Sandra Bohlinger

Qualifications Frameworks and Learning Outcomes: Challenges for Europe's Lifelong Learning Area.

Qualifications frameworks are political instruments that are supposed to facilitate the assessment of learning outcomes. They are hoped to be drivers for change since they are meant to provide the impetus for a number of fundamental reforms required in education and training systems. These considerations frame the design and implementation of coherent reforms, strategies and instruments. Thus, there are conceptual, political and procedural issues which are equally worthy of attention. Focusing on the European area, this paper addresses the question of whether the development of qualifications frameworks yields the anticipated benefits of the ‘shift to learning outcomes’. The aim of the contribution is to review previous experience with learning outcomes and its links with qualifications frameworks as well as to analyse the current trends and challenges within the European countries.

Working and Learning in Times of Uncertainty

Research on adult, professional and vocational education in a global world is timely (Farrell & Fenwick, 2007). Globalisation and economic crises are the trends that most dramatically transform ...

Comparing Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) across Countries

The core idea of RPL (Recognition of Prior Learning) is to promote, to make visible and to make full use of the entire scope of learning results and (work) experience gained by an individual over the lifespan and irrespective of where, when and how the learning took place. This contribution aims at reviewing, comparing and contrasting policies and practices of prior learning, its assessment and recognition across ten countries including Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. It starts with the emergence of RPL in the light of lifelong learning and a clarification of concepts and terms. It then turns on national RPL conditions and traditions in all ten countries with a particular focus on RPL procedures and assessment methods. The contribution ends with critically discussing main findings and developing recommendations for future research. Prior learning is an umbrella term for any kind of learning outcomes gained in various learning settings. Recognition of prior learning (RPL) refers to the process of identifying, assessing and recognising any learning results that were acquired by individuals in different learning contexts outside formal education and training systems. Its core idea is to promote, to make visible and to make full use of the entire scope of learning results and (work) experience gained by an individual over the lifespan and irrespective of where, when and how the learning took place.

Erfahrungsberichte von Betreuern

Jetzt lese ich schon die 100. Abschlussarbeit und immer wieder sehe ich die gleichen Fehler. Es beginnt schon mit Fehlern auf dem Deckblatt: Der Titel ist falsch geschrieben, mein Name auch schon wieder oder – kaum zu glauben – die Studierenden vergessen ihren eigenen Namen auf dem Deckblatt. Dann blattere ich zum Inhaltsverzeichnis und finde dort Fehler in der Gliederungssystematik. Wenn ich anschliesend die Einleitung lese, erwarte ich eine Zielsetzung. Diese fehlt oftmals oder ist nicht prazise formuliert. Und wenn ich dann noch wortliche Zitate ohne Quellenangabe finde, bin ich entsetzt daruber, dass der Studierende nicht gelernt hat, richtig wissenschaftlich zu arbeiten.

Education policy: Mapping the landscape and scope

This book maps recent developments in the landscape of education policy in higher and vocational education, the returns of education, curriculum design and education reforms, driven by social, economic, political and cultural factors. Contributed by over twenty authors from five continents, this collection provides diverse, innovative and useful perspectives on the ways education policy is researched, implemented and enacted. It helps researchers, policy makers, students and practitioners to better understand processes of policy making, its theory, practice and outcomes. Despite national differences, many shared features and challenges emerge from this book as education systems face the common need to reinvent their existing systems and processes.

Governing Vocational Education and Training in Europe

Since its founding on 18th April 1951 as the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Union has been pursuing three key objectives: peacebuilding, fostering social coherence and creating a common European economic area. It is this latter aspect in particular that has led to the repeated ‘discovery’ of vocational education and training (VET) as a policy area, promising, as it does, to qualify people for an occupation suited to their abilities and talents and thereby enabling them to participate in the labour market sustainably.