With my recent blogs I have been wrapping up my experiences on the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER 2019) that took place earlier this week in Hamburg, Germany. The first post focused on the Opening session of the VETNET network (including background information on VETNET and other networks). The second post focused on the sessions that discussed the ongoing TACCLE projects (in which I and my colleagues are working). The third post focused on presentations that have an immdeiate relevance for the TACCLE project. In this fourth post I try to give insights into recent developments in the VETNET network.

Organisational consolidation of the VETNET network

As I have already mentioned in my first post, the ECER conferences are organised by the European Educational Research Association (EERA). EERA was founded in 1994 as the European umbrella organisation of national associations for educational research. Whilst the representatives of the national associations are in charge of the management, the development of the conference programs is the matter of networks. EERA has currently 32 thematic networks (and the Emerging Researchers Group) that each prepare and run a network program in the annual ECER conference.

The VETNET network is one of the oldest and largest networks and it has from the very beginning had an identity of its own kind. It has brought together researchers who focus on vocational education and training (VET) and who may have somewhat different academic backgrounds. However, there has been a strong commitment to develop a European research community that is open for interested colleagues outside Europe. In this respect VETNET started to shape organisational structures and develop common procedures at an early stage. By the year 2000 it got an elected network board that was working on the basis of jointly approved regulations. Parallel to this the network consolidated the pattern of double-blind peer reviews of conference proposals. By 2004 it got its first pilot website to present the conference program and the contributions.

During the years of growth the issue of membership had been kept open. The liberal interpretation was that all who participated in the VETNET program were also invited to participate in the VETNET assembly as members. By the time that the VETNET activities beyond the ECER conference started to get more standing (see below) this was too ambiguous. Therefore a task force led by Johanna Lasonen – together with the link convenors Barbara Stalder and Christof Nägele – prepared new regulations. These were then matched with the guidelines that EERA prepared and presented at the VETNET assembly. Based on the new regulations, a new VETNET board will be elected in ECER 2020.

International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training (IJRVET) and the Vetnetsite

From the year 2000 on VETNET has had the intention to set up a journal for European and international VET research. At that time a working group was negotiating with a commercial publisher. After a period of latency (due to organisational rearrangements on the publishers’ side) the first initiative led to creation of a journal without VETNET involvement. Few years later the idea was brought back to discussion – now with the intention to set up Open Access journal using an appropriate platform. By ECER 2013 the concept was prepared to maturity and by ECER 2014 the first issue was published. Here it is worthwhile to note that the journal was launched as an international journal (and it reached a wider international support). During the years after, the journal has been published on regular basis, its status has been acknowledged and it is being used as the organ of VETNET. A special step forward was taken when the articles of the years 2017 and 2018 were made available as the respective IJRVET Yearbooks.

Parallel to this, the earlier pilot websites for publicising the VETNET conference program and sharing the presentations have been replaced by the current Vetnetsite.

Conferences, interim conferences and proceedings

Alongside the founding of ht IJRVET the VETNET network has made progress with interim conferences and with publishing the conference proceedings. At an earlier stage, during the preparation for ECER 1999 the VETNET program chair Johanna Lasonen managed to get the conference papers in time and published a hard copy proceedings publication by the conference. In the subsequent conferences this was not achieved. An interim solution was the collection of papers and/or powerpoint presentations to the VETNET website or to a separate proceedings page provided by Sabine Manning on her Wifogate website. During the recent years the link convenors Christof Nägele and Barbara Stalder have introduced the process of preparing and editing the annual proceedings by the conference.

Parallel to this development the VETNET network has got a settlement with two regular ‘interim conferences’. Stockholm University has had quite some time a tradition of annual cruise conference in May. Another conference tradition emerged when the University of Bremen (2015) and the University of Rostock (2017) organised international VET research conferences shortly before ECER with the theme “Crossing boundaries in VET research”. In 2017 an agreement was reached to organise these conferences every two year in May. Thus, in May 2018 we had the Stockholm conference, whilst in May 2019 we had the “Crossing boundaries” conference in Valencia. And the most important is that the proceedings of these conferences have been prepared by the conference. With the Stockholm conferences the production of book publications has taken place after the conferences.

