The over-education of UK immigrants and minority ethnic groups: Evidence from the Labour Force Survey

The paper explores the incidence of over and under education and the effect on earnings for immigrants and natives who hold UK qualifications, drawn from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey 1993–2003. The paper also compares earnings penalties associated with over and under education across immigrant and minority ethnic groups for men and women. The results show that compared to Whites, Black African, Other Non-White and Indian men are more likely to be over-educated, whilst for women it is Indian and Pakistani/Bangladeshi's who are more likely to be over-educated. Estimating earnings equations shows significantly large over-education penalties for South Asian immigrant and native men, as well as White immigrant men, Black women and White UK born women. However, there are large returns to occupational skills for some minority ethnic and immigrant groups, over and above the returns to qualifications. It is suggested that these groups may therefore find it easier to find a suitable job for their UK education level if higher or further education programmes for immigrants were combined with occupational specific training.     

Quality Assurance: Meeting the Needs of the User

Both students and employers, the main users of the higher education system, need to have confidence that qualifications attest accurately to past achievement and current ability. The standards represented by higher education qualifications need to be explicit and, in an employment market that is increasingly global, qualifications must have a universal currency. The frameworks of higher education qualifications published recently in the United Kingdom provide explicit benchmarks, and do so in a manner that enables international comparisons to be drawn.
Users need assurance that the programmes of study leading to qualifications are effective in enabling the learner both to achieve, and to demonstrate achievement of, the standards embodied in intended learning outcomes. Students in particular want to know that the education in which they are investing will meet their expectations. However, proposed changes in quality assurance of higher education suggest an unwillingness on the part of institutions to demonstrate that the standards embodied in the qualifications framework are being delivered. The interests of the providers appear to be given supremacy over those of the users.     

构建我国基于资历框架的教师行业资历等级和标准

建立终身教育资历框架是我国目前一项重要的教育举措,构建基于资历框架的教师行业资历等级和标准是其中重要的组成部分,有助于促进教师专业发展、推动教师终身学习。本研究采用文献研究法和专家访谈法,提出了由4个等级、4个维度和10个要素组成的教师行业资历等和标准,能够与国际及国内已有的资历框架有效对接,构建了我国基于资历框架的教师行业资历等级和标准。教师行业资历等级和标准既是针对教师专业发展的评价框架,又是认证和转化学习成果的工具,是一套系统的方法和工具。期望本研究的成果能够为教师专业发展项目提供评价与认证框架,为贯通教师职前培养与职后培训、构建教师终身学习体系提供参考框架。     

Credits, Qualifications and the Fluttering Standard

The primary function of credit is to help assess the equivalence of learning and to facilitate student transfer within and between institutions. Recently, attention has focused on the role credit may have in defining the academic standards of qualifications. Some recently proposed qualifications frameworks are one-dimensional in that they have levels as the only measurable parameter. Such 'frameworks' are not true frameworks because there is no basis for differentiating the qualifications at each level. Other frameworks are two-dimensional, using credits and levels as the two parameters. Where the award of credit for a module reflects the satisfactory completion of all the designated learning outcomes at a specified level, there is a clear basis for relating credit to academic standards. In this situation, plotting the credit requirements for qualifications onto a framework that comprises levels and credits makes an important contribution towards understanding the relative standards of the qualifications.     

Why the South African NQF Failed: lessons for countries wanting to introduce national qualifications frameworks

This article examines the South African National Qualifications Framework as a case study of a particular approach to the design of qualifications frameworks, which revolves around the specification of learning outcomes separate from educational institutions or programmes. It shows how an outcomes-led qualifications framework was seen as a desirable policy intervention by educationalists and reformers across the political spectrum, as outcomes were thought to be a mechanism for improving the quality and quantity of education as well as its relevance to the economy and society, for increasing access to education, and for democratising education. All these claims are based on the idea that outcomes statements are transparent. The article demonstrates that outcomes-based qualifications cannot provide the clear, unambiguous, and explicit statements of competence that would be required for everyone to know what it is that the bearer of a qualification can do. This lack of transparency leads to a further specification of outcomes. This in turn leads to a downward spiral of specification, which never reaches transparency, and an upward spiral of regulations, which is also caught in the logical problem of the downward spiral of specification. This model is not just unnecessary, but could in fact undermine the provision of education. The article suggests that while this type of model appears attractive particularly to poor countries, it is in these countries that it is likely to do the most damage.     

