The function and institutional embeddedness of Polytechnics in the Indian education system

Purpose: India’s Polytechnics are a fundamental part of its (vocational) education and training system but are largely ignored in VET research. Understanding the status quo and potential of India’s (vocational) education landscape requires an understanding of the role played by the Polytechnics, particularly in view of the Indian government’s major efforts to implement a functioning VET system. Because little is known about the function and embeddedness of the Polytechnics the article therefore aims to examine how polytechnics are embedded in the Indian education and training system and what functions they perform for the actors within the system.Methods: The article begins by describing the systemic embeddedness of Polytechnics in the Indian education system and demonstrates their role and function in relation to a range of stakeholder groups (individuals, employers, society and the economy). Problem-centred face-to-face interviews Interviews were conducted with the principals of 14 Polytechnics in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai, among other cities. Semi-standardized interview guidelines were used to conduct the interviews. The interviews were analyzed by qualitative content analysis.Results: The results show that polytechnics perform various functions in the Indian education system. The Polytechnics teach both theoretical and practical skills, which is a special feature of the Indian system at this level. Qualification takes place at an intermediate level, which means that graduates have the opportunity to enter a company after graduation, where they can hold a kind of supervisor position. It is precisely these employees that are increasingly being sought by Indian companies. In addition, polytechnics provide a pathway to higher education, so students can use the opportunity to switch to a college once they have their diploma at the Polytechnic. Furthermore, the Polytechnics offers its graduates a good opportunity to become self-employed through the wide range of specializations and the practice-oriented skill development. In addition, the Polytechnics offer numerous opportunities to promote socially disadvantaged groups. Conclusion: The survey findings illustrate the importance of Polytechnics to the various stakeholder groups, demonstrating their “multidimensional bridging function” within the Indian education and training system.&nbsp

Vocational Training for Rural Populations: A Demand-Driven Approach and its Implications in India

Context: Vocational training is viewed as a significant tool that increases employment outcomes and provides potential career advancement opportunities for individuals. Many countries are witnessing a shift from supply-driven to demand-driven approaches. The demand-driven approach in vocational training is often explored at the macro level and is associated with the perspectives of employers and labour markets. In contrast, this article explores the demand-driven approach at the micro level by focusing on the perspectives of individual learners within the context of their localities in order to position them at the centre of the skill development process.Methods: This study used a qualitative exploratory research method and a mixture of focus group and face-to-face semi-structured interviews to obtain data to identify the practical problems that arise in real life contexts when attempts are made to prioritise vocational training demands in line with the needs of all the stakeholders. Based on the demand from the targeted learners, a competency-based vocational training course especially for women was designed, tested and evaluated in selected villages.Findings: The results show clearly that the demands of the rural population varied, and their participation in the training course was highly influenced by access to a training centre, the duration of the training, economic returns and socio-cultural factors. The demand-driven approach works best in vocational training when it involves the relevant stakeholders and the target groups in the planning and designing process.Conclusion: The findings illustrate that demand-driven approach should be context specific, responsive to individuals’/learners’ demands, relevant and flexible.

The academic takes it all? A comparison of returns to investment in education between graduates and apprentices in Canada

This paper analyses the returns to education of specific occupations in Canada. The purpose is to scrutinize whether and in how far academic and vocational education do differ in monetary benefits regarding individual returns. Therefore, two different methodologies of calculation are used to compute the concrete returns to education. As a result it is shown empirically that within the here selected occupational groups (e.g. librarians and electricians) there is no decisive earnings benefit regarding academic careers, although a positive correlation of income level and educational achievement can be verified. Our findings justify revisiting the underlying assumption that vocational education and training cannot generate benefits comparable with those generated by higher education. The earnings data suggest that monetary aspects may be less crucial than generally assumed to the reputation and perceived value of vocational education and training. Therefore, social status and prestige seem to be the most significant contributory factors to vocational training's low status in Canada

Bildungsstandards für die Berufsbildung aus europäischer Perspektive am Beispiel Großbritannien: Darstellung, Einordnung und Konsequenzen für die deutsche Debatte

