Since 1963, Kenya has undergone extensive upgrading of its educational system. New institutions like the "youth polytechnic" have been created to serve post-elementary school people in need of employment skills. In this study, the case method was used to investigate two, one rural and one urban, reputedly exemplary polytechnics. In particular, this study sought the organizational factors associated with the two exemplary institutions. / Data were collected using observation, interviews, questionnaires, and salient documents. / A number of factors associated with exemplary youth polytechnics were uncovered. The Polytechnics developed training that was suited to the respective areas and to employment. Dedicated principals created an environment conducive to training such as discipline, duty delegations, and a communication network. Committed staff used innovative means of instruction, and a close link to the world of work was adopted. Trainees valued their studies. Management committees had a clear vision of the polytechnics' direction, and they had community support.

No description available.

<p>The thesis took the general question of responsive curriculum development which meets both the needs of work and those of the academy as its starting point. The rationale for the topic flows out of education policy and societal pressures worldwide which are calling for an ever greater responsiveness from higher education to the workplace in the twenty-first century. Responsiveness to work requires collaborative and integrative work between communities of academic and non-academic practitioners. Differences between knowledge and practices at work and within the academy are broadly acknowledged in the literature, yet the ensuing nature and complexity of interactions between these two communities in curriculum design on the ground is poorly understood. A key point is to recognize that integration as such cannot be the goal / the differences remain, but have to turned into productive collaboration and joint development, for example, of a curriculum.</p>

