need to work with an analysis that disaggregates what are now appearing to be quite different skills sets, and different career opportunities often misleadingly conflated under the umbrella term ‘ICT’. I also argue for better analytical models for the gendering of ICT than those offered by the ‘leaky pipeline’ or ‘critical mass’ models, and for new analyses that would incorporate both a structural analysis and new ways of looking at women’s choices, such as Hakim’s ‘orientation to work’

Foundation Focus: Job Creation, Job Preservation or Job Loss? The Future of Europe\u27s Labour Market

This issue of Foundation Focus looks at the state of play of the European labour market and what governments, social partners and companies are doing to overcome the crisis. Over the last few years, many jobs have been lost, and mass unemployment has become the reality in some Member States. Eurofound’s latest European Quality of Life Survey points to growing inequalities and social exclusion. At the same time, the EU remains committed to the idea of creating and maintaining high-quality jobs. So where are these jobs going to come from? And is job quality being compromised in the attempt to cut costs and maintain competitiveness? All this and more in this issue of Foundation Focus

Republic of Ghana Country Strategy Paper 2012-2016

This report aims to propose a Bank Group's strategy for supporting Ghana's development efforts over the period 2012 -- 2016. Several factors make a new Bank country strategy for Ghana particularly timely at this moment. These include the enormous challenges the country still faces in its development trajectory in spite of its impressive growth in the last decade, the recent adoption by the Government of the "Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda" (GSGDA), the promising developments the country is experiencing in its economic prospects, including becoming an oil producer, attracting interest from BRICS, and the recent completion by the Bank and other development partners of a number of key knowledge products. All these combined provides an opportunity for the Bank and Ghana to lay the foundations for a renewed partnership

Atlanta Consultation II: On the Future of the NPT

The Middle Powers Initiative, a program of the Global Security Institute, organized an Extraordinary Strategy Consultation on the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) 2005 Review Conference in cooperation with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, January 26-28, 2005.Entitled Atlanta Consultation II: On the Future of the NPT, the gathering involved high-level representatives of key governments and was modeled after the successful Atlanta Consultation I held at The Carter Center in 2000. This report helped identify workable proposals for governments to consider as they prepared for the 2005 Review

New Trends in Development of Services in the Modern Economy

The services sector strategic development unites a multitude of economic and managerial aspects and is one of the most important problems of economic management. Many researches devoted to this industry study are available. Most of them are performed in the traditional aspect of the voluminous calendar approach to strategic management, characteristic of the national scientific school. Such an approach seems archaic, forming false strategic benchmarks. The services sector is of special scientific interest in this context due to the fact that the social production structure to the services development model attraction in many countries suggests transition to postindustrial economy type where the services sector is a system-supporting sector of the economy. Actively influencing the economy, the services sector in the developed countries dominates in the GDP formation, primary capital accumulation, labor, households final consumption and, finally, citizens comfort of living. However, a clear understanding of the services sector as a hyper-sector permeating all spheres of human activity has not yet been fully developed, although interest in this issue continues to grow among many authors. Target of strategic management of the industry development setting requires substantive content and the services sector target value assessment

Using the Proteus virtual environment to train future IT professionals

Abstract. Based on literature review it was established that the use of augmented reality as an innovative technology of student training occurs in following directions: 3D image rendering; recognition and marking of real objects; interaction of a virtual object with a person in real time. The main advantages of using AR and VR in the educational process are highlighted: clarity, ability to simulate processes and phenomena, integration of educational disciplines, building an open education system, increasing motivation for learning, etc. It has been found that in the field of physical process modelling the Proteus Physics Laboratory is a popular example of augmented reality. Using the Proteus environment allows to visualize the functioning of the functional nodes of the computing system at the micro level. This is especially important for programming systems with limited resources, such as microcontrollers in the process of training future IT professionals. Experiment took place at Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University and Sumy State Pedagogical University named after A. S. Makarenko with students majoring in Computer Science (field of knowledge is Secondary Education (Informatics)). It was found that computer modelling has a positive effect on mastering the basics of microelectronics. The ways of further scientific researches for grounding, development and experimental verification of forms, methods and augmented reality, and can be used in the professional training of future IT specialists are outlined in the article

Trade, competitiveness and employment in Jordan

Jordan has realized the necessity to pursue opportunities through integration into international production networks and cross-border trade. The country has recently undertaken ambitious reforms of its trade regime. These initiatives comprise the accession to the WTO in 2000, the signing of several preferential trade agreements, notably with the European Union and the United States in 2001, and the pursuit of unilateral border policy reforms. This paper discusses Jordan’s recent trade performance, with special attention to the impact of trade reforms and the country’s special economic zones on employment. Moreover, a set of indicators of economic competitiveness will be examined to highlight Jordan’s position vis-à-vis a group of comparator countries. And finally, some recommendations for the attention of policy makers will be derived on how trade-related growth could be made more job-rich.Tariffs, services trade, incentives, special economic zones, regional integration

Indonesia at home and abroad: economics, politics and security

Overview: This inaugural suite of papers for the National Security College Issue Brief Series is also a component of an NSC research grant investigating the prospects, challenges and opportunities associated with Indonesia’s ascent in the political-security, economic, and socio-cultural spheres. The chief investigators for this project are Dr Christopher Roberts, Dr Ahmad Habir, and Associate Professor Leonard Sebastian. These issue briefs represent a short precursor to a fi fteen chapter edited book, titled Indonesia’s Ascent: Power, Leadership and the Regional Order, to be published by Palgrave MacMillan in late 2014. The project also involved conferences and fi eldwork in both Canberra and Jakarta between 2012 and 2013