Skilling Australia's current and future workforce is the theme for the 32nd National Vocational Education and Training (VET) Research Conference 'No Frills.' In keeping with the conference's theme, this discussion paper explores the resilience of the Australian VET sector and how it can continue to foster adaptability in the face of ongoing change.

This chapter examines institutionally funded free community college programs that address specific community workforce needs. Within the article, the authors showcase "Rediscover LCCC," a foundation-funded scholarship program at Laramie County Community College in Wyoming that pays students' tuition and fees for up to three years in…

This document was produced by the authors based on their research for the report "Engaging More Employers in Nationally Recognised Training to Develop Their Workforce. Research Report" (ED616445) and is an added resource for further information. This support document reports on the outcomes of 35 interviews with employers in five…

Instead of enrolling for four or more years to get a bachelor's degree, what if individuals could work their way toward a degree gradually? First, they would attend college or a trade school for six months or a year and earn a certificate that prepares them for an entry-level job in various fields. Then, they would pursue additional knowledge and…

This study focuses on the agri-food sector in Morocco and 'drivers' of change for skills. It alerts education and training institutions to prepare workers for the jobs of the future. The Moroccan society and economy depend heavily on agriculture production, employing around one third of the population and accounting for around 12% of GDP over the…

Increasingly, career-technical and workforce education professionals are challenged with determining the best ways to prepare people for work, when many of the jobs those people will perform do not exist yet. Twenty-first-century work is evolving rapidly, with some jobs going away, other types of work appearing, and many people working in jobs…

Many employers report difficulty finding qualified candidates for jobs, while millions of American workers are under- or unemployed. At the core of this issue is a startling perception gap involving the skills needed for workplace success. Postsecondary educators -- including those at community colleges -- who prepare workers live on one side of…

The career readiness of high school students has been a longstanding issue that has received renewed attention in recent years. To document an approach to promoting career readiness in the United States, we conducted an exploratory case study of a distinguished information technology career academy. Using the premises of capital building as a…

The Certification Data Exchange Project (CDEP) was launched in 2012 to provide a model for sharing industry-recognized credential attainment data. Increasingly, employers and education leaders are recognizing the value of industry credentials to verify the knowledge, skills and abilities that students bring to the workforce. As states take steps…

Community colleges and businesses have a shared interest in preparing students and existing workers to be successful in their careers. Community colleges seek to educate and train individuals in their community to have the knowledge and skills for current jobs and long-term career opportunities. Employers seek employees with both job-specific…

Numerous countries suffer from a shortage of technicians and skilled workers, particularly in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), due to a mismatch between the skills and interests of the students graduating from or leaving the current education system and the needs of the labor market. Often, parents and students…

Purpose: A central issue in the field of workplace learning is how work-related learning can be stimulated so that a powerful learning work environment is created. This paper seeks to further enlarge understanding on this issue. Based on the demand-control-support the aim is to investigate the influence of job-characteristics on the work-related…

"We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future." Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke those words more than 50 years ago. It was a time when students took classes called "shop," and those students were almost exclusively boys. Home economics classes, on the other hand, were filled with girls learning cooking and…

Purpose: Though the notion of competence is common terminology in European VET policy at national and supra-national level, understandings vary widely, both across countries and within. The particular conceptions of competence adopted in the EQF are themselves problematic and the framework allows for a variety of interpretations. The purpose of…

Many high school and two-year college vocational programs are exploring new ways to help students develop and document skills valued in the labor market. Over the past decade, some efforts to improve vocational programs have focused on reorganizing curricula around skill standards and assessments formulated by employers. One recent example of this…