Masters in Public Administration - MPA / The purpose of this study is to investigate what the municipalities within the greater Cape Town area are doing regarding Education, Training and Development within their different departments in relation to the National Qualifications Framework and the manner in which it affects career plans and prospects of employees and how the latter impacts on overall institutional transformation as a prerequisite for effective service delivery.

Thesis (PhD(Education))--University of Pretoria, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references.

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is a systematic process to accredit learning gained outside formal educational institutions, by assessing relevant learning against the standards required by a specific field of learning or course. RPL recognises what individuals know or can do before undertaking a course of study, wherever or however they may have acquired their knowledge or skills. It includes testing, or various other techniques of assessment which may include compiling a profile or a portfolio of learning and/or experience. RPL in South Africa can be seen as a mechanism to accelerate the redress of past unfair discrimination in education, training and employment opportunities. RPL can empower individuals, it can provide a skill focus for employers and can assist in economic and social development. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Educational Psychology / PhD / Unrestricted

This study is about the development of a training model for foremen in the construction sector. It is important since the sector is growing rapidly, a critical shortage of skills exists and at the same time major changes occurred in terms of training and development, labour market trends and the prevalence of HIV/Aids. The changes in labour market trends refer to the casualisation of employment where most of the trade skills work on large construction projects is outsourced to sub-contractors. This makes the role of foremen of critical importance. The purpose of the study is to develop a training program for foremen in the construction industry, aligned with the National Qualification Framework. The research is a qualitative exploratory study using mixed methods. The research includes a literature study into training and the needs assessment process and an investigation into the new legislative environment in South Africa. The investigation then considers local and international construction training. The practical study is carried out by doing a comprehensive assessment of the training needs of foremen working for Group Five Building and then those needs are link to qualifications, unit standards and short courses registered within the National Qualification Framework as training interventions to develop foremen. The study found that foremen in the construction sector are aging rapidly with few new entrants. The training of foremen is almost non-existent with no well recognized training program in place. The qualification registered with the South African Qualifications Authority for this purpose does not meet the requirements if actual training needs of foremen. As a result of the study, a training program for foremen aligned with the National Qualification Framework were developed and 28 trainee foremen working for Group Five Building are being trained on the specific program. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Human Resource Management / unrestricted

This dissertation reflects on both the analysis of quality indicators for the identification of competencies and on the classification tools used to place German further vocational training courses into existing qualification frameworks, using the example of the field of engineering and study path “Supply Engineering”. The objective of this dissertation is to develop a competence model for “planning competence” that allows evaluation and classification of a range of competencies. This planning competence is determined by the categories “complexity”, “cross-linkage”, and “quality” of the process followed in the creation of certain planning documents. Of special focus in this dissertation is the planning competence and its (sub-)competencies exhibited by the college graduates in the study path “Supply Engineering” at the State College for Construction, Business and Logistics (State College) in Gotha / Thuringia. This planning competence ought to be evaluated, classified and placed into a qualification frame such as the European Qualification Frame (EQF). In order to do this, quality indicators are developed and applied to tender documents for a drinking water supply system in a kindergarten, which were presented by the college graduates as their final project. Using these indicators it is possible to identify the quality of these documents and consequently identify the planning competence of the future planning engineer. The quality of the plans is evaluated as a category and they are also looked at to see if they have a certain complexity. This category of complexity is defined as interconnected layers within a system, for example, regarding hot and cold water systems or the circulation water system. Cross-linkage is the third category, which determines both the planning of the project and the resulting planning competence. This cross-linkage is defined as the connection of the drinking water system to third parties, for instance to other planning projects, planning partners, or other technical systems such as heating or electrical systems. In addition, surveys among college graduates from the State College Gotha, their employers, and college alumni, shall indicate and bring to light certain competencies necessary for the planning of above mentioned systems and work as a planning engineer. Combining both the identified competencies of the exploration process using the above mentioned quality indicators and the results of the surveys, the author makes suggestions on how to classify and place the study path “Supply Engineering” at the State College Gotha / Thuringia and other German further vocational training courses into the EQF.