Higher standing of VETNET network as a European expert network

Alongside these developments the VETNET has gained a higher standing as a European expert network in the field of VET. In particular this has become manifest in the cooperation of the European Commission and in the role that VETNET has got in preparing the European Skills Week. Since 2015 VETNET has been invited to organise a research-related workshop. Also, VETNET has had the task to prepare the nomination for European VET research award in the context of European Skills Week. Taken as such, these have been small steps, but they have also paved the way for proactive discussions on the future European funding programs. In this respect the VETNET board has organised in the recent years round table discussions on European VET research agenda to raise awareness and to strengthen the profile of our research community.

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I think this is enough of the developments in the VETNET network. In my final post I will reflect the debates on European VET research that we have had at different phases of the community development.

More blogs to come …

I started a series of blog posts by mentioning that we celebrated the Europe-Day on Thursday, the 9th of May, here in Bremen. Then, In my first post I explained the background of the Europe-Day and then reflected on two periods of my career as a European researcher in vocational education and training (VET). In my second post I reflected on my encounters with expatriate communities and/or European initiatives in Thessaloniki (1995-2002) and Bremen (from 2005 on). Now it is time to get back to the celebration of the Europe-Day. Below I have selected some photos of the Europa-Fete at the central sqare (Marktplaz) of Bremen, surrounded by the old City Hall (Rathaus), the new City hall (Bürgerschaft), the churches and old buildungs.

Here the stage for performers (in front of the new City hall, to the left the St. Pete’s Cathedral)

Here cheerful and active expatriate Finns and Finland-friends with a Finnish flag …

… but representing the Bremen Lapland-initiative that focuses mainly on the Sami people on Russian territory.

And last but not least: The stand of the “Pulse of Europe” movement that has been active during the last few years. It has kept our European spirits up whatever has happened in the European politics.

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I guess this is enough of this reporting. The next Pulse of Europe event will start in two hours. I need to get there in good time. But I will keep the European themes up while working and learning for Europe.

More blogs to come ...

With my four previous posts I have shaped a series of blogs on the European Conference of Educational Research (ECER 2018) that took place last week in Bolzano/Bozen. In the first post I reported on the pilot with  ePosters powered by the digital toolset Learning Toolbox (LTB). In the second post I gave an overview on my own contributions – on the research background of the LTB and on ‘transfer of innovation’ issues in recent and earlier innovation projects. In the third post I reported on the Opening Session of our VETNET network (European Vocational Education and Training Research Network) and on some contributions of our Italian colleagues. In the  fourth post I give insights into some of the VETNET sessions that I had attended as a participant.With this fifth – and concluding – post I will focus on the VETNET network and its general assembly.

Successful preparation – successful participation

The convenors of the VETNET network – Christof Nägele and Barbara Stalder – had a pleasant duty to report on the preparation of the VETNET program and how it was put into practice. Once again we had clearly over 100 proposals and despite some withdrawals we remained among the biggest EERA networks. For the convenors the high number provided a challenge – not to end up with four parallel sessions in the same time slot. They managed it – although packing sometimes four presentations into one session. But this seemed to work fine. Also, when distributing the session chair duties, they took a new approach – in each session the last presenter was appointed as the chair. In this way the chairing duties were distributed more widely – not only to the board members. And in this way also the last presenters got their fair share of the time. Finally, the organisation of the VETNET dinner – with a record participation – was praised widely.

ECER VETNET Proceedings 2018

One of the remarkable achievements of the convenors was that they managed to produce proper proceedings – as an online version and as a book that is printed on demand:

Nägele, C., & Stalder, B. E. (Eds.) (2018). Trends in vocational education and training research. Proceedings of the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Vocational Education and Training Network (VETNET).https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1319718

The VETNET pilot with ePosters

This year VETNET had a specific pilot activity with ePosters powered by the Learning Toolbox (LTB). Together with Christof Nägele I initiated firstly an EERA event for presenting this approach and then an EERA-funded Network project that enabled us to organise an interactive poster session with six authors who had prepared their ePosters (see my first post of this series). In the VETNET assembly I was pleased to report that this pilot activity had been a successful one. The sessions had good numbers of participants, the technology worked well and the mini-poster wall enabled further discussions after the sessions. And the EERA showcase and the instruction page are available for further use.