Bildungsstandards werden in diversen Ländern der EU in Zusammenhang mit der beruflichen Bildung diskutiert. Der vorliegende Beitrag skizziert die Standardisierung am Beispiel eines schottischen Modulangebots (SVQs) und vergleicht die Befunde mit den Gegebenheiten im deutschen Dualen System. Im schottischen Kontext ist neben dem Zusammenhang von Standardisierung und Modularisierung auch auf die korrespondierenden Konzepte des „competence based approach“ und der „Outputorientierung“ einzugehen. Dabei wird deutlich, dass die Verwendung identischer Begriffe in verschiednen Ländern wegen unterschiedlicher Bedeutungsinhalte zu Irritationen führen kann. Als Ergebnis lässt sich feststellen, dass die britisch-schottische Standardisierung outputorientiert ausgerichtet ist, Mindestanforderungen setzt und einen Fokus auf Testwerte besitzt. Hingegen ist das deutsche Dualen System auf den Input ausgerichtet, definiert Lernziele sowie Kompetenzen als übergreifendes Konstrukt und fixiert damit ein eher durchschnittliches Erwartungsniveau. Weiterhin wird im internationalen Kontext für eine weite Fassung und damit Definition des Begriffs der Standards bzw. Standardisierung plädiert, da eine alleinige Fokussierung auf Bildungsstandards andere wichtige Elemente der Normierung eines (Berufs-) Bildungssystems ausblenden würde. Dieser Sachverhalt gilt auch vor dem Hintergrund neuster Entwicklungen auf EU-Ebene, wie der Entwicklung eines Europäischen Qualifikationsrahmens (European Qualification Framework, EQF) und eines Kreditpunktesystems (European Credit Transfer System in Vocational Education and Training, ECVET)

Pre-Vocational Education in Seven European Countries: a comparison of curricular embedding and implementation in schools

This paper presents a comparative research project on pre-vocational education in lower secondary schools in seven European countries. The primary aim of the study was to better understand how the formal pre-vocational education curriculum is interpreted and shaped by individual teachers. The countries covered are Austria, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Portugal and Scotland. Two research methods have been used. First, a content analysis of the relevant curricula was carried out, focussing on how, and to what extent, pre-vocational education competencies are embedded in the official curriculum in the seven countries covered by the study. Second, 75 teachers took part in qualitative expert interviews about their implementation of the relevant curriculum. This research builds upon previous studies in education and employment and in particular, on a theoretical framework that explores the differences between the ‘prescribed' curriculum and the ‘enacted' curriculum. This study will argue that, although it is possible to identify a distinct pre-vocational curriculum within each region in the seven countries, this curriculum is, in practice, taught very differently within the schools and that the differences in curriculum implementation can be explained, amongst other factors, by the availability of resources and the initial and further training of teachers

Rethinking the function of typologies in comparative international TVET research. A new approach

Durch die großen Unterschiede in der Ausformung der beruflichen Bildung in verschiedenen Ländern ist in der international-vergleichenden Berufsbildungsforschung die Typisierung besonders verbreitet. Bisherige Ansätze vermögen allerdings kaum die Breite sowie verschiedenen Facetten höchst unterschiedlicher Berufsbildungsangebote komplex abzubilden. Der Fokus wird oft nur auf einen wissenschaftlichen Zugang gelegt und die didaktisch-pädagogische Perspektive ausgeblendet. Der Beitrag diskutiert daher die Schwächen bisheriger Typologien sowie die Funktionen dieser. Darauf aufbauend wird eine neue Typologie entwickelt, die Ansätze der politischen Ökonomie, der Soziologie sowie der Berufspädagogik integriert. Am Beispiel Großbritanniens, Frankreichs, Japans und Deutschlands werden die Anwendung und der Nutzen der neuen Typologie aufgezeigt. (DIPF/Orig.)Major differences between countries in the design of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) make the typology-based approach particularly popular in comparative international TVET research. However, previous approaches have proved largely inadequate in terms of illustrating the breadth and individual facets of highly diverse training systems. In these approaches, the focus is often solely on an academic approach, with the pedagogical perspective typically receiving little attention. This paper discusses in detail the role of typologies and the inadequacy of existing typologies. It then develops a new typology that incorporates approaches from political economy, sociology and vocational pedagogy. Using France, Germany, Japan and the UK as case studies, it illustrates how this new typology may be applied and describes its benefits. (DIPF/Orig.

