By Lukas Graf. The post draws on a recent book: Graf, L. (2013) The Hybridization of Vocational Training and Higher Education in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Opladen/Berlin/Toronto, Budrich UniPress. Click here to download the book for free.
This guest entry looks at institutional changes in the relationship between vocational education and training (VET) and higher education (HE) in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. It is quite common for foreign observers to praise these three countries for the quality of their VET systems. All three countries are part of the “collective skill system cluster” (Busemeyer and Trampusch 2012) and are renowned for their extensive dual apprenticeship training systems at upper-secondary level. See more...

By AnaMaria Seglie. Many of the discussions that I’ve had with scholars about Digital Humanities projects address concerns about a project’s research value. What’s the “shelf life” of this project? (Ironically, they are projects without "shelves" of course!) How will it add to and continue to grow with scholarly discussions? These are all necessary and important questions – ones that we ask of any new piece of work, theory, criticism, etc. However, Digital Humanities also highlights an equally significant and, often times, overshadowed series of questions about teaching. How can we use these projects in our classrooms? How will they enhance our discussions and our students’ experience? More...

En pleine négociation des partenaires sociaux sur une future réforme de la formation, AGEFOS PME présente un 1er point de vue des TPE-PME. Le cahier spécial du 22e baromètre Perspectives aborde de nombreux thèmes d’actualité dont notamment l’obligation légale de formation et sa réforme. Ce baromètre sur l'emploi et la formation dans les TPE-PME, réalisé avec Ipsos du 3 au 17 octobre dernier sur un échantillon représentatif, est une initiative d’AGEFOS PME, 1er gestionnaire des fonds de formation professionnelle en France.  
Télécharger la synthèse du baromètre Perspectives 2014.

By Ong Kian Ming. I FIRST started paying closer attention to the methodology of university rankings in 2005 when Universiti Malaya (UM) was miraculously ranked 89th in the early days of the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) global university ranking. 
My colleague, Tony Pua, and I speculated that this high ranking was mostly due to a misclassification of Chinese and Indian Malaysian students as ‘foreigners’ thereby giving the false impression that UM was as ‘international’ as Monash University in Australia. THES subsequently admitted to this error which once corrected, saw UM quickly tumble out of the top 100 ranking. More...

By Sarah Hamdan. For Musaab Abdo Murshed al-Maamari, continuing his studies after high school has meant striking out on a new path. “All the male members of my family are in the police or the army,” said Mr. Maamari, 20, an engineering student in the United Arab Emirates. “I wanted a change. I didn’t want to follow. I wanted more, a different kind of job.” 
But rather than going to a university, he signed up for a practical engineering program offered by the National Institute of Vocational Education, in Dubai. More...

La DARES (Direction de l’animation et des études statistiques) vient de publier les statistiques sur l’alternance pour le 3ème trimestre 2013.Les contrats de professionnalisation sont en légère progression avec 86 729  nouvelles entrées sur la période janvier-septembre 2013 (vs 84 305 pour la même période en 2012, soit +2,8%).Les contrats d’apprentissage sont eux toujours en net recul avec 138 970 nouveaux apprentis,  vs 154 417 en 2012, soit une baisse de 10% par rapport à la même période l’année passée.