IJRVET – our journal is getting stronger

Michael Gessler, the editor-in-chief of the IJRVET (International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training) reported on the development of journal, Now that the IJRVET  has already reached its fifth volume, we can be happy that it has taken its place as a major journal in our field. during the last year we were happy that Cinterfor – the ILO unit for promoting training in Central and South America – started supporting the IJRVET.  Also, we were pleased to have the journal articles as the IJRVET Yearbook – printed on demand.

Crossing Boundaries in VET – the Spring 2019 Conference in Valencia

Last year we reached an agreement on scheduling two other conferences so that they are not clashing with each other or with the ECER. According to this agreement the “Crossing Boundaries …” conference and the Stockholm International VET Conference will be organised every two years. Thus, the next “Crossing Boundaries …” conference will be organised in May 2019 in Valencia (and the next Stockholm conference in May 2020). The call for papers for the Valencia conference was closed already at the end of May this year. On behalf of the organisers Fernando Marhuenda gave an interim report on the preparation. They were happy about the good number of proposals. Yet, as a consequence, the selection process had taken more time. However, the results will be communicated by the end of September. Here also the organisers are preparing the proceedings to be distributed before/at the event.

The European Skills Week

From the year 2016 on the VETNET network has been supporting the European Commission in organising research-related events in the context of the European Skills Week. In addition to a research work there has been a competition to award distinguished European researchers and successful European projects. This tradition will be continued and the information on the forthcoming event in Vienna will be published soon.

Celebrating the new VETNET Network Honorary Member Johanna Lasonen

Last year the VETNET general assembly had nominated Johanna Lasonen for VETNET Honorary Membership. In April this year the EERA Council confirmed her status and published this on the EERA website. Now the VETNET network was in the position to celebrate her. In his laudatio speech Michael Gessler paid attention to the long career of Johanna as an active member – starting from the founding process and including over 20 years service as a reviewer. Moreover, Michael listed all the new things that Johanna brought into the conference culture of VETNET when she was the first ‘local’ program chair in 1999 – the VETNET opening session with keynote speakers, the VETNET proceedings (published by the conference), the VETNET dinner (sponsored by Lahti Polytechnic) and the VETNET study visits to vocational schools and enterprises. Also, Michael referred to Johanna’s role in supporting the IJRVET in many ways. And finally, Michael gave insights into Johanna’s long career in the International Vocational Education and Training Association (IVETA) as the European Vice-President, as the President Elect, as the President and as the Immediate Past President. These duties required sometimes bold actions and firm leadership, as the examples tha Michael mentioned made us aware.

Johanna thanked the network and the EERA Council for the honour and paid tribute to other team players as board members and convenors with whom she had worked. With this celebration we were happy to take the course to the next ECER 2019 that will be hosted by Hamburg.

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I think this is enough of the VETNET meeting and of the reporting on ECER 2018 altogether. This major conference was a good experience and now it is time to continue with the daily work.

More blogs to come …

Couple of days ago we received the sad news from Blacksburg, Virgina: Curtis Finch, the American scholar with whom we have worked in the European VETNET network, had passed away. To those, who new Curtis more closely, this was not a surprise. He had been suffering from a severe illness for quite a long time. Yet, when the final message came, then we felt the loss – Curtis was a unique personality and we will miss him.

When looking back, I remember that I first time met Curtis at the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) in the year 1996 in Sevilla, Spain. That was the pioneering conference in which the scattered European researchers in the field of vocational education and training (VET) came together to set up a common research network under the umbrella of the European Educational Research Association (EERA). Curtis, a prominent American professor from the Virginia Tech and State University, was also there with us. He had already created his European networks and was happy to come to Sevilla to contribute to a symposium on School-to-work transition in different countries. And Curtis was also there, when Martin Mulder invited an open meeting in which the researchers agreed to set up the VETNET network (as the Network 2 of the EERA).

