Vocational Education and Training Research in the UK
Next week I am going to the European Conference on Education Research (ECER) taking place in Bolzano in Italy. I am talking in three sessions, one about changing identities in work, one on research around the use of technology in vocational education and training and the third on Vocational Education and Training research and innovation agendas in Europe.
The latter is an initiative by Monica Moso from the Bankia Foundation in Spain and is organised as a round table with researchers from Spain, UK, Germany and Switzerland.
I am reporting on the UK in response to three questions Monica has asked:
- Question 1: What is the characterisation of the country’s existing VET R&D?
- Question 2: What are the major contemporary challenges to the country’s existing VET R&D?
- Question 3: Is there a national policy or strategy for VET R&D? If not, an informal agenda? How is it?
In order to answer the questions Monica asked us to select and prioritise the main research areas in VET in each country. For the UK I prioritised the following areas:
- Economic development and VET
- Changing Labour market
- Apprenticeships/ internships/ workplace learning
- VET policy, organization and management
- The Salience of work
- Qualification research
- Careers
- VET teacher education and teacher behaviour
- Vocationalisation of higher education
- VET and Society
I noted that researchers in VET are drawn from a wide number fo different subject areas and attached to different university departments including:
- Anthropology
- Educational studies
- Educational sociology
- The study of higher education policy
- Sociology
- Psychology
- Industrial relations/human resource management/personnel management
- Economics
- Labour economics
- Geography
- History
- Politics and policy studies
- Gender studies
- Ethnic relations
- Continuing education
- Hotels, catering and leisure studies
- Management studies
- Engineering and manufacturing systems.
Monica asked us to characterise the state of VET research in our countries and to expand on the issues researchers face. This is my reply for the UK:
- Extreme fragmentation, with research located in a multiplicity of institutional and disciplinary settings
- Lack of stable funding / resources – funding from a very wide range of sources.
- Lack of central research networks / infrastructure / knowledge exchange mechanism
- Lack of reflexivity in the research / policy process, with a lack of a feedback loop between policy makers
- Dislocation between research, policy formation and implementation
- Ideology driven policy agendas
- Frequent changes in policies and lack of thorough evaluation of their impact
- Austerity and lack of funding in further education sector
- Poor or non existent data
I noted there is no national policy or strategy for VET rsearch and development in the UK. However, at present the government is funding a VET research unit based at the London School of Economics (CVER)
The priorities set for the LSE unit appear to reflect government priorities, namely:
- Describing the Further and Vocational Education landscape in England
- How does vocational education affect individual prosperity, firm productivity and profitability, and economic growth?
- How can the quantity of ‘high quality’ vocational education provision be improved?
- How do the costs and benefits of vocational education influence individuals’ participation decisions
These areas reflect the informal agenda set by the government which is largely ideologically driven.
Some VET research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council – e.g the LAKES project at the Institute of Education
There are a wide range of different sources of funding for VET research. These include:
- Foundations and trusts
- Government departments and agencies
- Political parties
- Trade Union Congress (TUC) and trade unions
- Confederation for British Industry and industry organisations
- Professional bodies
- Royal Society for the Arts
- Careers organisations
- Industry education bodes
- Local Economic partnerships
There is no central mechanism for deciding the knowledge needs of the VET system – nor for agreement between participants on the main problems. Whereas in some areas such as apprenticeship there is general consensus as to its importance the policy implementation is contested. Ultimately policy options are imposed by central government. At least in rhetoric, there is considerable reliance placed on the views of employers.
All in all it is a fairly depressing picture. Is there anything I have forgotten?