The purpose of this study was to provide descriptive and comparative data which would be useful in making industrial education department programmatic decisions, as well as, providing useful information to prospective doctoral students prior to their program selection. Therefore, the specific purpose of this investigation was to: 1. describe existing industrial and general vocational education doctoral programs.2. assess the criteria used by current industrial and vocational education doctoral students in their selection of specific programs.3. assess the criteria judged important by leaders in industrial education which should be used in selecting doctoral program in industrial and vocational education.4. determine if a relationship exists between:(a) criteria used by current industrial and vocational education doctoral students in their selection of specific programs, and(b) criteria which should be used in selecting a doctoral program in industrial and vocational education as judged by leaders in the field.5. provide specific criteria which can be used by prospective students for selecting a doctoral program in industrial and vocational education.(A doctoral program keysort selection system was previously developed in response to this fifth purpose.)Two surveys were conducted in order to retrieve information about resident doctoral students and doctoral programs in industrial and general vocational education. The resident doctoral student population had an N of 264. Eighty-six percent (227) of this number responded to the survey instrument. The department program leader population had an N of 62. Fifty-eight program leaders responded to the questionnaire for a return of 93.5 percent.In addition to the descriptive information sought from both populations, information and opinions were elicited concerning criteria used in making a doctoral program selection. This abstract will include information in both areas of investigation.A description of existing industrial and general vocational education doctoral programs was presented utilizing the following variables:1. program name2. degree type3. program emphasis4. Ph.D.-Ed.D. differences5. date of first doctorate awarded 6. enrollments7. tuition8. program offerings9. program requirements10. program entrance requirements11. hours granted for the dissertation 12. minimum hours to complete program 13. maximum transfer hours14. program breakdownIn addition to this descriptive information of a programmatic nature a current profile of the resident doctoral student in industrial and general vocational education was provided, considering the following factors:1. department affiliation2. sex, race and age3. marital status, number of children, and working spouse4 . citizenship and home state attendance5. financial support 6. degree objective and degrees held7. undergraduate and graduate majors 8. career objective 9. residency requirement - moving 10. individual program length requirement and transfer hoursA total of 29 selection criteria were assessed by both resident doctoral students and department program leaders. The following criteria ranked one through five, in order of importance, as judged by department program leaders:reputation of department and/or program reputation of university reputation of faculty members type of programprogram flexibilityThe following criteria ranked one through five, in order of importance, as judged by resident doctoral students:1. type of program2. reputation of department and/or program 3. reputation of university 4. program flexibility5. being granted an assistantship or fellowshipProgram department chairmen and resident doctoral students assessed the following five criteria in much the same way and therefore were in agreement as to the relative importance of the program selection criteria:1. reputation of the university2. reputation of the department and/or program 3. reputation of the department head4. programs reputation for developing teaching skills5. program flexibilityThe following criteria ranked one through five, in order of importance, as judged by resident doctoral students:1. type of program2. reputation of department and/or program3. reputation of university4. program flexibility5. being granted an assistantship or fellowshipProgram department chairmen and resident doctoral students assessed the following five criteria in much the same way and therefore were in agreement as to the relative importance of the program selection criteria:1. reputation of the university2. reputation of the department and/or program3. reputation of the department head4. programs reputation for developing teaching skills 5. program flexibilityThe two groups disagreed most on the relative importance placed upon the following five program selection criteria:1. program graduate(s) recommendation2. availability of married student housing 3. having tuition and/or fees waived4. being granted an assistantship or fellowship5. location of universityAfter analyzing the data on resident doctoral students, it would be fair to conclude that no true doctoral student profile is possible due to the diversity of those enrolled. However, the chances are good that the "typical" resident doctoral student enrolled in industrial and general vocational education would be a married, white, middle class, male, between the ages of 25 and 35, and who has at least one child. Further, the chances are also good that this individual's spouse is working at least part-time and that the family is receiving some sort of financial support during residency. Finally, the individual probably holds at least a masters degree, intends to be a university teacher or administrator and has moved less than 500 miles in order to meet residency requirements.Once again, upon analyzing the data, it appears that the vast diversity in program offerings prevents formulating a meaningful profile. Further, a profile of this nature, for the most part, would serve no useful purpose. Therefore, conclusions were limited to the following three areas: (1) program diversity, (2) Ph.D. and Ed.D. differences and (3) program reputation.It would seem reasonable to conclude that one of the major factors affecting program diversity is student flexibility need. Program flexibility ranked fourth out of the 29 variables assessed by students. Program diversity results from attempts to meet diverse student need.Also, it would seem reasonable to conclude that the stated differences between the Ph.D. and Ed.D. programs, in reality, might not exist, at least to any large extent. Two main areas of differences are usually indicated when comparing the Ph.D. and Ed.D. degrees. They are language and/or research and statistics. The percent of Ed.D. programs requiring research methodology and statistics was found to be nearly as high as that of the Ph.D. programs. Secondly, only four institutions indicated that substitutions were not possible in meeting the language requirement. Substitutions are mainly noted in the areas of research methodology and statistics. In addition, program structural differences between the Ph.D. and Ed.D. programs were found to be minimal.Since there is little, if any, comparative data on doctoral programs and since programs are usually not compared for quality due to professional standards of ethics, student assessment of program quality may be based on a natural defense of the decision to attend a given university department.In conclusion, this descriptive research was undertaken to provide insight into the current status of doctoral programs in industrial and general vocational education. Further, the study attempted to provide greater insight into the area of doctoral program selection. The results of this investigation have suggested some additional areas for study. The following list of recommendations are offered for consideration:1. Since geographic location of institution was not ranked extremely high as a selection criteria and since a little more than half of the students moved fewer than 200 miles, this inconsistency warrants futher investigation.2. Both "university and department and/or program" were assessed as being extremely important in the selection of a doctoral program. Further study of reputation formation and student selection justification would be in order.3. Since there is some question as to the actual differences between Ph.D. and Ed.D. programs, specifically in the areas of industrial and vocational education, further study limited to these programs might provide some additional insight into these differences.4. Due to the vast difference of assessed importance of "being granted an assistantship or fellowship," further study is warranted in the area of financial assistance and its effect on enrollment.Since there is virtually no information, on a national basis, concerning student ability to attain personal job oriented professional goals, (ability to get previously stated work in a given profession) and since the doctoral job market is becoming somewhat saturated, an investigation of ability to get a desired position upon graduation seems warranted.6. Little longitudinal data is available on doctoral programs in industrial and general vocational education. It is recommended that the national professional organization concerned with industrial education consider collecting and publishing such information on a yearly basis.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 473063

