Overcoming vocational prejudice: Can skills competitions improve the attractiveness of vocational education and training in the UK?

Author(s):

Maia Chankseliani(presenting / submitting)Susan James(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

02. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

02 SES 06 A, VET Learning: Links and Transitions

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-03

15:30-17:00

Room:

B023 Anfiteatro

Chair:

Magdolna Benke

Contribution

Raising the attractiveness of VET has been on the UK as well as the European agenda for some time, primarily for economic and social development reasons. However, little is known about the role of skills competitions in improving the attractiveness of VET. This study uses the data from 110 individual interviews with WorldSkills competitors and their associates to examine the potential contributions of skills competitions to revitalising VET in the UK.

International skills competitions started in post-WWII Europe. In 1950 the first Skill Olympics were held between Portugal and Spain. This competition has evolved into a global contest known as the WorldSkills Competition (WSC) organised by WorldSkills International (WSI), a non-profit association. Currently, the competition brings together around 1000 young contestants from 53 countries, who gather every two years to compete publicly and demonstrate excellence in more than 40 skill areas. The WSC is recognised by many as the pinnacle of excellence in VET and provide opportunities to better understand the factors that contribute to the development of vocational skills to a high standard and the benefits of acquiring world-class skills. In this way, skills competitions could carry some potential for interrupting the policy cycle that perpetuates the vocational/academic divide.

Attractiveness and parity of esteem are two constructs which are often used with reference to the status of VET in literature. Attractiveness refers to the status of VET in its own right whereas parity of esteem focuses on the relative value of VET compared to academic education.

Four strategies have been used to promote the parity of esteem between vocational and academic/general education. These are unification, linkages, enrichment, and enhancement (Lasonen, 2010). Unification refers to bringing vocational and general education into a single post-16 education system. Linkages are made by connecting the two routes through a common certification framework, credit recognition and transfer as well as curriculum. Enrichment encourages cooperation between vocational and general/academic institutions to offer integrated courses. Finally, enhancement focuses on the distinctive ethos of vocational education by promoting measures which preserve and reinforce the unique characteristics of VET, such as the high standards of curriculum and pedagogy that lead to good employment, to HE or to improving collaboration with employers (Lasonen, 2010). While the first three strategies assume the improvement of VET status solely in relation to the academic pathway, the fourth strategy focuses on VET status as relatively independent from the academic alternative.

The enhancement strategy has little to do with 'parity' and more to do with the value of the VET in its own right. We separate the enhancement strategy from the rest of the three strategies and use it to serve a broader goal of raising the attractiveness of VET. A good degree of esteem and not parity of esteem needs to be sought, as '"parity of esteem" is probably a chimera; a good degree of esteem, will however, greatly enhance the attractiveness of TVET' (Winch, 2013, p. 96). Those who find VET attractive and acquire a vocational occupation may not necessarily think that socio-economic rewards associated with the vocational pathway are comparable to those that the academic pathway may lead into. VET may be attractive in its own right, for its intrinsic value. It is the enhancement of the attractiveness of VET rather than the establishment of parity of esteem that we are focusing on in this study.

Method

The research presented in this paper is based on 110 individual semi-structured interviews with 39 WorldSkills competitors and their 71 associates. The associates included 20 employers, 25 family members/friends, 14 college tutors (CT)/university lecturers (UL), seven training managers (TM) and five professionals who acted as college tutors and also training managers (CT & TM). The entire population of interest consisted of 109 competitors who were the Team UK members in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011. Aiming for 'nuanced generalization only in-depth interview studies may possibly provide' through probability sampling (Lucas, 2014, p. 21), we sought to avoid non-probability sampling. This was, however, not feasible and we had to use a mixture of probability and non-probability sampling strategies for selecting participants. The Team UK members from 2009 and 2011 were randomly selected until saturation was reached. Convenience sampling and snowballing were used to identify the 2005 and 2007 Team UK members, as their current contact details were not readily accessible. On average, the face-to-face interviews with WorldSkills competitors lasted for an hour and telephone interviews with their associates lasted for approximately 45 minutes. This study relies on two important assumptions. Firstly, identifying the impacts of social phenomena is considered to be an extremely complex process as a counterfactual cannot be known. By relying on self-reporting, this study assumes that the opinions of competitors, employers, college tutors, training managers and competitors' family members/friends are appropriate measures of the benefits that such competitions may bring in terms of raising the attractiveness of VET. Secondly, the study gathered data from a small group of competitors and their associates. The exploratory nature of this study relies on what Luker (2010) calls the 'logic of discovery' instead of the 'logic of verification.' Statistical generalisation was not a goal of this study. Instead, by aiming at a theoretical generalisation of these findings, we used the rich data generated from the semi-structured interviews with the small sample to explore those aspects of successful vocational performance that could potentially contribute to improving the attractiveness of VET.

Expected Outcomes

This study shows that it is through three factors that skills competitions may hold some potential for raising the attractiveness of VET. First, viewing their peers engaged in achieving outstanding results in a variety of vocational professions may incentivise young people to pursue similar careers; such experiences may be useful in recognising the type of work that young people feel they are suited to doing. Second, seeing competitors reap the rewards of professional careers and economic benefits through vocational professions may prompt young people to have higher aspirations through the VET route. Third, in a society where the prevalent images of young people are somewhat negative, seeing successful men and women in vocational professions may contribute to raising the attractiveness of some vocational trades. In conclusion, this paper focuses on the tip of the good practice - excellence in VET that can be achieved by those few young people who participate in international skills competitions. The important question is: how can these individual cases affect wider societal perceptions and choices related to pursuing VET? More expansive publicity campaigns on the examples of vocational excellence and career success associated with it, as well as using skills competitions to increase VET aspirations at schools, may carry some potential for revitalising VET through skills competitions. The ultimate disruption of the policy cycle that perpetuates the existing vocational/academic divide requires a systemic approach that builds upon good practices of achieving vocational excellence.

References

Lasonen, J. (2010). The status of vocational education and training. In P. L. Peterson, E. L. Baker, & B. McGaw (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Education (3rd ed., Vol. 8). Oxford, UK: Academic Press. Winch, C. (2013). The attractiveness of TVET. In Revisiting global trends in TVET. UNEVOC. Retrieved from http://www.unevoc.unesco.org/fileadmin/up/2013_epub_revisiting_global_trends_in_tvet_chapter3.pdf#page=11&zoom=auto,0,276 Lucas, S. R. (2014). Beyond the existence proof: ontological conditions, epistemological implications, and in-depth interview research. Quality & Quantity, 48(1), 387–408. doi:10.1007/s11135-012-9775-3 Luker, K. (2010). Salsa dancing into the social sciences: research in an age of info-glut. Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press.

Author Information

Maia Chankseliani (presenting / submitting)

Oxford University

Department of Education

Oxford

Susan James (presenting)

Department of Education and Green Templeton College, Oxford University, United Kingdom

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