Vocational Education and Training: who and what is it for?
Date: October, 18, 2012 00:00 Age: 300 days
Professor Simon McGrath, Director of Research, School of Education, University of Nottingham, UK, spoke on the Talanga: The School of Education Seminar Series on the 15th October 2012. Professor McGrath stressed that the definition of vocation education and training (VET) should not be narrow focused. It is narrow focused when often the Ministry of Education purports that VET should largely be controlled by them. VET should also not only have a narrow economic focus alone. It should include ‘green skills’ and other areas of sustainability such as the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability. It should encompass the well-being, humanness and dignity of labor. That people have a vocation that has meaning and moral purpose. Global development goals and instruments such as the EFA and MDGs should, therefore, not only merely be political compromises but need to be underpinned by a coherent and compelling theory.