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

Despite the repeated collapse of mining towns and sites in the Great Slave Lake region, most residents embrace new resource projects as possibilities for creating viable futures. Situated at the intersection of socio-cultural and linguistic anthropology, this ethnographic investigation of the Canadian diamond boom of the 2000s illustrates how imagining stable livelihoods despite a record of impermanence and crises depends on integrating and reframing past failures with present aspirations for “the good life”. At the height of the diamond boom in 2007, future imaginaries were largely associated with high wage job creation in the rapidly expanding industrial sector. Based on 18 months of fieldwork among those said to benefit most from new industrial development: the Aboriginal under/unemployed, this dissertation’s ethnographic attention is on job training programs and employment interventions that promised local residents new futures. The fieldwork coincided with the global financial crisis and almost none of the 90 students followed through the research secured work in the industry at the conclusion of their training. Nevertheless, people continue to maintain faith in a future linked to resource development. Capturing people’s everyday re-makings of tomorrow in uncertain times, this dissertation reveals that while employment in global extractive industries is unable to provide economic security to those who seek it, its promises are productive for four reasons. First, they (re)define the natural world as ‘opportunities for work’. Second, the specific techniques of industry and statecraft that surround mining (impact and benefit agreements, and socio-economic monitoring) transform everyday events of difference and inequality into catastrophes which render industrial development sensible even urgent. Third, they orient public sentiment towards a “future anterior,” a form of temporal longing that I argue impedes a deep reading of the historical present and participates in a politics of deferral. Fourth, they rely on and reproduce a chronotopically constrained public debate on natural resource development.

Despite the repeated collapse of mining towns and sites in the Great Slave Lake region, most residents embrace new resource projects as possibilities for creating viable futures. Situated at the intersection of socio-cultural and linguistic anthropology, this ethnographic investigation of the Canadian diamond boom of the 2000s illustrates how imagining stable livelihoods despite a record of impermanence and crises depends on integrating and reframing past failures with present aspirations for “the good life”. At the height of the diamond boom in 2007, future imaginaries were largely associated with high wage job creation in the rapidly expanding industrial sector. Based on 18 months of fieldwork among those said to benefit most from new industrial development: the Aboriginal under/unemployed, this dissertation’s ethnographic attention is on job training programs and employment interventions that promised local residents new futures. The fieldwork coincided with the global financial crisis and almost none of the 90 students followed through the research secured work in the industry at the conclusion of their training. Nevertheless, people continue to maintain faith in a future linked to resource development. Capturing people’s everyday re-makings of tomorrow in uncertain times, this dissertation reveals that while employment in global extractive industries is unable to provide economic security to those who seek it, its promises are productive for four reasons. First, they (re)define the natural world as ‘opportunities for work’. Second, the specific techniques of industry and statecraft that surround mining (impact and benefit agreements, and socio-economic monitoring) transform everyday events of difference and inequality into catastrophes which render industrial development sensible even urgent. Third, they orient public sentiment towards a “future anterior,” a form of temporal longing that I argue impedes a deep reading of the historical present and participates in a politics of deferral. Fourth, they rely on and reproduce a chronotopically constrained public debate on natural resource development.