Labour market outcomes of national qualifications frameworks in six countries

This article presents the major findings of an international study that attempted to investigate the labour market outcomes of qualifications frameworks in six countries – Belize, France, Ireland, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia, as well as the regional framework in the Caribbean. It finds limited evidence of success, but fairly strong support for the frameworks. The continued popularity of qualifications frameworks as a reform mechanism seems to be symptomatic of the ways in which transitions from education to work are in flux in many countries, coupled with the fragmented and complex systems of vocational provision in some of the countries. Even where such systems are not overly complex they have weak and possibly weakening relationships with work. Insufficient differentiation of different types of frameworks by policy makers obscures these factors, leading to misleading ideas about what frameworks can do in general. Extending existing typologies for the analysis of qualifications frameworks the paper argues that the French framework, where labour markets were the most regulated and collective bargaining had the widest reach, had the clearest relationships between qualifications and work. However, the qualifications framework did not seem to be the cause, but rather the effect of such relationships.     

远程开放教育服务新农村建设的实践与思考

农村在职人员专业文化素质与学历层次较低的现状与新农村建设人才需求的矛盾日趋突出,急需大力发展农村成人高等教育。本文分析了农村成人高等教育的特点,结合上海电视大学面向农村在职人员开展岗位培训与高等学历教育相结合办学项目的实践,提出了利用现代远程开放教育服务新农村建设的思考。     

国际视野下的中国资历框架研究

终身教育体系建设的本质是制度创新,核心任务是建立一套鼓励终身学习、支持终身学习的制度,其中资历框架是最基础的制度,只有以资历框架为基础,其他制度才能逐步建立起来。我国目前尚未建立系统完整的国家层面的资历框架,虽对资历框架建设作了政策准备,但颁布的政策主要提出继续教育的学分累积与转换制度的重要性,并未明确资历框架的核心制度、运作机制、管理模式、实施主体等;国内关于资历框架的研究主要是国外经验介绍以及对资历框架中关键制度＂学分银行＂的探索,而对资历架构整体的认识及其对终身学习体系建设的重要意义还有待进一步深化;我国的资历框架相关实践已经积累了大量的宝贵经验,但实践探索的范围还非常有限,尚未形成完善的学习成果认证机制和组织机构,无法从根本上构建完整的＂学分转换体系＂。从国际经验看,建立资历框架也是破解当前我国终身教育的制度瓶颈,切实推进我国终身教育实践的关键。资历框架的建立应列为重点工程尽快开展,立法和质量保证是资历框架顺利实施的法律保障和质量保障。     

Who is missing from higher education?

This paper discusses the difficulties of establishing a clear count of UK higher education students in terms of the categories used for widening participation, such as occupational background or ethnicity. Using some of the best and most complete data available, such as the annual figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the paper then establishes that there is little evidence of a simple consistent pattern of under‐representation within these categories, except perhaps for men and students of white ethnicity. However, once prior qualifications are taken into account there is no evidence that potential students are unfairly and disproportionately denied access to higher education in terms of occupation, ethnicity, sex or disability. This has important implications for what we mean by widening participation in higher education and how we might achieve it.     

Globalisation and higher education: from within-border to cross-border

Globalisation, the shift to a knowledge economy, and changing demographics are increasingly challenging higher education systems. The move from elite through mass to universal education, coupled with the internationalisation of higher education, has profoundly influenced the system, especially in terms of academic mobility. It has created new fields and challenges for policy-makers. New forms of international education have emerged, including cross-border education. Commercialised for-profit cross-border degree mills and rogue providers have gained new grounds and jeopardised the quality of higher education services and qualifications because of the worthless qualifications and shoddy service levels that they may provide. The focus of national quality assurance agencies, which was previously not related to the assessment of the quality of ‘imported’ and ‘exported’ programmes, has been challenged. This paper provides a theoretical overview of the main developments in the cross-border education level. It focuses on cross-border education opportunities and threats, and on the various international frameworks that regulate these new forms of higher education.     

