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In February 2009, a national association of guidance practitioners and scientific experts, known as the German National Guidance Forum for Education, Career and Employment (nfb), presented a widely recognized key issues paper. The following report comments on the paper from the perspective of continuing education research with a special focus on the following issue: Will the structural improvement of continuing educational counselling lead to an increase of participation in adult education? Due…
This article sheds light on cooperation between different educational fields as seen from the point of view of experts in education. The authors present the initial findings from the group discussions of a DFG project which started recently. These findings cast doubt on whether cooperation can succeed when different occupational groups know so little about one another within and outside their educational sectors. It remains to be seen whether future data expected from the project confirms the c…
Looking at consultancy for European project work, the article reveals the common obstacles and success factors for cooperative ventures between adult education institutions as part of EU funding programmes. The author recommends paying particular attention to all the parties' interests to ensure there is joint ownership.
In the form of a review, the author outlines the history of how cooperation has been achieved and imposed in the field of continuing education. He distinguishes between cooperation as an intervention and as an exchange, and between proclamatory, hierarchical and participative cooperation. The structure of the network is presented as way to boost cooperation, and is studied to identify risks and key success factors.
Over the past few years, various institutional forms of learning centres have been developed. Of these, the “one-stop shop” is the most relevant to the form of cooperation. Here, information, education and advice are all provided at one spot. Management models, structures and the effects of cooperation are elaborated based on this form of cooperation.
In the field of economic innovation research, “clusters” (geographical concentrations of related companies) are of great importance due to their extreme productivity and innovation. Seen from the perspective of this type of innovation research, this article presents possible mechanisms which could stand in the path of regional cooperation. Geographical proximity is not enough to spark successful cooperation. The article identifies indifference as a central hurdle on the path to regional coopera…
Educational institutes have always been seen as needing to cooperate: this idea first took shape in education acts and is now increasingly being applied to lifelong learning. In practice, however, there are many arguments against cooperation at institutes of continuing education, not least as it can create unwanted situations of rivalry among the cooperating institutes. To develop models which will help guide schools on issues of cooperation better, further research is required: What advantage…
