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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to research on individual entrepreneurial intention (IEI) by assessing the importance of entrepreneurship education to students in vocational training programmes and using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to analyse these students’ entrepreneurial intentions. The family background of the students and their exposure to entrepreneurship subject matter were included as antecedents of TPB components and IEI.

To test the research model, the primary data were collected with questionnaires distributed to students in their last year of vocational training programmes with and without entrepreneurship coursework, in a region of Northern Portugal. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The results show that TPB dimensions substantially contribute to explaining students’ IEI. However, their family background makes only a minor contribution, and exposure to entrepreneurship education has no influence on IEI.

Given these results, the authors propose a broader discussion is needed of the importance of introducing business classes into the curricula of vocational training programmes.

This research’s results show that IEI models need to assign greater importance to variables related to previous exposure to entrepreneurial experiences through direct family members. The findings contribute to a fuller understanding of IEI and the factors that precede the formation of this intention among students in training programmes.

Presents a perspective on vocational learning that proposes that vocational competence is dependent upon dispositional development, which in turn, results in moves towards maturation. Reports research with unemployed adults engaging in vocational training and resulting in four findings. First, while training packages describe assessable outcomes in competency‐referenced terms, trainees describe learning outcomes in non‐competency referenced terms. Second, vocational trainees describe their learning in terms of dispositional outcomes; that is, in terms of values, interests and attitudes. Third, dispositions can be categorised in terms of maturational concepts. Fourth, trainees made moves towards maturation as a result of CBT/NEIS training over the six‐week period of the course. The findings have important ramifications for all future VET/CBT trainees since it is the researcher's formative theory that maturation is a subset of competence in every vocational skill domain.

The vocational education and training (VET) system needs a future change in order to be more accountable to employers (and their associations) for training outcomes that match employer expectations. As part of this, an important focus is employability skills that go beyond work-related technical and interpersonal skills to include employer-preferred values, attitudes and personality dimensions. The purpose of this paper is to determine the effect of supervised work experiences (SWEs), among other factors, on undergraduate vocational trainees’ acquisition of employability skills.

A total of 138 respondents ranging in age from 17 to 24 years who successfully completed their two years program awarded with Malaysian Skill Certificate were included. They were divided into two sub-populations, trainees participating and trainees not participating in the SWE. Descriptive analysis, Correlation and ANCOVA were applied for data analysis.

The results showed that participating students achieved a moderately higher level of employability skills compared to students not participating in the SWE. The findings also revealed other factors contributing to the acquisition of employability skills, including gender, age, work experience, self-concept and achievement motivation. However, achievement motivation was found to be significantly related to the acquisition of employability skills. Therefore, participation of vocational trainees in the SWE influences the acquisition of employability skills which are identified as career success skills and could facilitate youth in transition from school to work.

Although the research has reached the aims, there were a few limitations which may effect on generalization of the findings. Because of the limit access to students from all majors in vocational training, this study focused on six types of skills. In addition, the number of participants from different courses was not equal.

The research findings also imply several practical implications. First, based on the finding, it can be suggested that industries provide students’ vocational training under supervision of expert in their course area in order to enrich the level of trainees’ acquisition of employability skills. Second, referring to the finding, focusing on the key aspects of employability skills, industries can improve the trainees learning process and producing workers with abilities to allow them to interact with job duties in the organization of workplace.

This study can serve as a model for evaluation when implementing school to work programs.

Aims to bring a new angle to, in fact to complete the triangle of, industrial training studies, which have focused on training institutions and the firms. The third angle, the trainees, has often been neglected, appearing only as figures, enrolment, drop‐outs, graduates, etc. A comprehensive policy on industrial training would be incomplete without appraising experience of trainees and taking their views seriously. Examines research based on three surveys among potential, current and past trainees. The experience and views of the trainees should be taken as a major parameter in technical and vocational education (TVET) strategy, planning and programme implementation. Finds that trainees have expressed clear views on the relevance of the TVET programmes they have attended/are attending, and on the quality of public and private training. Findings of the surveys have some relevance to labour market policy, specifically on mobility, labour turnover, labour market information and employment of women.

This paper seeks to discuss the challenges faced when trying to integrate entrepreneurship education in the training system, with a particular focus on vocational training.

The data were collected through in‐depth interviews, document reviews and focus group discussions. The respondents were drawn from VETA headquarters – training director, centre managers, entrepreneurship instructors in the centre, and a section of final year students who were purposively selected. Other stakeholders in vocational training in Tanzania were also consulted.

The findings were organized around key themes of the research as per the set objectives. The emerging views showed some of the following issues as the major challenges facing the authority in its effort to integrate entrepreneurship training in the programme: time too limited to cover the core subjects; Form iv leavers and standard vii trainees have different understanding levels; financial/budgetary constraint; few instructors with relevant skills; lack of role models of successful former trainees who are practising entrepreneurs; course too theoretical, lacking the component of field studies; and the course too boring compared with other mainstream courses.

