Developing a Vision for Teacher Education Programmes: A Values‐based Approach

This article presents one approach to the development of initial teacher education programmes that are based on a vision, premissed on values shared consensually by faculty staff and students. The article first provides a brief historical background of the Faculty of Education at the University of Malta, where this values‐based approach was attempted. It addresses some of the key problems faced in the development of a coherent and organic course of studies with students following graduate and post‐graduate courses, and gives an account of the way some of these problems were addressed. It is claimed that the approach adopted at the University of Malta can help other teacher educators in clarifying objectives as they set out to create coherent programmes that provide a sense of mission based on identifiable values and principles.     

Research in Teaching and Teacher Education: qualitative methods and grounded theory methodology

This article critically appraises the advantages and disadvantages of qualitative methods for the collection of data in the fields of teaching and teacher education. Strategies are suggested to improve ethnographies, and the issue of normative as against positivist approaches to knowledge is addressed. Glaser & Strauss’ ‘grounded theory’ methodology is then presented as tool for the collection, organisation and analysis of qualitative data, and for the generation of substantive and formal theories about education.     

Migration,educational and career guidance and social inclusion

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance -     

Pessimism of the intellect,optimism of the will? Troubling the relationship between career guidance and social justice

Career guidance claims a lineage to ‘modernity’, where individuals carve dignified lives for themselves, irrespective of social origin. Here, ‘social justice’ has particular connotations, relating to the meritocratic redistribution of resources in ways that reward ability and effort. This article explores alternative conceptions of social justice, taking seriously the fundamental insight that if individuals make history, they do so in circumstances not of their own making. Drawing on recent theories of social justice, an effort is made to ‘trouble’ mainstream notions of career guidance, and to imagine how it can be of the greatest benefit to the least advantaged.     

Career Guidance in Public Employment Services Across Europe

The results of a survey of Public Employment Services in all the Member-States of the European Union, plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, are reported. The career guidance services offered within these structures are reviewed, in three categories: career guidance elements within personalised employment services; specialised career guidance provision; and other relevant provision, including career and labour market information and the delivery of services to students. Four trends are identified: towards self-service provision; towards tiering of services; towards decentralisation; and towards outsourcing. Finally, four issues are addressed: quality and impact measurement; role tensions; foregrounding the identity of career guidance; and the role of Public Employment Services in relation to lifelong access to career guidance.     

The involvement of the European Union in career guidance policy: a brief history

The history of the involvement of the European Union in the development of policy related to career guidance is analysed in terms of three broad periods. In the first two of these, interventions were confined to pilot projects, exchanges and placements, study visits and studies/surveys, with particular attention to young people; whereas the period since 2000 has seen greater attention being paid to lifelong activities that support the implementation of EU policy priorities and their mainstreaming at national level. These trends reflect both the EU’s “creeping competence” and the emerging concept of “lifelong guidance.”     

Career Guidance Policies in 37 Countries: Contrasts and Common Themes

This paper synthesises the main findings from three co-ordinated reviews of national career guidance policies carried out by OECD, the European Commission and the World Bank. Some important differences are evident, with services in middle-income countries being less well-developed than in high-income countries. But the dynamics of globalisation, together with policy borrowing, have led to a great deal of convergence. In all countries, career guidance is viewed as a public good, linked to policy goals related to learning, the labour market and social equity. These goals are being reframed in the light of lifelong learning policies, linked to active labour market policies and the concept of sustained employability. Career guidance accordingly needs to be accessible not just to school-leavers and the unemployed, but to everyone throughout their lives. With career guidance taking increasingly varied and disparate forms, there is a need within countries for stronger mechanisms to articulate a vision and develop a strategy for delivering such access.     

Education and social transition: Vocationalism,ideology and the problems of development

In the early 1970s the socialist government of Malta embarked on a reform of vocational education. This reform programme had two aims: first, to build up the country's industrial base; second, to bridge the gap between intellectual and manual labour, as advocated by Marx and other socialist thinkers. This article argues that Malta's failure to achieve the second goal holds important lessons for those who continue to advocate socialist ideas.

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Zusammenfassung Anfang der 70er Jahre reformierte die sozialistische Regierung Maltas das maltesische Berufsbildungssystem. Dieses Reformprogramm hatte zwei Ziele: erstens sollte die industrielle Basis des Landes ausgebaut und zweitens die schon von Marx und anderen sozialistischen Denkern befürwortete Schließung der Lücke zwischen intellektuellen und manuellen Arbeitskräften erreicht werden. Dieser Artikel argumentiert dahingehend, daß der mißglückte Versuch Maltas, das zweite Ziel zu erreichen, eine wichtige Lektion für andere Befürworter sozialistischer Ideen sein kann.

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Résumé Au début des années 70, le gouvernement socialiste de Malte entreprit de réformer l'enseignement professionnel, afin d'atteindre deux objectifs: affermir les bases industrielles du pays et d'autre part combler le fossé entre travail manuel et travail intellectuel, comme le préconisaient Marx et d'autres penseurs socialistes. L'auteur soutient que l'échec de Malte dans la réalisation de ce dernier but contient une leçon importante pour ceux qui persistent à défendre les idées socialistes.

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Sumario En los primeros años de la década de los 70, el gobierno socialista de Malta emprendió una reforma de la educación vocacional. El programa de reforma tenía dos objetivos: el primera era crear la base industrial del país; el segundo, salvar la distancia entre el trabajo manual e intelectual, tal como lo habían propuesto Marx y otros pensadores socialistas. El artículo sostiene que el intenta fallido de Malta en lograr el segundo objetivo contiene enseñanzas para los que siguen defendiendo ideas socialistas.