Not just a number : the role of basic skills programmes in the changing workplace (original) (raw)
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2000
Possible ways of conducting research examining the changing context of workplace basic skills policy in the United Kingdom were explored. First, workplace literacy was examined from the perspective of its role in the U.K. government's lifelong learning agenda, and existing research in workplace literacy policy and related studies were reviewed. Next, a framework for research on workplace literacy policy in the United Kingdom was presented. The framework included eight areas (termed "research options") where decisions must be made when choosing to research workplace literacy policy. The research options and selected examples of each are as follows: (1) focus (policy documents, policymakers, training providers, employers, workplace literacy students, unions, other agencies); (2) aspect (legitimacy, implementation); (3) perspective (feminist, deconstructionist, literacy as social practice, discourse analysis); (4) method (textual analysis, questionnaire/survey, interview, focus group, case study); (5) overview (historical, comparative, contemporary, longitudinal); (6) themes (curriculum, funding, accreditation, entitlement, benefits/barriers, tutor training/professional development; progression, information and computer technology, workplace change); (7) purpose (to challenge, influence, inform, monitor, develop theory, or evaluate); and (8) audience (policymakers, academics/researchers/policy analysts, workplace literacy practitioners, employers, workplace literacy students, material developers). Each of the options and examples was discussed, and two possible methods of combining the various examples of each option were described. (41 references) (MN) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Researching Workplace Basic Skills Policy in the UK-ways, and means, to an cr) end: Towards a comprehensive model of research methodologies.
2000
In the United Kingdom, the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) findings published in the 1990s indicated that up to 20 per cent of the adult population had low levels of functional literacy, leading first to the Moser Report (1999) and then to the national Skills for Life strategy (2002-7). The Leitch Report (2006) has emphasised that the UK economy will for the next 30 to 40 years depend largely on employees already in the workforce today. Many of these employees (approximately onequarter) have relatively few, or even no, formal qualifications.
Lessons learnt from an English workplace learning programme (Train to Gain)
International Journal of Training and Development, vol. 18 (1), 2014
Despite the ambition of an employer-led vocational education and training system, a lack of employer engagement in workplace training continues to be reported in England. There seems to be a mismatch between national policy level expectations of how employers should be engaging in workplace training and the practicalities of employer engagement at the local level. This paper presents findings from insider research on employer engagement in Train to Gain, the recent UK government flagship workplace training programme. The study draws on interviews with training provider and government contract managers in one local area to examine the impact of programme structures and funding arrangements on employer engagement, and to identify lessons to be learnt. In their interview accounts, training providers identified rigidity and instability in government funding and management system structures as having constrained employer engagement in Train to Gain at the local level. The findings have implications for workplace training policy by suggesting that programmes with simple designs, stable funding and local flexibility enable more effective employer engagement.
Company-level Strategies for Raising Basic Skills: A Comparison of Corus Netherlands and UK
European Journal of Industrial Relations, 2007
■ This article reports findings from a study of the factors that shape workplace training practices and influence workers' participation. A comparison of basic skills training in steel production facilities in the Netherlands and the UK reveals that institutional frameworks matter but also that management attitudes and union activities influence training arrangements and set conditions for participation. Participation in training depends on these conditions as well as on personal characteristics of workers. KEYWORDS: comparative industrial relations ■ line management ■ steel industry ■ workplace training European Journal of Industrial Relations © 2007 SAGE (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) Volume 13 Number 3 pp 341-360 www.sagepublications.com
Not Just a Number. Experiences of Workplace Learning by Workers in the North of England
In April 1992, 16 individuals who were all employed in manual or nonsupervisory jobs and who had all participated in employer-funded adult education courses offered partly or entirely during work hours attended a weekend retreat in the north of England. They spent the weekend talking and writing about their experiences with work-based learning, its effect on their lives, and the broader benefits of work-based education programs. This book presents the collected writings of the weekend program's participants. The writings are in various formats, including reports, essays, and poems. In the introductory section, two participants describe their involvement in workplace learning and its significance in their lives. The writings in chapters 1 and 2 describe typical workdays in the lives of service occupation and factory workers, and the poems and essays in chapter 3 focus on the participants' reasons for taking work-based adult education courses and the personal and career benefi...
Varieties of Workplace Learning: An Introduction
Economic and Labour Relations Review, 2007
Despite twenty years of training reform’s in Australia, there are widespread concerns about a ‘skills crisis’. This raises the question: to what extent is this a training crisis, and to what extent is it a crisis in the retention of skilled workers, exacerbated by the new relationships of the workplace? In assembling two quite distinct sets of viewpoints, this symposium invites readers to adopt a broad view of worker education. It includes voices who argue that skills training is but one element of workplace learning, the other being the acquisition of contextual knowledge, formal or tacit, about the employer-employee relationship. The first perspective is a critique of a recent attempt to train managers in the efficient use of ‘relationship’ skills. From here, a longer-term perspective demonstrates how the narrow skills approach can be traced to diffusion of Taylor’s educational theory through formal and community-based vocational education systems in NSW. A new perspective is then introduced by a conversation among adult educators, who take the view that workplace learning inevitably involves learning about employer/employee relations. Contributions from South Africa, Canada and Australia consider the relationship between practical activity and the gaining of two aspects of this awareness — union activism and class consciousness. They explore approaches to union renewal and employee participation in shaping learning. Noting the decline of working class communities and of working class education movements, the symposium ends with a suggested explanation for the fluctuating class awareness of those whom the Australian labour movement is currently addressing as ‘working people’.