who had career or personal aspirations beyond their current jobs were more likely to view opportunities to learn outside work positively than those who were content with their position and who were not aspiring to change. This attitude was exemplified by Tom, an employee in company A who, over the past five years, with the company’s support, had participated in a range of work-related courses. He outlined his experience and expectations as follows:
I thought I could do with some electronics knowledge so I saw my manager who said, do a college course. So, I did an HNC [Higher National Certificate] in electronic engineering.
I finished that and asked if I could do the HND [Higher National Diploma] because it helps with my job, it makes me more efficient in my job, so therefore it saves the company money in the long run … Hopefully you’re not doing the college course just because somebody’s telling you to do it, you’ve got to want to do it, that’s important. If you’re doing it you’ve usually identified a reason for it. In my case it’s … to make my job easier – that was my personal benefit, and the company benefits because it gives me more time to do other things, and at the end of the day you’re hoping, I suppose … to move … up the ladder.
In company A, change was perceived as an ongoing and integral aspect of working life and as central to the company’s continuing success. The company’s training officer outlined the values underpinning the company’s approach, stressing the importance of developing and stretching employees’ knowledge and its relationship to organisational performance. The quotation indicates how he has been urging staff to go beyond the basic competence-based requirements of the NVQ to explore and develop their understanding:
[W]hatever else training does, it has to enhance capability. If someone is more capable and more employable … the business benefits anyway because they can do more and they are better at it. I think people need to be stretched and gain more under-pinning knowledge. It is all very well saying to someone, ‘why have you fitted that seal with such care?’ It is not good enough for them to tell you, ‘Oh, otherwise it might leak.’ We want them to talk about pressure and decay over a period of time, of pressure-sealing if they don’t quite fit that properly… now many of them would already have this…but I do know a lot of people would not … Similarly, in terms of the business, I think that at the end of it they should have a better idea of how this business clicks together, like a jigsaw.
In both companies, older employees had a positive attitude to training and workplace learning, valuing opportunities to learn new skills as well as ways of learning to do their job (even) better. Qualifications which certificated real development and new achievement were valued, and there was little evidence that employees had much interest in simply having their existing skills accredited. While not wishing to dismiss the positive impact that qualifications can have for adult workers with little or no prior attainment, and for whom being awarded a formal qualification can enhance confidence and self-esteem, our evidence suggests that using apprenticeship (via conversions) to increase the numbers with qualifications is unlikely to fulfil existing employees’ aspirations for training. On the other hand, there is nothing to suggest that, given opportunities to engage in meaningful new learning and knowledge-based qualifications that can provide a platform for career progression or a change of occupation, adults would not be able to benefit from apprenticeship. We would argue that the core principles of the expansive– restrictive continuum are important in all apprenticeships, including those for adults aged over 24. In our view, adult training that does not meet this benchmark should not be called an apprenticeship.
Alison Fuller is Professor of Education and Work, University of Southampton. Lorna Unwin is Professor of Vocational Education, LLAKES Research Centre, Institute of Education, London.
Further reading
Felstead, A. (2010) ‘Closing the age gap? Age, skills and the experience of work in Great Britain’, Ageing and Society, 30
Fuller, A. and Unwin, L. (2003) ‘Learning as Apprentices in the Contemporary UK workplace: creating and managing expansive and restrictive participation’, Journal of Education and Work, 16, 4
Fuller, A. and Unwin, L. (2006), ‘Older Workers’ Learning in Changing Workplace Contexts: Perceptions of Barriers and Opportunities’, in T. Tikkannen and B. Nyhan, (eds) Promoting Lifelong Learning for older workers: An international review, Thessaloniki, Greece: CEDEFOP
Fuller, A. and Unwin, L. (2011) ‘The Content of Apprenticeships’, in Dolphin, T. and Lanning, T. (eds) Rethinking Apprenticeship, London: IPPR
Mason, G. and Bishop, K. (2010) Adult Training, Skills Updating and Recession in the UK: The Implications for Competitiveness and Social Inclusion, published by the Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies at:
http://www.llakes.org.uk
McNair, S (2010) A Sense of a Future, Report for Nuffield Foundation, Leicester: National Institute of Adult Continuing Education
Torrance, H. (2007) ‘Assessment as learning? How the use of explicit learning objectives, assessment criteria and feedback in post- secondary education and training can come to dominate learning’, Assessment in Education, 14, 3
Unwin, L., Fuller, A., Bishop, D., Felstead, A., Jewson, N. and Kakavelakis, K. (2008) Exploring the Dangers and Benefits of the UK’s Permissive Competence-Based Approach: The Use of Vocational Qualifications as Learning Artefacts and Tools for Measurement in the Automotive Sector, Learning as Work Research Paper, No. 15, Cardiff University
SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 13
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48