In this paper we will present some preliminary results from a part of an extensive research project where collaboration on curriculum development in VET between vocational schools and companies is a main focus. Thirty vocational teachers enrolled in an in-service master’s program in vocational pedagogy at Oslo & Akershus University College participate in the project. Participation is voluntary. The research question is:
How can collaboration between vocational schools and companies contribute to a relevant vocational education?
Relevant vocational education is defined as an education characterized by a close connection between the educational content and the professional content of the actual vocation. It is an education where students have the opportunity to develop professional knowledge in the actual vocation at a high level (Hiim, 2017). An essential aim of the project is to gain new knowledge on how collaboration between vocational schools and companies, aimed at developing vocationally relevant curricula, can be organized, and what are the main challenges and possibilities.
The background of the project is research pointing towards essential challenges concerning a lack of coherence between the content of the vocations and the educational content in Norwegian VET (Hansen & Haaland, 2015, Hiim, 2015, Nyen & Tønder, 2012). Norwegian VET is organized in a two plus two-model, with two years at school followed by two years of apprenticeship. The school-based part is divided into nine broad vocational programs, where the first year is an introduction to the different vocations included in the program. The second year is more specialized towards a few or one vocation. Placement periods in vocational companies during the school-based part are encouraged in the formal curriculum frameworks. However, students’ real opportunities for such placement seem to vary greatly between regions and schools (Nyen & Tønder, 2012). There is a lack of vocational relevance in the curriculum related to a lack of coherence between subject matter and content at school and professional work in vocational companies. Problems of relevance are related to a lack of coherence between academic and vocational subjects and between different learning arenas – the classroom, the school workshop and placement in firms (Hiim, 2015).
Lack of coherence and vocational relevance in VET, and weak collaboration between schools and companies, are international problems. For instance, recent research shows that companies and schools in German vocational education cooperate very little (Gessler, 2017). There are also challenges concerning mutual distrust and weak cooperation between schools and companies in Swiss and English VET (Gessler, 2017, Young, 2004). In Norway, the need for strengthening collaboration between VET schools and companies is now emphasized in formal political directions (White paper no. 9 2016-2017, The Vocational Education and Training Promotion, 2017).
In this project, we investigate challenges concerning vocational relevance and coherence in the curriculum in light of epistemological analyses of how vocational knowledge is constituted. Analyses of pragmatic and critical concepts of knowledge challenging the separation between body and mind, theory and practice, are essential to understand vocational education and to develop concepts of vocational didactics. From pragmatic and critical epistemological perspectives, vocational knowledge is constituted by skills, understanding and ethical values as a whole. It is developed through systematic experience with and research on essential vocational tasks and practices (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986, Hiim, 2017, Janik, 1997, Molander, 1996, Schøn, 1983).