Search results

Tests the hypothesis that overeducation is contingent upon the differing human capital endowments of employees. The analyses are based on data from the German Life History Study (GLHS). Applies a trivariate probit model which takes into account the selective acquisition of school qualifications, and the selective choice of vocational training programs with varying levels of quality. The findings confirm that the type of school diploma obtained has a strong effect on the later risk of overeducation. Furthermore, in the case of the intermediate school diploma – the qualification typically held by those entering initial vocational training in Germany – the grade attained also proves to have a strong effect on the risk of overeducation. In line with the existing literature, this paper finds that the risk of overeducation decreases as traditional human capital endowments such as experience, tenure, and on‐the‐job‐training increase.

REASONS FOR REVIEWING THE EDUCATION OF TECHNICIANS The word Technician has been used for very many years without being given a precise meaning, but the recognition that there are groups of people carrying out types of work that can be given a general connotation — Technician work — has evolved gradually. The earliest recognition came in the electrical engineering industry, but recognition has now spread to other branches of industry, and to other activities in the life of the nation. The White Paper issued by the Ministry of Education in 1961, Better Opportunities in Technical Education, gave a lead to the technical colleges in designing courses of technical education specially for technicians. During the years following the issue of this White Paper, a great deal of attention was paid by teachers, training officers, industrialists and ministry staff to ways of implementing the recommendations contained in the White Paper, and particularly to shaping national certificate, national diploma, and City and Guilds courses better to meet the requirements of technicians. Although most of this attention was given to science‐based occupations, appreciation gradually developed that in commerce, business and service industries there exist also types of work that have responsibilities and requirements, of a similar nature, though differing in kind, to technician work in science based industry.

Library assistants were originally considered to be professional librarians in the making, and were trained accordingly. With the expansion of libraries and librarianship, Britain's “apprenticeship” system of qualification gave way to formal library school education, and a new category of “non‐professional staff” was created, of people who were unwilling or unable to proceed to graduate‐level qualification. The development of non‐professional certificates of competence in the UK is described against parallel developments in the US, Canada and Australia; the COMLA training modules are also examined. The theoretical and practical issues surrounding training are discussed, training schemes and qualifications in the four countries analysed, and the relative merits of in‐house training and external certificate programmes argued.

Instinctive pragmatism, or planning by conviction rather than by coherence, is the hallmark of the government of education. We regularly devise new policies in a highly specific context (usually in the wake of a national report), and then negotiate their application in later circumstances in which many of the original suppositions, criteria and corollaries have been shed — either for educational or financial reasons, sometimes beyond our control. The Diploma in Higher Education is, in my view, in danger of following earlier casualties in this process; as we gradually change the educational criteria, and succumb to the recurrent financial crises which appear to follow all of our developmental White Papers with an inexorability which the Eumenides might have envied.

Similar to community colleges in the United States, the Israeli tertiary system includes two-year technological colleges, which provide students with a labor-market relevant qualification. Nonetheless, unlike the community colleges, the technological colleges are not considered to be part of the higher education system and their transfer function is irregular and confined. In order to understand these differences, the chapter has two complementary objectives: (a) to describe the emergence and development of technological colleges and (b) to evaluate the implications for social inequality in access to higher education in Israel. We use a mixed-methods research design, including analyzing primary and secondary sources describing the official policy and public discourse around these colleges (qualitative/historical research) and comparing students attending academic institutions to students attending technological colleges and students across different fields of study offered by these colleges (quantitative research). Drawing on Phillip's (2004) model for policy attraction in education, we find that technological colleges in Israel were based on the Dutch HTS model, while the founding of these colleges was initiated by local impulse. The implementation of the technological colleges in the Israeli context was shaped by a cultural logic for higher education that emphasizes research and knowledge production, creating a binary tertiary system. Drawing on sociological literature on diversification and stratification in tertiary education, we find that technological colleges attract more students from disadvantaged groups and more students with relatively low academic ability than academic institutions. In addition, within technological colleges, students from advantaged background and higher academic ability are more likely to study in more prestigious fields of study. These findings suggest that if policy makers in Israel aspire to increase access to higher education, they should rethink policy instruments and cultivate the transfer function of technological colleges. This is among the first studies to examine technological colleges in Israel and we conclude with different directions for further research.

A new High School Equivalency (HSE) policy was developed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in response to a shift toward a knowledge-based economy and a transformation toward STEM education. The purpose of this study is to explore and understand the stakeholders' perceptions and experiences in implementing the new HSE policy in a school that follows a US curriculum in the UAE. The study was conducted before the COVID-19 lockdown. The phenomenological approach was used to shed light on the implementation of the HSE policy in an active learning environment and the challenges facing the school's stakeholders. The study results reveal the challenges that stakeholders face in implementing the HSE policy and their experiences in offering students the courses they need. All stakeholders agreed that the transformation toward STEM education requires proper implementation of the high school equivalency policy in an active learning environment that help in developing students' twenty-first-century skills and prepare them to meet the job market needs.

Where do I go from here? An ABE student writes:

Over the last ten years Hong Kong Polytechnic has achieved unprecedented growth, not only in the number of students but also in the quality of education. The number of full‐time students expanded nearly five times from 1,580 in 1972 to 7,506 in 1982, according to the tenth annual report of the Polytechnic, covering the academic year ending July 1982. The total number of part‐time day‐release students similarly increased — from 1,030 to 4,860 — while the number of those attending short full‐time courses expanded almost 20 times, from 120 to 2,370. The Polytechnic now has 21 teaching departments, compared with only eight in 1972. Each year graduates are being offered substantially higher salaries, with the rate of increase well above that of inflation. Despite the recession, the average starting salary for graduates at all levels this year was 15 per cent higher than last year's average. For professional diploma and higher diploma graduates, who form the largest group, the average starting salary was more than 18 per cent over the previous year's. These figures clearly show that Polytechnic graduates are in demand, and that the institute has achieved not only an unprecedented and planned growth in numbers, but also a growth in quality. Polytechnic degree courses will be introduced in October this year; but the programme, even when fully developed by the early 1990s, will not account for more than 30 per cent of the total full‐time students. The remaining 70 per cent of the Polytechnic's work will continue to focus on the production of professional and higher diploma graduates, who are vitally important to Hong Kong's economic and social development in the years ahead. Hong Kong now has a Polytechnic which is not only very large by any standard, but is also a true Polytechnic in the sense that it provides a wide variety of courses at various levels in different attendance patterns for post‐secondary students of all ages.

The purpose of this paper is to construct soft-skill indicators and measure their effects on graduates’ earnings using survey data from a sample of master’s degree graduates in France.

The authors use a quantile analysis to measure the effects of soft skills on income.

Certain soft skills explain a proportion of the earnings of recent master’s graduates. In particular, they influence the highest salaries and are important for the most highly skilled jobs.

Most of these soft skills are measured using declarative responses and may result from the feeling of having skills rather than actually possessing the skill. Moreover, this paper only looks at graduates who are employed, and a deficit in soft skills may be more penalising for job seekers.

While some young people take advantage of soft skills early and benefit from them in the labour market, it is likely that it is even more important for those less endowed with these skills to further develop them before entering the labour market.

This research illustrates the heterogeneous nature of the skills that young post-secondary graduates acquire. French diplomas do not seem to homogenise all of the skills that young people develop through their academic and professional experiences.