Later on I heard that Curtis had shared his experiences on the regulations and working patterns of the special interest groups (SIGs) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) with his European colleagues. In this way he had already positioned himself as an active supporter of the newly created network. Consequently, he was invited to work in the first VETNET Board, which he gladly accepted. Parallel to this, Curtis was actively involved also in the global organisation International Vocational Education and Training Association (IVETA). So, it is no coincidence that the papers of the above mentioned ECER symposium were published as a special issue of the IVETA journal. This happened long before the VETNET network could reach the point of publishing its own proceedings or launching its own journal.

During the 1990s Curtis was actively there in our conferences and fulfilled his duties in a quiet and effective way. At that time I worked at Cedefop (the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training) with an emphasis on supporting European cooperation projects and ‘networking the networks’. Therefore, I could not always follow that closely what Curtis was up to. But whenever I met him, it was a positive encounter – whether on our European grounds or far away in Hong Kong (the IVETA world congress 2000).

The latest European cooperation initiative in which I remember that Curtis played a central role was a comparative study on the upgrading of Polytechnics into Universities of Applied sciences. Curtis, who himself had a vocational and professional background, was interested to find out, whether these aspects are going hand in hand or getting separated. In this initiative in which he worked in 1999 – 2000 he was comparing the developments in the United States, in Scotland, in the Netherlands and in Finland. (Unfortunately the years 2001 and 2002 were gap years in my participation in ECER, so I am not aware, how the initiative worked further.)

After those years Curtis had gone to retirement and was no longer participating in ECER. But, as I see it now, he was a role model for the non-European scholars who were interested in knowledge sharing on research and development in the field of VET. And his example has been followed by many colleagues from different global regions. Today we see that this has borne fruit in the VETNET network and in the International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training (IJRVET). Although Curtis couldn’t witness these latest developments with us, I am sure that he would have enjoyed the progress we have made.

Farewell Curtis, your memory lives with us!

Dear readers, let me first wish you all a happy and successful working year 2017!

And having said that, I can share with you a great piece of news. Already before the ITB office building was opened to start the new working year, our professor Michael Gessler had a great message to us: The brand new IJRVET Yearbook is available as an online version and as a print version. Now, for the European and international research communities in the field of vocational education and training (VET) this is such great achievement that it merits to be discussed in a specific blog post. So, I will start my working year with this topic already before I have come to my office.

The early initiatives to create an international journal for research in VET

As I remember it, the idea to set up a genuinely international research journal in the field of VET was brought to the agenda of the board of the European VETNET network in the year 2000. There had already been a predecessor initiative (independently of VETNET) that had been turned down by a commercial publisher. In the next phase the original initiator and the VETNET board joined forces and approached another publisher, who reacted positively. Thus, in the VETNET assembly in the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) 2004 in Rethymnon, Crete, we had an optimistic report from the working group that was preparing the initiative. Also, we had a representative of the publisher attending the conference and observing our work. Everything seemed to work into a good direction.

However, several intervening factors brought the initiative to a different direction. The publisher that VETNET had contacted was merged to a larger publishing house, and that put our initiative on hold. Secondly, disagreements emerged within the working group, and the original initiator left the working group of VETNET and started to promote the initiative independently of VETNET. This led to a creation of a new journal but with different characteristics than we had expected.

This led to a period of latency and reorientation, bridged by a feasibility study that identified several hurdles regarding the relaunching of the journal initiative. Luckily enough, the VETNET board did not give up. By the year2 2013/2014 several things came together that encouraged new start:

• There was more know-how in the VETNET board to set up the editing procedures for an open access online journal independently of publishing houses.
• There were advanced open source online services to support the publishing of such journals.
• The scientific communities were ready to recognise publishing in such journals as academic merits and the global databases were ready to index them.
• Whilst the European VETNET network had already long ago become consolidated as ‘the’ umbrella network for European VET research, a parallel network initiative (IRNVET) had been launched under the auspices of the World Educational Research Association (WERA) to bring together a wider international VET research community.

