Vocational knowledge in motion: rethinking vocational knowledge through vocational teachers' professional development

The paper presents empirical data to consider some of the current debates concerning the nature of vocational knowledge taught in Further Education colleges to students following craft, vocational and occupational courses. The concept of ‘knowledge in motion’ and workplace learning theories are employed as a conceptual framework to examine the continuing professional development (CPD) activities of vocational teachers. This is used to shed light on the ways in which teachers use CPD as a means of accessing and transporting vocational knowledge from occupations to classrooms. Empirical data were gathered through questionnaire, in-depth interviews and participant observation. The findings are presented around five themes: (1) the range of CPD engaged with by vocational teachers; (2) the limitations of propositional, explicit knowledge; (3) engaging with and capturing tacit knowledge; (4) managing the temporality of vocational knowledge; and (5) networking within and to the occupation. Findings suggests that vocational knowledge is distributed and networked and this conceptualisation makes visible some of the ways teachers are able, through CPD activity, to transport vocational knowledge from occupations to classrooms

The state of professional practice and policy in the English further education system: a view from below

This paper addresses a recurring theme regarding the UK’s Vocational Education and Training (VET) policy in which Further Education (FE) and training are primarily driven by employer demand. It explores the tensions associated with this process on the everyday working practices of FE practitioners and institutions and its impact on FE’s contribution to the wider processes of social and economic inclusion. At a time when Ofsted and employer-led organisations have cast doubt on the contribution of FE, we explore pedagogies of practice that are often unacknowledged by the current audit demands of officialdom. We argue that such practice provides a more enlightened view of the sector and the challenges it faces in addressing wider issues of social justice, employability and civic regeneration. At the same time, the irony of introducing laissez-faire initiatives designed to remove statutory qualifications for FE teachers ignores the progress made over the past decade in raising the professional profile and status of teachers and trainers in the sector. In addressing such issues, the paper explores the limits and possibilities of constructing professional and vocational knowledge from networks and communities of practice, schools, universities, business, employers and local authorities, in which FE already operates

‘They get a qualification at the end of it, I think’: incidental workplace learning and technical education in England

Workplace learning is increasingly central to the international lifelong learning agenda but has made limited contributions to full-time vocational education in England during the last 30 years. A more central role is envisaged within the technical education proposed by the 2016 Sainsbury Review and Post-16 Skills Plan, with access to work placements dominating discussion of policy implementation. A multicase study of workplace learning among post-16 students in England on current ‘study programmes’ was mapped to four of the technical routes designated by the Sainsbury Review and Skills Plan, using documentary, observation and interview data. The study drew on theorisation of the workplace as the site of situated or incidental learning, whilst noting that its opportunities are differentially allocated according to organisational or personal differences, in ways that have particular implications for young people on placements. Whilst access to more advanced learning opportunities was secured through planned, collaborative approaches, reliance on incidental learning offered more routinised experiences to students less prepared for autonomous learning. The study indicates that questions of access, knowledge and pedagogy remain to be addressed if plans for ‘technical education’ in England are to provide meaningful learning opportunities and support transitions to fulfilling work.N/

Realizing Standards of Practice in VET

Sainsbury (2016) draws attention to the importance of ensuring that proposed new standards for vocational and technical education in England are not reduced to the simplistic functional analysis of narrow job roles (an approach prevalent in England from the 1980s to the present), or limited to include only the short-term, instrumental needs of individual employers. This lesson is either hard to hear or difficult to learn. Over twenty years before, Wolf (1995) and more recently, Wolf (2011) warned of dangers in the use of functional analysis in the development of vocational standards on the grounds that such approaches tend to lead to the production of ‘bewildering lists of atomised ‘skills’ and a rather ‘tick-box’ approach to vocational assessment’. Behind this stands the deeper point, that the search to find an absolutely perfect list of vocational standards of knowledge, skills and attitudes is costly, time-consuming and ultimately self-defeating because, at the end of the day, all that you have is a longer/different list. Sennett, (2008) reminds us that what we mean by good quality work and what we consider to be effective approaches to assessment are central to good educational practice in a wide variety of vocational contexts. Literature from the field of educational research supports the claim that when teaching, learning and assessment are seen as integrated forms of good educational practice, high levels of achievement can be realised. However, meaningful and workable standards of quality and research-informed assessment practice are not yet well understood or widely evident in the English system of vocational education and training (and possibly elsewhere). Key Words: Apprenticeships; Formative and Summative Assessment; Functional Analysis; Quality; Vocational Education

English higher education and its vocational zones

Distinctions between academic, vocational and professional education inform but do not define the divisions of English higher education. Nevertheless, there are zones where courses, qualifications and institutions are specifically oriented to the world of work. These include most short-cycle higher education, large parts of undergraduate and postgraduate education and the higher level education and training undertaken in the workplace. Since the 1990s, government policies for higher education in England have sought to increase demand for work-focused qualifications while expecting universities and colleges to enhance the skills and employability of all their students. Measures targeted at sub-bachelor vocational education have been among the most radical, but with limited success in changing the balance of provision and participation. On the one side, these efforts confront ever-popular demand – domestic and international – for the bachelor degree and a legacy of ambivalence about the place of the vocational, technical and practical in higher education. On the other, these policies seek to establish ‘higher vocational education’ as a mission for institutions on both sides of the two-sector structure of higher and further education, despite a system architecture designed to reserve one sector for higher education and a further education sector for lower level programmes and qualifications