Vocational education and training - VET

Recent trends in ICTs and TVET put emphasis on the innovation strategy for education and training. Attention is given to skills and needs used by modern firms, working population, and also in arts and science education. In TVET there is a tendency to highlight the “learning by doing” approach. Today, managing work in which responsibilities have been distributed to a high degree among the network of workers is a major challenge. Communication between employees and their managers may be based only on virtual contacts. As a consequence, the demand for TVET is increasing, and education and learning are adopting new forms. The challenges of vocational education are quite similar in countries that vary widely in their current economic level of development. Entrepreneurship, which is closely connected with ICTs, is a very important factor in both the global and local economies.

Although apprentices enjoy a smooth transition from school to work and effectively help to reduce youth unemployment, many employers are reluctant to provide training places because of the fear of uncovered training costs. Recent empirical evidence shows clearly that – for many firms – this fear is not justified, as apprenticeship training can already pay off in the short run.
http://www.eenee.de/portal/page/portal/EENEEContent/_IMPORT_TELECENTRUM/DOCS/PolicyBrief3-2012.pdf

With the rising clout of a number of emerging-market economies (like India and China), Canada will need to continuously develop new sources of comparative advantage, deeply rooted in the quality of its workforce.
Equipping young people with the skills and knowledge to successfully transition and integrate into the labour market will help them reach their full potential and will ensure Canada’s economy remains competitive in the years to come.
http://www.chamber.ca/images/uploads/Reports/2012/201202YouthUnemployment.pdf

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are no strangers to the delivery of online content (e.g. Open Educational Resources, Virtual Learning Environments) but MOOCs have captured the press and public’s interest in a way that few initiatives have in the past and as such have attracted extremes of both praise and skepticism. It is this paper’s aim to provide an overview of the history and types of MOOCs, their global
scope, and the associated risks and benefits of their use.
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002238/223896e.pdf

Public policies supporting learning and employment for young people differ across countries according to institutional attributes, principally the locus and content of upper-secondary education. This brief emphasises that, while particular types of intervention are used in all countries, what works and the time profile of benefits differ markedly across countries.
http://www.eenee.de/portal/page/portal/EENEEContent/_IMPORT_TELECENTRUM/DOCS/PolicyBrief4-2012.pdf