Training reforms implemented over the past ten years have contributed to an extraordinary rate of change within organisations concerned with the delivery of vocational education and training. Institutes of technical and further education (TAFE) and the teachers employed by them have not been immune to these changes. The study reported in this thesis explored the meaning and process of educational change for TAFE teachers as they worked to implement one of the core components of the national training reforms into their teaching programs. / Much of the existing literature has failed to consider adequately individual teachers' responses to educational reform. It has not taken into account the unique character and position held by TAFE as the major provider of vocational education and how this might affect teachers' experiences and approaches to implementing major reforms across all program areas. / The aim of this study was to explore the implementation of one component of the national training reforms, namely the competency-based curriculum framework, from TAFE teachers' perspectives. Research questions formulated to guide the study focused on teachers' concerns and the different versions of the curriculum framework, and on ways of working with the framework that emerged over the implementation process. Questions also focused on illuminating teachers' experiences of the change process itself. / In order to address these questions, an orientation described as 'transcendental realism' by Miles and Huberman (1994) was adopted. This orientation, drawing on both the post-positivist and interpretive paradigms, asserts that social reality can exist both in the minds of individuals and can also be apprehended in the objective world. This world-view represents a pragmatic response to the challenges inherent in attempting to understand the nature of social reality that is multi-faceted, complex and subject to various interpretations. It acknowledges the role that the researcher is able to play in bringing together different perspectives in order to develop a more comprehensive and in-depth view of the social phenomenon under scrutiny. / In order to bring together these different perspectives on the meaning and process of educational change for TAFE teachers a multi-method approach to collecting data was utilised. This approach was built upon the assumption that both qualitative and quantitative data had the potential to provide valuable information that would be complementary and therefore of equal importance in addressing the central issues of this study. The conceptual framework for examining educational change was provided by the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM), suitably modified and complemented by a detailed examination of the structural and personal factors that impacted on teachers' experiences of the change process. / The research process for the study consisted of a number of phases undertaken over a three-year period from mid 1994 until early 1997. A questionnaire survey was undertaken of a random sample of 503 teachers employed by TAFE South Australia across a variety of program areas. The selection of a random sample of teachers was a deliberate strategy to capture as wide a cross-section of teachers' voices and experiences as possible. Responses were received from 118 teachers. A sub-group of questionnaire respondents (46 in total) was then followed up and invited to participate in focussed interviews. Data analysis was undertaken in several discrete stages so as to provide a basis for examining each set of data and to investigate the ways in which each set supported and contradicted the others. / The outcomes from this study highlight that educational reform of the nature and scope of the competency-based curriculum framework that teachers were asked to implement is a complex and dilemma ridden process. The introduction of this framework required teachers to adopt new ways of working in relation to the conception, delivery and assessment of their programs. As a component of the training reforms, the competency-based curriculum framework also carried with it the imperative that the philosophy embedded in the Kangan reforms of TAFE in the 1970s be reworked in the light of a strong emphasis on the needs of industry to take precedence over the needs of individuals. As such, the reforms also sought to re-order the relationship between teachers and industry. / The data collected for this study provide a micro level, systematic focus on teachers' work across a variety of TAFE program areas. As such, they provide a fine grained perspective, particularly on the phenomenon of 'partial' implementation and how various 'versions' of the framework were constructed within the various implementation sites. / The data also illuminate the experience of the change process as an intensely human process. Teachers' feelings and concerns in relation to the curriculum framework had a significant impact on their ways of working, which, in turn, were realised in the outcomes of the implementation process. Teachers' experiences reported in the study highlight the importance of understanding and supporting the change process in an environment where the policy development process that mandates change is removed from teachers' spheres of influence. / These findings hold implications for policy makers, managers and TAFE teachers in relation to the manner in which they conceptualise the change process, the policy/implementation nexus within the TAFE environment and the influence of institutional and industry cultures in shaping teachers' responses to change. They raise questions in relation to the types of support needed to assist teachers to bring about real and significant change within their teaching environments. They also highlight issues about teachers' roles as pro-active change agents rather than passive recipients of mandated policies which seek not only to change teachers' practices but also to challenge their values and beliefs about their role as teachers and the ways they might relate to industry in a dynamic policy environment. / Thesis ([PhDEducation])--University of South Australia, 2001.

Thesis (MPsych(Org))--University of South Australia, 2000

This study investigated the latent structure of vocational assessment decision-making. It also sought to examine how the background characteristics of the assessor (such as age, gender, assessment experience and location) affected the relationship between the constructs proposed as underpinning assessment decision-making. For each of the eight constructs explored, a set of rating scale items were developed to measure the intensity of the assessors’ attitudes and beliefs.