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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…
This assumption does not seem plausible at first glance, but rather absurd instead. The regular manifestation of modern age as a knowledge-based society on the one hand as well as the consensual acceptance of the appeal for lifelong learning on the other hand, create the opposite of an image in which the pedagogical aspect of continuing education has been lost. The author argues that learners are increasingly left unsupported, lifelong learning has become more fiction than reality and continui…
This contribution summarizes the most important trends in further education in Germany as they were elaborated in a secondary analytic research project of the DIE (Deutsches Institut für Erwachsenbildung – German Institute for Adult Education) in 2007. According to the study, participation in adult education in Germany is increasing after long years of decrease, even though, overall, financing of adult education has been further reduced. Cooperation as well as competition between adult educatio…
In the context of lifelong learning, the validation of prior learning has become a contested topic. Views differ about whether procedures should be oriented to (work) requirements – verifying that people match a defined competence profile – or be designed to support people in their personal development. In the latter case, the procedures mainly involve self-evaluation while in the first case they are concerned with external evaluation. In this paper a validation procedure is analysed that inclu…
Strategies for the strengthening of networking work Selected results from the context of the programme of the Federal Ministry for Education and Research “Learning culture and competency development” A large number of publications on the subject matter of network are engaged with the conditions of the initiation as well as the management of networks. An issue that has so far been neglected in research however poses the question of the strengthening of networking work. The initiation of netw…
The article describes the project „Deutscher Bildungsserver“ which is working as a meta-server to supply users with an information system of relevant data in the field of education, adult and further education. The internet is offering big quantities of information and the chance to build up complex documents. Both make it more difficult to select and evaluate information. The „Deutscher Bildungsserver“ incorporates information critically bringing it into an order making it easier for users to …
Theme networks and the systematic generation of the new A systematization using the example of the learning regions Meta structures in the form of content orientated “topic net groups” offers a possibility for communication and exchange between the regional projects in the program “Learning Regions – Providing Support for Networks”. Thereby they build a field of communication in which practice problems and their solutions appear and therefore they can be brought to discussion. Thus topic n…
The area of further teacher education is rarely explored in the German-speaking countries. The few existing studies primarily show one problem: The transfer of contents of further teacher education into lessons seems to be very difficult (transfer problem). Based on these findings, this research project deals with the question how effective vocational schools in the Canton of Zurich organise and implement their school-intern further teacher education. For this purpose the teaching staff of six …
Biography and Education Biographical aspects are coming increasingly under the focus of teaching-learning and educational research in the context of international comparative studies and the debate over self-organised and self-guided learning. Different theoretical approaches are selected and current empirical findings in the area of biographical research are presented in this issue in order to shed light on the interrelationship between education and biography.
Regulations relating to training release (training leave) now exist in eight EU states. Where they exist, insufficient transparency and counselling, resistance in companies and fear for jobs have been ascertained in those eligible. There is frequently a lack of political will to make training release more effective for lifelong learning. In a Socrates project (1998–2000) with partners from Belgium, France, Italy and Germany the question of whether training release can be a strategy for the pr…
