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Receptive or hostile to continuing education? Course tutors caught between the pressure to conform and resistance This article presents the results of a qualitative dissertation. The author has investigated the acceptance of adult education teacher training courses among part-time and freelance teachers based on the example of the initial adult education teacher training qualification offered by the North Rhine Westphalia VHS (adult education centre) regional association. For the issue of a…
Scientific Training and Further Education on Career Guidance in International Comparison Most international experts insist that neutral and efficient career guidance can only be guaranteed by a very high professional proficiency of the counsellors. In recent years qualification offers for trainers have huge differences in both quality and contents of training. The contribution illustrates, on the basis of international studies, the efforts to establish European standards of qualifications fo…
The DIE publishes recent research findings from empirical studies on the continuing education system and its educational institutions under the label "DIE Survey. Data and reports on continuing education". The publications are directed at stakeholders in education policy, practical continuing education, as well as national and international research. The volumes are published in loose sequence and provide transparency in the complex field of continuing education. Thus they provide an academical…
Educational training frameworks constitute an intervention in the context of strategies of the European Space for Lifelong Learning. It poses critical questions regarding the consistency of initiatives seeking to create transparency of activities, skills and qualifications in different fields of policy independently of one another.
The European survey of continuing vocational training in enterprises, CVTS, is a unique source of internationally comparable data. This report provides the first detailed comparative analyses of data from the third European survey of continuing vocational training in enterprises. It also includes a comprehensive evaluation of data quality from the European perspective to improve the survey. This publication is the result of a collective effort, with contributions from Cedefop colleagues Katja N…
Inter-organizational cooperation is understood as a possibility to react on the needs of low skilled adults through the conception of adequate offers. The conception and implementation of new second chance qualification offers that provide a vocational qualification for adults does not only require organizations in the educational system. Also further partners are needed to combine different services across system boundaries that correspond to the educational and to the economic system. The sys…
From the principle of the regulated occupation to the supremacy of certification: fields of conflict en route to the German qualifications framework (DQR) This article addresses the central difficulties observed in the search for consensus during the current development of a national German qualifications framework (Deutscher Qualifikationsrahmen, DQR). As well as the difficulty in blending in the German national “dual system” of vocational training with the EQF, the main difficulties identi…
The paper tackles the issue of procedures for the validation of competences, which are used in the tertiary education sector in order to evaluate an individual’s study ability on the basis of his/her vocational qualifications. This contested terrain will be explored by means of the University of Hamburg’s validation procedure (the so-called Eingangsprüfungsverfahren, §38 HmbHG). The focus of interest will be put on a qualitative reconstruction of individual decision-making processes during thes…
The rigid division between the three subsystems of continuing vocational training in Germany (continuing vocational training for employees, continuing vocational training for the unemployed, individual continuing vocational training) hinders the implementation of an integrated labour market and qualification policy. As a result an effective and efficient use of the financial means for training (combination of financing resources) is not possible.