Η ραγδαία εξέλιξη των τεχνολογιών της πληροφορίας και της επικοινωνίας δεν έχει αφήσει ανεπηρέαστο τον χώρο της αγοράς εργασίας. Συνεχώς κρίνεται αναγκαία η εμφάνιση νέων, ακόμη πιο εξειδικευμένων επαγγελμάτων που συνδέονται με τον χώρο της πληροφορικής. Σκοπός της παρούσας διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι η κατασκευή οντολογίας που περιέχει τις εξής έννοιες: επαγγελματικά προφίλ (job profiles) που σχετίζονται με την πληροφορική, ικανότητες (competences) που συσχετίζονται με τα job profiles, επίπεδα (Proficiency Levels) που προκύπτουν από το Ευρωπαϊκό Πλαίσιο Επαγγελματικών Προσόντων / European Qualification Framework (EQF) και το Ευρωπαϊκό Πλαίσιο ηλεκτρονικών Ικανοτήτων / e-Competence Framework (e-CF) και χαρακτηρίζουν τις ικανότητες αυτές και μαθησιακά αποτελέσματα (Learning Outcomes) που προκύπτουν από τις ικανότητες αυτές. Τα μαθησιακά αποτελέσματα χαρακτηρίζονται μέσα από την οντολογία με βάση την Ταξινομία Bloom ενώ, επιπλέον, γίνεται μια σύνδεση των επιπέδων του πλαισίου EQF και των μαθησιακών αποτελεσμάτων με έννοιες, που συναντάμε στην Σύσταση του Ευρωπαϊκού Κοινοβουλίου και του Συμβουλίου για την θέσπιση του Ευρωπαϊκού Συστήματος Πιστωτικών Μονάδων για την Επαγγελματική Εκπαίδευση και Κατάρτιση (ECVET), όπως προσόντα (qualification) και ψηφίδες (units). Η λειτουργία του συστήματος επαληθεύεται με την υποβολή ερωτημάτων και την αξιολόγηση των αποτελεσμάτων. Η δυναμική της οντολογίας που κατασκευάστηκε θα μπορούσε να αξιοποιηθεί τόσο από εταιρείες για την βελτίωση διαχείρισης ανθρώπινου δυναμικού αλλά και από εκπαιδευτικά ιδρύματα για την εξέλιξη ενός προγράμματος σπουδών. / The lack of a commonly accepted representation of competences and qualifications has led to a mismatch between the outcome of education / training courses and true market needs. Frameworks like EQF and e-CF attempt to deal with the problem by providing an abstract, all-encompassing structure that classifies qualifications into levels of formal education. Being so abstract, these frameworks have to be adapted in order to become useful. Moreover, in order to feed the market needs regarding qualifications to the educational system, a further mapping level is required, that which maps qualifications to learning outcomes. Although several attempts have been made, we have not come across a tool that could automate part of the process. For this reason, in the context of EU project PIN, we have developed a semantically rich mechanism that represents job profiles, qualifications and learning outcomes and maps them to EQF and e-CF levels. In this paper, we present the ontologies that constitute the core of this mechanism. We have developed ontologies that represent the EQF and e-CF frameworks, competences, qualifications and job profiles, and learning outcomes based on the Bloom’s taxonomy. Then we combined these ontologies and filled them with actual job profiles (that were developed in the PIN project) in order to evaluate them. In the paper, we describe the ontology engineering methodology, the ontology properties and the ways they can be used to provide a commonly accessible knowledge layer for semantic Web applications that would need to match qualifications and learning outcomes.

Τα τελευταία χρόνια παρατηρούνται συνεχείς αλλαγές στη φύση και στην οργάνωση της εργασίας λόγω της εξέλιξης των Τεχνολογιών της Πληροφορίας και Επικοινωνιών (ΤΠΕ) και των αναγκών της αγοράς. Δημιουργείται η ανάγκη αναδιαμόρφωσης των υφιστάμενων επαγγελμάτων καθώς και δημιουργίας νέων που θα ανταποκρίνονται στις σύγχρονες απαιτήσεις. Κατ΄επέκταση δημιουργούνται νέες ικανότητες και δεξιότητες, νέες εργασίες που απαιτούν γρήγορη λήψη αποφάσεων καθώς κοινωνικές δεξιότητες προσανατολισμένες στις εξελισσόμενες ανάγκες της σύγχρονης αγοράς πέρα από τα εθνικά όρια. Χρειαζόμαστε ικανούς και έμπειρους εργαζόμενους με συνεχή επαγγελματική κατάρτιση και έντονη κινητικότητα. Για να επιτευχθεί αυτό πρέπει τα εκπαιδευτικά συστήματα να προσανατολίζονται στις ανάγκες και τις πολιτικές της αγοράς εργασίας και να στρέψουν το ενδιαφέρον τους από τις εισροές στις εκροές. Με αυτό τον τρόπο αλλά και μέσω άλλων “καλών πρακτικών” θα αναπτυχθεί μια κοινή γλώσσα επικοινωνίας μεταξύ των πλαισίων προσόντων. Στη σημερινή εποχή, η σημασία της πληροφορίας και η μετάβαση στον σημασιολογικό ιστό επιτρέπει την ανάπτυξη και ενσωμάτωση των οντολογιών. Οι οντολογίες, διευκολύνουν το διαμοιρασμό και την επαναχρησιμοποίηση της γνώσης με σαφή τρόπο μεταξύ ετερογενών συστημάτων. Αυτό μπορεί να ωφελήσει τη σύνδεση της εργασίας με την εκπαίδευση μέσω της κατασκευής οντολογιών που αναπαριστούν και συνδέουν έννοιες διαφορετικών πεδίων και οδηγούν στην εξαγωγή αξιοποιήσιμων και επαναχρησιμοποιήσιμων αποτελεσμάτων. Σκοπός της παρούσας εργασίας, είναι η ανάπτυξη μιας πολύγλωσσης οντολογίας για την αναπαράσταση περιγραμμάτων διαδικτυακών επαγγελμάτων και τη σύνδεση μαθησιακών αποτελεσμάτων και προσόντων με το πλαίσιο ψηφιακών ικανοτήτων (e-CF) και κατ΄ επέκταση με το ευρωπαϊκό πλαίσιο προσόντων (EQF). Η οντολογία που αναπτύχθηκε δύναται να χρησιμοποιηθεί από διάφορους οργανισμούς όπως επιχειρήσεις και πανεπιστήμια στο πλαίσιο διαχείρισης ανθρώπινου δυναμικού ώστε ο καθένας ανάλογα με τα προσόντα που διαθέτει να τοποθετείται στην κατάλληλη θέση. / In recent years it is observed a continuous change in the nature and the organization of the work due to the development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the needs of the job market. There is a necessity to reconfigure the existing occupations and create new ones that will correspond to the current requirements. Hence, are created new competences and skills, new jobs that require quick decision making, and soft skills that are oriented to the evolving needs of the contemporary job market, beyond national boundaries. We need qualified and experienced employees with continuous vocational training and high mobility. In order to achieve this, educational systems must be directed to the needs and policies of the job market and shift their interest from inputs to outputs. This way and through other “best practices” a common language of communication between qualification frameworks will be developed. In the current era, the importance of information and the transition to the semantic web enables the development and integration of ontologies. Ontologies facilitate knowledge sharing and reuse in an explicit way between heterogeneous systems. This can benefit the connection between work and education through the development of ontologies that represent and correlate concepts of different domains and therefore lead to the extraction of exploitable and reusable results. The purpose of this work was to develop a multilingual ontology for the representation of job profiles in internet and the connection of learning outcomes and qualifications with the European e-Competence Framework (e-CF) and by extension the European Qualifications Framework (EQF). The ontology that was developed can be used by various organizations such as companies and universities as part of the human resources management, so that every individual depending on its qualifications is placed in the appropriate position.

