Recent posts

The ECER Conference

13-September-2005

Thoughts on the conference

13-September-2005

The General Assembly

09-September-2005

Its 5 o'clock on Friday afternoon. Ludger Deitmer - the VETNET convener - has just opened the VETNET Assembly meeting. As he said its been a long and hard day - lots of presentations - lots of discussion - lots of ideas.

Educational reform in the UK?

08-September-2005

I'm at a session looking at the Nuffield project on education and training in Wales. there is about 20 of us in a round table session (although we haven't got a table). It's interesting for me because I am a little out of date on what is happening in the UK). The Nuffield reviw it seems was attempting to undertake an indepednet reviw - to try to understand what is going on in inetrcation between sociatal conetxt, administrative systems and social relations and processes.

Second day

08-September-2005

I went to a disucssion this mroning on trends and particpation in VET. A little strange - there was general agreement that despite all the rhetoric about the importance of vocational education and training the trend is still away from VET. VET remains seen as a second best, for thos ewho have falied to get into university. And in some countries, like the UK, employers are happy to employ unqualified young people if they can pay them less. The present session is asympoium on the Maastrucht study into a European Qualifications Framework. Tom Leeny from QCA is speaking. He has pointed out the lack of investment in VET. More on this later.

VET conference under way

07-September-2005

The 2005 VETNET conference got underway at 3 o'clock this afternoon. About 100 delegates turned up for an absorbing debate on whether or not we could identify a European education and training system and if so what was the nature of that system. James Wickham from Ireland led off with a key note address in a session chaired by conference chair, Barry Nyham from Cedefop. Gerald Heidegger and Massimo Tommasini commented on James' presentation. Issues raised included the degree to which VET is culturally embedded in national systems and how much agency VET research and researchers had in developing and shaping systems. That's all for today - more tomorrow - now I have a connection to the net. Graham Attwell