Coping with Complexity and Instability in the UK Vocational Training System1

Vocational training systems that take the needs of the word of work seriously and maintain strong and dynamic connections with it are faced to growing complexity and instability. Some countries try to cope with this through creating new mediation mechanisms between the systems of training and work that allow higher level complexity while maintaining appropriate social control over the linkages between these systems. The training policy of the United Kingdom offers an interesting example for this. The key message of this article is that increasing complexity and high level instability may seriously impede the engagement of employers for training and human resource development but reducing it have to be made in a cautious way, so that it does not harm the achievement of the strategic goals of making training more demand-led, making it more responsive to the changing skills needs of companies and letting employers have a decisive role in determining the content of training and the way it is delivered. The skills policy of the United Kingdom is used as an example to illustrate the growing social complexity that characterise modern social systems, including vocational training, and one specific way of devising public policies based on new innovative forms of steering and regulating that enhance coping with complexity and instability.     

电控燃油喷射汽油机加速——滑行组合工况的排放分析

选取三种使用电控燃油喷射汽油机的国产车型,进行突然加速和突然减速工况的HC和CO测试,并结合有关文献的结论,对突然加速和突然减速工况产生大量HC和CO的原因进行了详细的分析;同时阐明解决发动机突然加速和突然减速性能与排放性能的矛盾,仅靠目前的后处理装置是不能彻底实现的,只能依赖于缸内直喷(GDI)技术的早日成熟.     

The new books on our shelves

Safeguarding the School Board's Purchase of Architects' Working Drawings. By Arthur Marcus Proctor. New York: Columbia University, 1931. Pp. iii + 138.

The Platoon School in America. By Roscoe David Case. Stanford University: Stanford University Press, 1931. Pp. vii + 283.

Business Management in School Systems of Different Sizes. By M. B. Brunstetter. New York: Columbia University, 1931. Pp. v + 135.

Vegetable Growing. By James Edward Knott. Philadelphia: Lea and Febiger, 1930. Pp. xvi + 352.

Educational Finance Studies. By Carter Alexander. New York: Bureau of Publications, Columbia University, 1931. Pp. vi + 92.

Reserve Funds in Public School Finance. By Frank C. Ketler. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, 1931. Pp. vii + 77.

Students' Guide to Modern Languages. By Wilson. New York: Isaac Pitman and Sons, 1930.

Air Travel. By James E. Mooney. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930. Pp. xvi + 311.

The Art of Learning. By Walter B. Pitkin. New York: McGraw‐Hill Book Company, 1931. Pp. v + 409.

A Study of the Ohio Compulsory Education and Child Labor Law. By Arch O. Heck. Columbus: Ohio State University, 1931. Pp. v + 210.

My Educational Guidebook. By Robert H. Rodgers and Harry S. Belman. Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1930. Pp. 24.     

Beyond Positivism: Research,Practice, and Undergraduate Professional Education

Undergraduate professional education programs are supposed to mediate the relationship between research and practice. The positivist conception of the curriculum and the research-practice relationship remain dominant today. Unfortunately, this positivist conception carries flawed views of the undergraduate curriculum and its mediating role. Research is inevitably incomplete and “silent” on aspects of practice. The positivist view ignores the necessity for problem-setting and the uncertainty, complexity, and diversity that are embedded in work practices. This view also brings unfounded assumptions about the effectiveness of courses and programs, the language of practice, the work epistemologies of practitioners, and practitioners' work organizations. An alternative conception is founded upon the realities and demands of practice. Rather than assuming that research can and should drive both undergraduate curricula and work practices, practice should serve as the source of coherence for both. Practitioners' work epistemologies, together with practice's uncertainty, complexity, and variability, require changes in research and undergraduate programs. Examples of these changes are explored, together with selected challenges for higher education in the 1990s.