The launch of the IJRVET  (2014) and the emergence of the support activities

In the light of the above and given the hard preparatory work between ECER 2013 and ECER 2014, the VETNET General Assembly at ECER 2014 in Porto, Portugal, was happy to make the decision to launch the new journal as “International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training (IJRVET)”. It was accepted as the official organ of the VETNET and IRNVET networks and it had a rather strong backing in Europe and in other global regions. By the end of the year 2014, two regular issues were published and from that point on three regular issues and eventual special issues.In 2015 we had a special issue on ‘Vocational didactics’ and in 2017 on ‘Returning to VET’

In the course of the years the IJRVET has become increasingly attractive also to authors working outside Europe and we have been able to share information and research contribution from practically all global regions. Among these highlights we can include the fact that IJRVET is now fully integrated and indexed in CNKI (Headquarter: Bejing), AIRITI (Headquarter: Taipeh) and ERIC (Headquarter: Washington). Furthermore, IJRVET has  established cooperation  with the ILO (International Labour Organization) and its regional agency Cinterfor (Centro Interamericano para el Desarrollo del Conocimiento en la Formación Profesional). (See more at http://www.ijrvet.net and at the IJRVET-related updates on the Vetnetsite of the VETNET network.

Shortly afterwards new arrangements could be made that the production of the journal could be supported by several conferences, in addition to the annual ECER and its VETNET programme. From 2015 on a biennial conference tradition was started with the theme “Crossing boundaries in VET research” in Bremen and continued in Rostock in 2017. At the VETNET General Assembly  at ECER 2017 in Copenhagen the VETNET Board could inform of a new working agreement that these conferences will be scheduled for Spring months and that they will rotate with the Baltic Sea cruise conferences hosted by the Stockholm university. In 2019 the ‘Crossing boundaries’ conference will take place in Valencia, Spain (the call for papers will be published in a short while). In this way the conferences that are supporting the IJRVET will not clash with each other but complement each other. More information on these conferences and on their proceedings also on the Vetnetsite.org and on the IRNVET/VETNET  ‘project space’ on the research portal ResearchGate.

The idea of the IJRVET Yearbook

After all the progress that had been achieved so far, the editorial team of the IJRVET had the feeling that something was missing. Indeed, one should appreciate the fact that there was the online journal that was appearing regularly and that readers had an open access to the archives of previous issues. Also, the proceedings of the conferences were available via Vetnetsite and ResearchGate. Yet, there was a need to get an overview on the progress with the journal. And the solution for that was the annual yearbook. Here again, the services were available for producing such a yearbook independently of publishing houses, either as printed publication via Amazon (see Vetnetsite) or downloaded via ResearchGate.

So, in a relatively short time the IJRVET and the supporting European and international VET research communities have taken major steps forward. We are looking forward to further steps during the year 2018 and from that year on.

More blogs to come …

With my previous posts I started to write a serious of blogs with the heading “My journey with Institut Technik & Bildung (ITB)”. These blogs are intended to support the work (or follow-up) of the ITB “Klausurtagung” that will take place on Friday 9. December 2016.  The inspiration to write personal blogs that deal with the history of ITB comes from the Klausurtagung 2015. With this series I try to compensate my absence due to health issues and to pass a message, wah has happened at different times and with different themes. In the first post I tried to cover my first encounters –  my study visit in 1989 and participation in the Hochschultage Berufliche Bildung 1990 conference. In the second post I gave insights into the Modellversuch Schwarze Pumpe and to related European cooperation projects 1995 – 1999. In this post I will discuss the Europrof and the further work with its core ideas towards the Unesco International TVET meeting in Hangzhou 2004 and its follow-up.

