This book explores new and distinctive forms of higher vocational education across the globe, and asks how the sector is changing in response to the demands of the 21st century. These new forms of education respond to two key policy concerns: an emphasis on high skills as a means to achieve economic competitiveness, and the promise of open access for adults hitherto excluded from higher education. Examining a range of geographic contexts, the editors and contributors aim to address these contexts and highlight various similarities and differences in developments. They locate their analyses within the various political and socio-economic contexts, which can make particular reforms possible and achievable in one context and almost unthinkable in another. Ultimately, the book promotes a critical understanding of evolving provisions of higher vocational education, refusing assumptions that policy borrowing from apparently ‘successful’ countries offers a straightforward model for others to adopt.

This book explores new and distinctive forms of higher vocational education across the globe, and asks how the sector is changing in response to the demands of the 21st century. These new forms of education respond to two key policy concerns: an emphasis on high skills as a means to achieve economic competitiveness, and the promise of open access for adults hitherto excluded from higher education. Examining a range of geographic contexts, the editors and contributors aim to address these contexts and highlight various similarities and differences in developments. They locate their analyses within the various political and socio-economic contexts, which can make particular reforms possible and achievable in one context and almost unthinkable in another. Ultimately, the book promotes a critical understanding of evolving provisions of higher vocational education, refusing assumptions that policy borrowing from apparently ‘successful’ countries offers a straightforward model for others to adopt.

Vocational skill development (VSD) has the capacity to contribute to poverty reduction because it serves as the key to job creation and inclusive growth. As developed nations have been faced with high youth and graduate unemployment rates, basic education and vocational skill development have become a priority of development cooperation activities. However, there is a realization that measures to improve skill training can only be successful if they are in harmony with employment and economic policies. Socio-Economic Perspectives on Vocational Skill Development: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a collection of innovative research on the methods and applications of equipping individuals with relevant work skills and implementing effective skills systems that can lead to economic growth and high levels of productivity. While highlighting topics including human capital, professional development, and skill gaps, this book is ideally designed for managers, business professionals, policymakers, academicians, researchers, and management students seeking the current understanding of the strategic role of skill development at different levels of the socio-economic system.

What role does the informal economy have to play in SDG implementation? The chapters collected here by a range of scholars explore this question in detail; examining case studies and presenting empirical evidence based on both qualitative and quantitative assessment.

"UNESCO has recently published the third volume of its Education on the Move series, a series dedicated to the analysis of key trends in education with the hope of inspiring dialogue among policy makers, educators and other key stakeholders on the challenges of education for tomorrow. The latest publication, entitled Unleashing the Potential: Transforming Technical and Vocational Education and Training is focused entirely on issues related to technical and vocational education and training (TVET). It takes stock of the steadily increasing demands and expectations on TVET systems around the globe and presents recent policy trends in the field of TVET. In their analysis, the authors provide insights into what it takes to unleash the potential of TVET systems around the world. They propose an integrated analytical approach that takes into consideration such factors as economic growth, social equity and issues related to sustainability so that TVET can contribute more effectively to contemporary policy issues such as youth unemployment, gender disparities and climate change. Overall, the book calls for a transformation of TVET systems to enable them to respond to the demands of their contexts. This transformation should enable TVET systems to acquire agility to stay current and responsive to the rapidly changing demands of the twenty-first century."--Publisher's website.

This book examines access, lifelong learning and education for all, which have been policy preoccupations in all countries for more than half a century, but have been overlaid and pushed aside by the development of mass higher education. The authors examine what has been achieved, what lessons have been learnt and what still remains to be done, addressing matters of equity, agency, community, mobility and hierarchy.

The concept of predistribution is increasingly setting the agenda in progressive politics. But what does it mean? The predistributive agenda is concerned with how states can alter the underlying distribution of market outcomes so they no longer rely solely on post hoc redistribution to achieve economic efficiency and social justice. It therefore offers an effective means of tackling economic and social inequality alongside traditional welfare policies, emphasising employability, human capital, and skills, as well as structuring markets to promote greater equity. This book examines the key debates surrounding the emergence and development of predistributive thought with contributions from leading international scholars and policy-makers.

Conversations related to epistemology and methodology have been present in comparative and international education (CIE) since the field’s inception. How CIE phenomena are studied, the questions asked, the tools used, and ideas about knowledge and reality that they reflect, shape the nature of the knowledge produced, the valuing of that knowledge, and the implications for practice in diverse societies. This book is part of a growing conversation in which the ways that standardized practices in CIE research have functioned to reproduce problematic hierarchies, silences and exclusions of diverse peoples, societies, knowledges, and realities. Argued is that there must be recognition and understanding of the negative consequences of hegemonic onto-epistemologies and methodologies in CIE, dominantly sourced in European social science traditions, that continue to shape and influence the design, implementation and dissemination/application of CIE research knowledge. Yet, while critical reflection is necessary, it alone is insufficient to realize the transformative change called for: as students, researchers, practitioners and policymakers, we must hear and heed calls for concrete action to challenge, resist and transform the status quo in the field and work to further realize a more ethical and inclusive CIE. Interrogating and Innovating Comparative and International Research presents a series of conceptual and empirically-based essays that critically explore and problematize the dominance of Eurocentric epistemological and methodological traditions in CIE research. As an action-oriented volume, the contributions do not end with critique, rather suggestions are made and orientations modelled from different perspectives about the possibilities for change in CIE. Contributors are: Emily Anderson, Supriya Baily, Gerardo L. Blanco, Alisha Braun, Erik Jon Byker, Meagan Call-Cummings, Brendan J. DeCoster, D. Brent Edwards Jr., Sothy Eng, Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher, Jeremy Gombin-Sperling, Kelly Grace, Radhika Iyengar, Huma Kidwai, Lê Minh Hằng, Caroline Manion, Patricia S. Parker, Leigh Patel, Timothy D. Reedy, Karen Ross, Betsy Scotto-Lavino, Payal P. Shah, Derrick Tu, and Matthew A. Witenstein.

Higher education policy is the key to lifelong learning and this is particularly important as the ageing population is increasing in many countries. It is a major driver of economic competitiveness in an increasingly knowledge-driven global economy and it also brings social cohesion and ...