基于“双证融接”的网络技术专业人才培养体系建设的研究与实践

“双证融接”是指职业教育中的学历教育（以学历证书为标志）,通过专业或课程,与职业资格类型（以职业资格证书为标志）实现对应与对接,在教育培训内容上实现融接。武汉职业技术学院网络技术专业以对高职教育人才培养的系统研究为引领、以“双证融接”为基础、以能满足“双证”学习培训要求的“双证课程”为核心、以能适应“双证融接”要求的教学方式方法手段和质量评价办法为重点,构建了高职教育人才培养体系,并进行了多年的实践,取得了突出的成就。     

Curriculum reform in post-1990s sub-Saharan Africa

The article uses both primary and secondary sources to examine why learner-centredness, outcomes- and competency-based education and national qualifications frameworks were favourably received at local level in sub-Saharan Africa but have not resulted in widespread change in classroom practice. It argues that they found local favour because they were not entirely new ideas, and were ambiguous enough to be seen as key vehicles for achieving not so much educational, as economic, social and political goals. It suggests that the failure of implementation could lie in expectations that education would lead to transformation without paying necessary attention to implementation and capacity.     

Learning to adapt: does returning to education improve labour market outcomes?

The transition into a post-industrial economy changed the nature of the Australian labour market extinguishing jobs in traditional industries and creating jobs in new industries. Workers displaced from the manufacturing sector and women seeking to re-enter the labour market after taking time out for family reasons need to retrain in order to secure full-time employment in new industries. Consequently, returning to education is a relatively common occurrence in Australia as adults adapt to the changing demands of the labour market. Using the first 12 waves of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia data, this paper examines the characteristics of those who return to education and gain new educational qualifications. The effect of upgrading educational qualifications on employment outcomes is also examined. The results show that those with higher levels of education were more likely than those with low levels of education to complete new qualifications after the age of 25 and that employment outcomes vary according to level of qualification completed.     

Andragogy and the accreditation of prior learning: points on a continuum or uneasy bedfellows?

The current move towards outcomes or competence‐based qualifications within the education and training arenas begs many questions about the processes of learning as well as the measurable results. This paper explores how far the principles embedded in the andragogic approach to adult learning through the accreditation of prior learning are at odds with a qualification system predicated on the measurement of performance. It proposes a model of student‐controlled reflection that can lead to the identification of a range of prior achievements which may then form the basis for claiming credit, thus creating a bridge between two apparently opposed frameworks.     

Parents’ and teachers’ attitudes,objections and expectations towards sexuality education in primary schools in Austria

The World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO EURO) and the German Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) published the Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe in 2010. The standards were developed to provide an overview of those sexuality education issues that should be addressed in school at various specific age levels. They were intended to guarantee that sexuality education teaching is age-appropriate and of uniformly good quality throughout Europe. In the context of the present survey, Austrian teachers and parents or guardians were asked about the importance of the topics covered by the WHO standards and about any aspects they would like to see for such sexuality education to be successful. The paper concludes that parents and teachers agree on the sexuality education topics they find important for coverage in Austrian primary schools, although teachers find sexuality education in general to be of greater importance than do parents. Teacher’ wishes for sexuality education in practice correlate highly with parents’ ideas of quality. Overall, qualifications and support for work in this field are viewed as essential, with survey respondents perceiving the need for high-quality initial training and continuing education and appropriate frameworks for implementation in school.     

National Qualifications Framework and TVET teacher competence frameworks: A neglected dimension of qualifications reforms?

This article examines the interplay between qualification systems reforms and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) teachers' competences and qualifications in the context of the future of work and learning, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda. The article reviews international standards and trends and examines a range of country case studies. The concluding section focuses on future scenarios for TVET Teachers Competence frameworks.     

欧洲资格证书框架体系的构建与实质

资格证书框架体系在二十世纪后期的欧洲发端发展,日臻走向成熟。它向人们描绘出新世纪义务教育后教育的发展方向,即政府通过政策和投资,强力介入教育;资格标准实现全社会统一;注重创新能力和就业能力;职教普教彼此互通;学习成果学分化和证书化,学分和证书实行累积并互认互换等。本文拟通过简要回顾该体系建构的过程,对其实质内容进行剖析,从而揭示其背后所展现的这种教育发展趋势。     

浅析会计职业道德建设的诚信危机及出路

针对许多企业出现会计造假案例,引发社会会计诚信危机的现象,从根源上进行了分析,并从教育宣传、资格年检、监督制度和内控制度、法律法规、奖惩体系方面,阐述了加强会计职业道德和诚信机制建设的出路。