Energy storage scheduling with an advanced battery model : a game–theoretic approach

Energy storage systems will play a key role for individual users in the future smart grid. They serve two purposes: (i) handling the intermittent nature of renewable energy resources for a more reliable and efficient system; and (ii) preventing the impact of blackouts on users and allowing for more independence from the grid, while saving money through load-shifting. In this paper we investigate the latter scenario by looking at a neighbourhood of 25 households whose demand is satisfied by one utility company. Assuming the users possess lithium-ion batteries, we answer the question of how each household can make the best use of their individual storage system given a real-time pricing policy. To this end, each user is modelled as a player of a non-cooperative scheduling game. The novelty of the game lies in the advanced battery model, which incorporates charging and discharging characteristics of lithium-ion batteries. The action set for each player comprises day-ahead schedules of their respective battery usage. We analyse different user behaviour and are able to obtain a realistic and applicable understanding of the potential of these systems. As a result, we show the correlation between the efficiency of the battery and the outcome of the game

Game-theoretic approaches for smart prosumer communities

Global warming is endangering the Earth’s ecosystem. It is imperative for humanity to limit greenhouse gas emissions in order to combat rising global average temperatures. Demand-side management (DSM) schemes have widely been analysed in the context of the future smart grid. Often they are based on game-theoretic approaches to schedule the electricity consumption of its participants such that it results in small peak-to-average ratios (PAR) of the aggregated load. In order to guarantee high comfort levels for the consumer, we investigate DSM schemes on the basis of individually owned energy storage systems. The scheduling of these batteries is incentivised by a specific pricing function offered to the users. Within this thesis we cover various aspects for these type of management schemes. Firstly, we design a simple game-theoretic scheduling mechanism and analyse how the battery model, more specifically the round-trip efficiency, affects the outcome. From the simulations we find the importance of highly efficient energy storage systems for the engagement of participants. Secondly, the simple scheduling mechanism is replaced with a more advanced dynamic game, that models fine-grained control over the battery. For this novel game, we derive an analytical solution for the best response of a user, considerably speeding up the solution algorithm for the game. Furthermore, a comparison between the two games also shows the improvements in reducing the PAR of the aggregated load. Based on the augmented game, we investigate the resilience of the equilibrium solution with respect to inevitable real-world forecasting errors. One of the main findings of this thesis is reflected in the results showing the robustness of the schedules for a large number of simulated scenarios and even in the worst-case. Thirdly, we explicitly deal with the finite horizon effect that occurs due to the fixed time frame of the game mechanism. This eventually leads to a DSM system which results in a mean PAR of the aggregated load close to the optimum. Further studies show that these outcomes can be achieved due to the interaction of the households. Individual scheduling of batteries reduces the potential reduction of PAR and is especially detrimental for the robustness against forecasting errors. Fourthly, the developed model is analysed with respect to cyber-physical attacks. We develop a novel type of data-injection attack on the forecasted data and show their impact. After suggesting suitable monitoring strategies to the utility company, a game-theoretic model is employed to understand their decision making process. Finally, we investigate which battery size is optimal for such a DSM scheme. The respective experiments give insight into the different factors that determine the sizing of the battery. From the results we can infer that certain types of users only require a small scale battery system to achieve considerable gains. Overall, this thesis provides an in-depth analysis of a demand-side management scheme that can be employed by prosumers all around the world in the nearest future. Furthermore, the experiments give insights to utility companies to focus on community approaches and how they can mitigate potential cyber attacks