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This paper assesses the drop-out rate among disadvantaged students within vocational education and training. The purpose of this paper is to examine the probability of dropping out after school-based training for child welfare clients – a particularly disadvantaged group of youth. Child welfare clients’ drop-out rate is compared with students from a representative sample of their peers.

Average marginal effects were calculated from multinomial logistic regression models. Data were from public registries (n=10,535).

The results show that differences in observed characteristics cannot explain differences in drop-out rates between child welfare clients and the majority peers. It is argued that this drop-out rate is likely a result of employers favoring apprenticeship applicants who are similar to them or that child welfare clients lack networks, which previous research has identified as crucial in finding an apprenticeship.

The results suggest a need for action targeting disadvantaged youths in the transition that follows school-based training.

The paper adds to the very scarce literature on transition from school-based learning to apprenticeships.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature and role of career boundaries for enabling/constraining career self-management (CSM) for occupational boundary-crossing in the UK graduate labour market (GLM).

The data are provided by career history interviews with 36 UK graduates. The analysis contrasts transitions for those who started careers in low-, intermediate-, and high-skilled segments of the labour market.

Availability of development and progression opportunities were the most prominent career boundary experienced. Ease of boundary-crossing differed by career stage and educational background. Boundaries enabled CSM by acting as psychological/external push factors, but push factors only aided progression to high-skilled segments for a third of graduates who started careers in underemployment. For the rest, an adaptation of expectations to labour market realities was observed.

Although career history interviews limit generalisability, they contextualise boundaries and deepen understanding of career actors’ subjective experiences and responses.

The study highlights the role of labour market and demand-side constraints for career transitions as well as proactive career behaviours. This has implications for career counsellors, employers, and individuals.

This paper provides a distinctive “boundary-focused” analysis of emerging career boundaries in the GLM. The findings point to the intricate interplay between structure and agency for career development.

Historically, the Further Education (FE) sector has always occupied the hinterland between the policy-heavy landscape that characterises the compulsory education sector and the fiercely independent Higher Education sector. Originally formed to give those who had not fully benefitted from their school education the opportunity to learn new skills and to be given a ‘second chance’, it gradually evolved into something that encompassed a far wider purpose of widening participation in education and also the promotion of social mobility. Because of this, the educational imperative has always featured strongly within the sector.

Recently this has been challenged by a shift to a more market-based approach that stresses neoliberalism, competition between providers and an economic imperative which can conflict with the original aims of the sector.

The sector has also increasingly been used to deliver government priorities, and given the quixotic nature of much of education policy, this has meant that the sector is required to be agile and responsive to a multitude of challenges. The colleges used as the two case studies in this chapter show that while it is important to ensure that the external metrics are met, if funding is available, then it is still possible to balance the educational imperative with the economic imperative with clear leadership and a strict focus on the college’s vision for their role within the sector. This means that the widening participation agenda can still be met, even if numerous barriers are put in the way.

Based on research in Midland Bank plc, the importance of the “subjective”, “informal” and “political” aspects of the promotion process are highlighted. It is argued, and many graduates perceive, that the ability to get promoted is a quite separate ability from that required to do the job. The “soft” side of promotion, i.e. understanding “culture”, “labelling”, “cognisance”, “routes”, “sponsors” and so on, is the key to the management of the promotion process.

This paper draws upon research on women’s employment in the UK book publishing industry. Contrary to public opinion that publishing offers exceptional opportunities for women, the survey revealed that although women make up 60 per cent of the workforce, men were more than twice as likely to become managers and more than 5 times as likely to become directors. Processes contributing to gendered occupational segregation and the operation of dual labour markets are analysed in terms of “pressures” and “preferences”; mediated by a traditionally informal approach to personnel practices. Structural change is creating polarisation into large conglomerates and small specialised operations; the implications for women’s careers are discussed briefly.

The skillsets of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduates are widely recognised to be important for economic prosperity. At the same time, it is broadly accepted that in England there is a need to increase the number of people studying STEM degree courses and working in STEM. However, despite decades of interventions post-16, STEM participation rates remain lower than projected requirements. Some research reports suggest a lack of positive attitudes towards these subjects and aspirations amongst some social groups. As these debates continue, official reports such as those released by the Department for Education show these patterns from the labour market and higher education (HE) extend to both attainment and participation in science and math in school.

In this paper, the authors summarise the authors' findings from the analysis of official reports, policy documents and major research reports focussing on attainment in school science and math and post-compulsory STEM participation.

The authors identify the problematic ways in which STEM subject choices are made across the student life cycle and then discuss how the leaky pipeline metaphor can be ambiguous and needs to be used with caution.

Some aspects identified here warrant further research and will be of particular interest to researchers, practitioners and policymakers.

In this new report, the authors identify the problematic ways in which STEM subject choices are made across the student life cycle in England and then discuss how the leaky pipeline metaphor can be ambiguous and needs to be used with caution.

This study takes advantage of abundant data from the Economics Department at National Tsing Hua University to empirically evaluate whether there exist academic performance differentials between undergraduate students from two entrance channels (exam-based and application-based methods) across courses and grades. We first evaluate the academic performance between the students based on two entrance channels, and then incorporate the General Scholastic Ability Test (GSAT) score (including five subjects of Chinese Literature, Mathematics, English, Science, and Society) into the independent variables to control for the students' ability. Our empirical results exhibit the students recruited through the application-based method outperform those admitted from the exam-based method in required courses after controlling for the students' individual characteristics. Nevertheless, we found that the advantage disappears for the elective courses. Furthermore, the academic gaps between the two groups of students tend to decline or disappear when students are seniors. The findings indicate that entrance exam scores (e.g., the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) scores in the United States) are good indicators for predict college academic performance, making the potential function of entrance exam in Taiwan relatively comparable to that in the United States. The findings also detail that individual GSAT scores on English, Math, and Society are positively and significantly associated with his/her performance on the core courses in Economics, supporting a significant learning progression from the curricula of senior high school to the undergraduate college education.

A prestigious national award scheme for effective training, funded by the Manpower Services Commission, is being backed by Sir John Harvey‐Jones, recently retired Chairman and Chief Executive of Imperial Chemical Industries. Announcing the introduction of the awards Bryan Nicholson, Chairman of the MSC, said.