The sample size was too small to be wholly reliable for generalizing the findings to a similar problem. However, the insights gained are a crucial basis for further research and give some variables to be investigated on their significance in shaping entrepreneurship training, especially in a developing country like Tanzania.

The research provides knowledge that was lacking as far as entrepreneurship training and vocational training are involved. Other studies, especially in Tanzania, focused on the quality of technical training and the infrastructural resources rather than business‐related skills.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the degree apprenticeship of the vocational training institutes (VTIs) enhances the labor market and enables the trainees to detect the knowledge and skills that are acquired during the training. In addition, this study tries to detect through work-based learning whether the workplace function as a learning place and whether the trainees are satisfied by the experience during the degree apprenticeship.

In total, 129 graduates by various VTIs in the wider area of Patras (Western Greece), who completed the degree apprenticeship, participated in the survey.

The findings of this study highlighted the difficulties that the graduates of VTIs face when they look for a job in the economic crisis era that Greece faces. However, this study also highlighted the satisfaction that the trainees denoted about the knowledge and the vocational and social skills that they acquired during the degree apprenticeship. Additionally, the trainees are satisfied by the workplace where the degree apprenticeship took place because it became a learning environment.

This study is evidence of a need for developing the degree apprenticeship programs in Greece as a means of enhancing the transition from training to work.

This research is the first and serious recording of the trainees’ opinions regarding their degree apprenticeship, during their studies in VTIs. The presented professional and social skills could use as guidelines for the implementation of new practices and educational policies in training during the educational process. Additionally, the degree apprenticeship programs will be further linked to the educational institution and the educational community will benefit from the trainees’ experience. These new degree apprenticeship practices will be implemented in the following years in all the VTIs in Greece.

This paper aims to present an integrated model of workplace guidance to enhance awareness of what constitutes good guidance, to improve workplace guidance practices in vocational education and training.

To identify constituent aspects of workplace guidance, a systematic search of Web of Science was conducted, focussing on mentoring literature, research on institutional socialization tactics and research on didactical interventions and their effects.

The model interprets workplace learning as a relational and integrated process of participation, acquisition, guidance and social interaction. Psychosocial support, structure-providing interventions and didactical interventions are discussed as essential components of guidance. How these components are enacted is influenced by the characteristics of training firms and their employees’ readiness to provide guidance. This makes guidance an intrapersonal process. Workplace guidance is also an interpersonal process in which the agencies of employees mediate the relationship between guidance and interaction, and the agencies of trainees mediate the relationship between, on the one hand, participation and acquisition and, on the other hand, social interaction.

Integrated models of what constitutes good workplace guidance are rare. To fill this gap, this paper highlights constituent aspects of workplace guidance and brings them together in an integrated model. The model can help mentors/employees choose effective interventions to improve workplace learning.

An attempt is made to illustrate the multi‐faceted and multifarious nature of human resource development worldwide, following a definition of it and a description of how it operates in a number of countries throughout the world, including the US, the EEC countries, India, Singapore, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The roles and functions of HRD practitioners are examined, and the competences required listed. A short history of the International Federation of Training and Development Organisations is offered and a list of conferences described.

Malaysia has been facing a shortage of construction craftworkers since the late 1980s. This is despite the fact that various public vocational training institutes have been established by the government ever since independence. This study aims to determine whether ex‐trainees of National Youth Skills Institutes (NYSIs) in the One Phase Electrical Wiring course had joined the construction industry to determine whether the shortage is in any way contributed by them. The reasons why they took up the course and why they chose to work as electricians were among the specific matters that were looked into to help in understanding their industry choice.

Data were collected through postal questionnaire survey.

The study found that half of the respondents joined the construction industry, the other half in other economic sectors.

The sample was confined to those who had undertaken the One Phase Electrical Wiring course. It was also limited to one training institution. Other stakeholders were excluded from the study.

The paper makes recommendations as to what the NYSI administration might want to consider doing in terms of promoting the course.

The paper adds to the knowledge of electrical course ex‐trainees about what they thought about their course, in which economic sectors they chose to work and the reasons behind their selection.

The educational methodology of lifelong learning and adult education ensures human employment, the progress of society and peaceful social coexistence. Programs of vocational training for unemployed people or for groups with special needs are the common ways to ensure that employment inequalities are diminished and job opportunities for a better life are provided to the members of the community. Obviously, the standards of such education are of a great importance. If high standards are ensured, better results are achieved. The purpose of this paper is to document the development of a prototype system that will ensure high quality standards in the operation of a vocational training centre (VTC).

Research was carried out among students, teachers and staff of a specific VTC in Xanthi, aiming at specifying the key factors that influence the quality of the training provided.

The results of the research are presented and in relation to the answers given to special questionnaires there are suggestions regarding the issues of decision making, dealing with complaints, monitoring the quality of the training procedure and evaluating the vocational program in coordination with all members of the VTC (students, trainers and staff) and the companies where the trainees had practical training.

Some of these suggestions have already been implemented, with promising results.

The paper draws conclusions and makes recommendations for further research on specific topics that may improve the operational quality of the vocational training centres under discussion. Initiatives that will be taken by the state authorities are also described.