This manual provides practical advice for voluntary partnerships that, since 1994, are part of the effort to build a voluntary national system of skill standards, assessment, and certification. Intended to be used with guidance from the National Skill Standards Board, it is designed for the voluntary partnerships that have completed the standards…

Many difficult political, administrative, and technical issues must be addressed in developing occupational standards and certification systems in middle income and developing countries. Political issues focus on the clear recognition within the country, particularly by the key stakeholders (government, unions, enterprises), of the following: the…

Since 1998 a consortium of six educational and community institutions in Australia have created a pathway into tertiary education for those not served by existing paths. The new path results in a Diploma of Further Education. The program is based on a philosophy of lifelong learning, including a foundation of eight lifelong learning goals.…

The core features of the preindustrial model of school-to-work transition are needed now. An environment must be recreated in which young people see the vital connections among education, training, and work that were once so clear. The emerging consensus model has these features: combined formal schooling and structured on-the-job training leading…

These seven papers offer a menu of alternative approaches to apprenticeships and suggests the advantages and disadvantages of each. "Apprenticeship Learning: Principles for Connecting Schools and Work Places" (James Rosenbaum) indicates how fundamental changes in the global economy virtually require improved education of all youth and why teachers…

To address the findings of the Kirby Review (that early school leaving is motivated by a desire for work and lack of interest in school), a new qualification, the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) was introduced on a trial basis in 2002. The Northern Metropolitan Institute of TAFE (NMIT) Youth Unit offers programs at three northern…

A 1993-97 study researched the evolution of Intermediate and Advanced General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs) in Britain. Data were collected from a nationally representative sample of 225 centers; 5,100 GNVQ students were surveyed individually. Findings indicated that, of the 5 original and 10 added GNVQ subjects, GNVQ programs were…