The Europrof project 1996-1998: Training of new VET professionals

In my first post of this series I referred to my talks on the regional pilot project of ITB on the theme “Qualifizierung der Berufspädagogen für alle Lerorten”.  Whilst that one was a small-scale pilot, it expressed the idea to overcome the divisions between vocational education and training (VET) professionals – vocational subject teachers, in-company trainers and training managers – with an integrative concept. This idea was taken further by the ITB initiative to launch a European cooperation project that seeks to cross the accustomed boundaries and outline a new European framework.

In this spirit the Europrof project launched a new debate on the education of VET professionals. The main aim was to to overcome the cultural barriers between expertise in VET (teaching-learning processes) and in HRD (workplace-based learning and continuing professional development). At the same time the project tried to support debates on the renewal of vocational teacher education and on the strengthening of European research culture in the field of VET.

Regarding the contribution of the Europrof project to Europe-wide knowledge development it is worthwhile to note that the project brought together participants that had different views and orientations on the theme “education of new VET professionals”. In this respect the project managed to organise a Europe-wide “invisible college” in terms of a cross-cultural learning community. However, after the development of the “cornerstones” (and after the incorporation of the research themes of the affiliated experts) the project started to experience difficulties in working towards a common core structure for curriculum development that would take the debate further from the ‘cornerstones’ and from the attached research themes. Therefore, the Europrof project completed its work with a gallery of country studies and of supporting research themes.

The project history of Europrof was characterised by an attempt to avoid the transition of the partners into advocates of their national educational models (and of related VET cultures). Therefore, the Europrof project tried to reduce the amount of comparative analyses and to push the partners towards collaborative research & development work. However, after certain interim workshops the project was no longer able to promote a common change agenda, since the national partners could not show indications of changes in their national contexts. Instead, the project was concluded with reports on supporting research themes.

The Euroframe project 1999-2000: Partition of the follow-up agenda

The multiplier-effect project Euroframe tried to avoid pursuing an over-ambitious agenda by dividing its work into two parallel strands of work (taking into account different priorities in the participating countries).  The two strands referred to different educational concepts and target groups (and corresponding models of European cooperation):

• The more ‘academic’ strand developed as proposal for a European inter-university institute with a mission to promote VET-related research and research-based expertise in educationa and training of VET professional.
• a set of case studies on research & development activities that could link the work of such an institute to pilot projects and regional initiatives with a broader social context.

However, the two strands became independent of each other and the underlying conceptual approaches started to grow apart from each other instead of working towards a cohesive framework.

As a consequence of the differentiation of the project dynamics, the case studies were not in the position to give a clear illustration how the common framework (and the related inter-university institute) could support the developmental activities (that were linking the issue ‘continuing professional development’ to broader social and regional contexts). Thus, the project histories revealed the need for bridging concepts and methodologies that could link such strands to each other on the basis of ‘coherent diversity’ and ‘mutual enrichment.

The new start with the UNESCO-UNEVOC centre – the Hamburg workshop (September 2004)

Whilst the follow-up at the European level fell for some time to latency, ITB had in the meantime created contacts with the newly established UNESCO-UNEVOC centre (now based in Bonn). This cooperation had already led to joint publication projects – a new book series on international reference publications on TVET development and TVET research (in the UNESCO terminology the overarching concept is ‘technical and vocational education and training’ – TVET). In this context the issue of developing an international agenda for supporting TVET teacher education and for promoting TVET research. Also, at that time ITB was also involved in a major European consortium that provided an interim assessment on European VET policies after the EU-summit in Lisbon 2000  – prepared to the meeting of Education miniters in Maastricht 2004 (Leney, T. et al. 2004: Achieving the Lisbon goal: The contribution of VET. Final report to the European Commission. Brussels.). In this report the contribution of ITB (Philipp Grollmann) was the analysis of European developments in vocational teacher education and training of VET professionals.

