Abstract
A group of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in the US now advocate multiple pathways for technical college training and career readiness, a viewpoint that broadens the current college-for-all norm with its single-minded attention to ratcheting-up core academic skills in a rigorous one-track, standards-based curriculum. The reformers’ perspective was derived from careful cross-cultural examinations of the vocational education and training (VET) sector recently published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This chapter (a) explains the American policymakers’ assertions about educational reforms to public schools; (b) details career pathways that facilitate tertiary technical training in the USA, including a national board exam model; (c) describes some of the findings from the 17-country OECD study; and (d) explores a model derived from international comparisons of academic achievement in high-performing countries. The findings of the OECD reports might well be a starting point for a policy borrowing or policy transfer process taking place in career and technical education in the US.
Richard D. Lakes is a professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta, USA. Antje Barabasch is a project manager at The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) in Thessaloniki, Greece. Her views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CEDEFOP.
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Lakes, R.D., Barabasch, A. (2012). The American Shortcut to VET: Global Policy Borrowing for the Post-16 Educational Arena. In: Billett, S., Johnson, G., Thomas, S., Sim, C., Hay, S., Ryan, J. (eds) Experience of School Transitions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4198-0_4
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