This dissertation reflects on both the analysis of quality indicators for the identification of competencies and on the classification tools used to place German further vocational training courses into existing qualification frameworks, using the example of the field of engineering and study path “Supply Engineering”. The objective of this dissertation is to develop a competence model for “planning competence” that allows evaluation and classification of a range of competencies. This planning competence is determined by the categories “complexity”, “cross-linkage”, and “quality” of the process followed in the creation of certain planning documents. Of special focus in this dissertation is the planning competence and its (sub-)competencies exhibited by the college graduates in the study path “Supply Engineering” at the State College for Construction, Business and Logistics (State College) in Gotha / Thuringia. This planning competence ought to be evaluated, classified and placed into a qualification frame such as the European Qualification Frame (EQF). In order to do this, quality indicators are developed and applied to tender documents for a drinking water supply system in a kindergarten, which were presented by the college graduates as their final project. Using these indicators it is possible to identify the quality of these documents and consequently identify the planning competence of the future planning engineer. The quality of the plans is evaluated as a category and they are also looked at to see if they have a certain complexity. This category of complexity is defined as interconnected layers within a system, for example, regarding hot and cold water systems or the circulation water system. Cross-linkage is the third category, which determines both the planning of the project and the resulting planning competence. This cross-linkage is defined as the connection of the drinking water system to third parties, for instance to other planning projects, planning partners, or other technical systems such as heating or electrical systems. In addition, surveys among college graduates from the State College Gotha, their employers, and college alumni, shall indicate and bring to light certain competencies necessary for the planning of above mentioned systems and work as a planning engineer. Combining both the identified competencies of the exploration process using the above mentioned quality indicators and the results of the surveys, the author makes suggestions on how to classify and place the study path “Supply Engineering” at the State College Gotha / Thuringia and other German further vocational training courses into the EQF.

The objective of the research was to investigate an improvement in job performance when role-play is used as a training and assessment tool in a sales call centre environment. The research was conducted by means of a competence assessment used at different stages (Quality Assurance Performance Management Questionnaire). The final stage was two weeks after the learners who had qualified to be sales agents had entered a real working environment. At this final stage, calls were retrieved and rated against the Quality Assurance Performance Management Questionnaire (QAPMQ). A sample of 40 novice sales agents (learners) were selected and randomly divided into the control and experimental groups. The research findings indicated that if planned well, role-play can be an effective training and assessment tool. / Industrial & Organisational Psychology / M.Comm. (Industrial & Organisational Psychology)

The objective of the research was to investigate an improvement in job performance when role-play is used as a training and assessment tool in a sales call centre environment. The research was conducted by means of a competence assessment used at different stages (Quality Assurance Performance Management Questionnaire). The final stage was two weeks after the learners who had qualified to be sales agents had entered a real working environment. At this final stage, calls were retrieved and rated against the Quality Assurance Performance Management Questionnaire (QAPMQ). A sample of 40 novice sales agents (learners) were selected and randomly divided into the control and experimental groups. The research findings indicated that if planned well, role-play can be an effective training and assessment tool. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M.Comm. (Industrial & Organisational Psychology)