The main international initiative – promoted by Felix Rauner from ITB and director Rupert MacLean from UNESCO-UNEVOC centre – was taken further with Chinese counterparts and supported with a preparatory conference in China (Spring 2004). In Europe a similar preparatory event was organised in collaboration with the European research network VETNET as an international workshop of the GTW-Herbstkonferenz in Hamburg 2004. This workshop discussed firstly policy-analyses with reference to Lisbon summit and to the above mentioned Maastricht-study. Then it explored the situation of TVET teacher education and current initiatives in the participating countries (including Germany, Norway, Finland, Hungary and Greece). In this way the Hamburg workshop prepared the grounds for the forthcoming international event and for European follow-up activities.

The UNESCO International TVET meeting in Hangzhou (November 2004)

This UNESCO International TVET meeting in Hangzhou had the theme “Innovation and excellence in TVET teacher education”. It was organised jointly by the Chinese UNESCO-commission, the UNESCO-UNEVOC centre and the Asian UNESCO-offices. The participants represented all major global regions. In particular it is worthwhile to note that Asian and European countries were widely represented.

The main thrust of the conference was to analyse current needs for TVET-related expertise, to prepare a common curricular framework for Master-level programmes, to reflect upon the progression strategies related to short-cycle models and to outline a common approach for promoting professionalisation and quality awareness. In the light of these tasks, the shaping of the common curricular framework became the crucial task. In this respect the working document on the curricular framework was presented for general acceptance and put forward as the “Hangzhou framework”.

Concerning the initial starting points of the discussion it is worthwhile to note the following points:

• The document took professional areas of specialisation (”vocational disciplines”) as core structures for pedagogic and professional knowledge development in the field of TVET. Thus, the document distanced itself from approaches that would consider general educational sciences or subject-disciplines as the leading disciplines within the development of TVET.
• The document had used a very limited number of exemplary vocational fields of specialisation (’vocational disciplines’) to make the general picture transparent. In this respect the document did not contain a comprehensive catalogue of possible fields of specialisation.
• The document did not discuss in detail the role of transversal and connective pedagogic aspects as a support for the kind of learning and knowledge development that is based on professional areas of specialisation (‘vocational disciplines’). However, in this context it is worthwhile to note that such integrative know-how is of vital importance for bringing the field-specific vocational disciplines under a common framework.

The working group took the approach based on professional areas of specialisation (’vocational disciplines’) as its common starting point. Thus, the discussion tried to find the best composition of such professional areas to make the framework comprehensive and transparent. In this respect the group tried to identify professional areas (or clusters of areas) that can be considered as mutually supporting in the education of TVET professionals and as a basis for the scientific development of ’vocational disciplines’. In this context it became apparent that it is not possible to include several professional areas into an international framework because some areas appear in different clusters in different global regions.

Concluding remarks

The event in Hangzhou was the peak point but at the same time the turning point. It was easy to agree on a common declaration but far more difficult to organise a follow-up and to proceed to implementation. There were two ‘regional’ follow-up conferences in Asia (Tiensin 2005 and Colombo 2006) and one in Europe (Oslo/Lilleström 2006) but no major steps could be taken forward as joint actions. At best a follow-up agenda could be outlined in the ITB-led Asia-Link project TT-TVET project 2006 – 2009, but also in the project the agendas for promoting TVET teacher education moved from common core principles to pragmatic steps forward in each participating country.

In this context it is worthwhile to note that my role changed considerably at different phases of this process history. During the work of Europrof and Euroframe projects I was employed as a project manager of Cedefop (European Centre for Development of Vocational Training) and accompanied the work of these projects. During the Hamburg workshop and the international Hangzhou meeting I was employed by Jyväskylä Polytechnic, but I was already acknowldged as Visiting Fellow (Gastwissenschaftler) of ITB. In the follow-up phase (from Summer 2005 on) I had started working as a project-based researcher in ITB.

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I think this is enough of the development of this theme from the Europrof project to the Hangzhou framework. Whilst the follow-up in the European context died out rather soon, it provided a basis for other  activities regarding professional development of VET teachers and trainers in Europe.

