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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…
Recognition of informal professional competencies Learning in informal and non-formal contexts has not yet gained wide-spread political and social acceptance, documentation and certification. Due to its individual and contextual situation, informal learning can be recognized via learning results only. Professional competence, including both formal and informal learning strategies, will constitute the foundation for a comparative evaluation and certification of such competencies and abilities.
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…
Effects of continuing education tests Continuing education tests aim at improving transparency of the quality of programmes on offer and initiating processes to improve quality at providers of continuing education. But what has the impact of continuing education tests been to date? The authors present selected results of an evaluation study. From a demand perspective, continuing education has not been transparent since the introduction of educational testing in 2002, either. 54% of the popul…
Does law governing continuing education distinguish between general and vocational education? This article examines the question as to whether and in what manner applicable law governing continuing education in Germany distinguishes between general and continuing vocational education. The analysis of the historical line of development shows that this was definitely the case especially during the phase of the so-called “qualification campaign” in the 1970s and 1980s. In the present, on the ot…
Competence profile of the “specialist in violence” The changing requirements and roles of soldiers 50 years after the first military draft, this article explores the requirements and roles of German Army soldiers over the period 1957 to 2007. The changing competencies and skills required of soldiers must be understood in connection with the profound changes which the German Army has undergone in its transformation from a defence-oriented force to an army actively involved in military missions…
Justice and the right to continuing education Education opportunities are unfairly distributed. In the area, too, of continuing education there are disadvantaged groups of persons who especially have already suffered discrimination during their initial vocational education and training. The demand for equal opportunities which dates back to Aristotle and John Rawls implies that everyone who suffers as a result of insufficient or unsatisfactory results in their initial training should have a…
Im Mittelpunkt der Diskussion: Berufsberatung in der europäischen Union und Aussichten auf internationale Richtlinien Berufsberatung als Maßnahme steht erneut im Mittelpunkt der politischen Diskussion und ist als Schlüsselelement einer lebenslangen Lernstrategie wiedererkannt worden. Sie wird als Meilenstein in der Entwicklung einer auf Wissen fundierten Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft betrachtet und diskutiert. Eine derartige Anerkennung ist vom Europäischen Rat sowie von der OECD, der Weltban…