More blogs to come …

On Friday the Bremen team of our EU-funded Learning Layers (LL) project had an interesting encounter with international visitors. A delegation of the Singapore Workforce Development Agency with altogether 14 participants (from the agency, from the Ministry of Manpower and from partner organisations) visited Bremen. This delegation was making a wider European tour, coming from Finland and heading to the Netherlands. In this context it is interesting that they chose Bremen and the Learning Layers project as their main target during their stay in Germany.

Ludger Deitmer had arranged the delegation firstly a visit to the Bremen Chamber of Commerce (Handelskammer) to have an introductory discussion on the German Vocational and Education and Training (VET) system and on the role of Public Authorities, Chambers and Social Partners in maintaining and developing it. Secondly, we had hoped to take them to a visit in Bau-ABC Rostrup to show, how the training in an intermediate training centre works in practice (and how our cooperation with application partners works in practice). This, unfortunately was not possible, so we arranged sessions for information and exchanges in the ITB building at the University of Bremen.

Presentation of the Learning Layers project and the Learning Toolbox

In the information session I firstly showed a Power Point presentation that was based on our recent conference presentations. I also showed some videos on Bau-ABC and some produced by Bau-ABC trainers for the project. Thus, the visitors got an impression of a complex European project in which use of digital media, web tools and mobile technologies is being promoted to support occupational work and workplace-based learning. Also, they understood that the target sectors (construction and healthcare) were seen as ones, in which SMEs have difficulties in introducing the new technologies for these purposes. Therefore, the project was not a mere ‘technology push’ project but an interactive intervention research to empower the users in a participative co-design process that responds to their needs.

I then showed slides that illustrated to co-design process and the emergence of the Learning Toolbox (LTB) and the ideas, what kind of functionality was needed. In this context we showed a video on possible uses of LTB in construction work. Then, I presented slides on the multimedia training (provided by the project) and the further plans of Bau-ABC trainers to develop a flexible training model for all staff members (the ‘theme room’ approach). In this way the visitors got the picture, how our application partners are working to become owners of the innovation.

After the power point presentation Dirk Stieglitz started an internet demonstration that showed, how the Learning Toolbox can be co-developed by the users by designing tiles, pages and stacks (for managing contents, web resources and communications). In this phase we could present as examples the recent results of our field visit to Bau-ABC and the new stacks created with and by Bau-ABC trainers – to support training and learning processes.

Exchanges between Germany and Singapore: apprenticeship, continuing training and partnerships

After this tightly scheduled information session (in a room with facilities) we had a break and continued with an exchange session (without time pressure and with mutual interest to learn from each other).

Our visitors informed us of the VET system in Singapore, on the role of public authorities, of their agency and of public-private partnerships as well as private-private partnerships. We learned that in Singapore the key instrument for developing VET and continuing training is not seen in regulations but in the financing of training (e.g. via vouchers and other arrangements). From this point of view the visitors were keen to learn more on the the German dual system, on the partnership arrangements and on the commitment of enterprises to training.

As a response to these interests we presented insights into the underlying philosophy of vocations (Berufe) , vocational professionalism (Beruflichkeit), vocational education (Berufsbildung) and vocational education and training (Berufsausbildung) as these concepts have been internalised in the German culture – and pointed out to the difficulties to translate these into English. We were happy to see that our well-informed visitors could follow this reasoning and indicated that they now understood better the written information they have had before.

In addition to this conceptual exchange we presented more examples on education and training partnerships between educational establishments and enterprises. In particular they were interested in the examples of ‘dual studies’ – combinations of higher education and VET with synchronised educational periods and workplace periods for both qualifications. In our discussions we presented examples of such models from ICT sector and from construction sector (with Bau-ABC as a partner).

Altogether, we had a vivid discussion both concerning the development of VET (and on the role of policies) and concerning the potential of LL technologies and LTB. In particular we got good questions concerning wider dissemination of products and exploitation of results in new contexts. The visitors explained their plans for new plans for launching a new innovation program in the new future and to intensify their external cooperation. In this respect they expressed their interest to follow keenly our next steps with the LL tools and with our exploitation activities. We promised to keep them informed.

More blogs to come …