Author: Ajal

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Evaluating the trainability of enrollees of the Leventis Foundation (Nigeria) Agricultural Schools’ programs

Author/s: Modupe M. Osokoya and Adewale Adekunle

Edition: Volume 47, Number 1, April 2007

Summary: The Leventis Foundation (Nigeria) Agricultural Schools (LFNAS) are schools established to train youths to develop their state and their nation in the area of food production. This study sought to assess the trainability of enrollees in the three operating LFNAS. Five research questions were posed. The CIPP evaluation model was adopted. The population and sample for the study consisted of a total of 247 enrollees. Questionnaires, structured interviews and observational techniques were used to gather information, while using simple descriptive statistics to analyse the data. Many of the enrollees were found to be within the required age range. A substantive number had minimum basic educational qualification; however, a sizeable number in two of the schools had no basic education, and could not even be engaged in communication. Most of the enrollees had been engaged in different occupations before enrolment and many did not really have the sincere interest in farming as expected, though a majority of them aspired to become modern farmers on completion.

Keywords: Nigeria, Leventis Foundation Agricultural Schools, food production

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Developing speaking skills of adult learners in private universities in Bangladesh: problems and solutions

Author/s: Sabrin Farooqui

Edition: Volume 47, Number 1, April 2007

Summary: The globalisation of English and a growing demand for good English-speaking skills in the job market in particular have been placing a greater emphasis on the teaching of English speaking skills in Bangladesh. The private universities emphasise developing English skills. It seems that students of public and private universities have the same level of proficiency when they start but, at the end of four years of study, the students of private universities have acquired a higher level of proficiency in English.  With observation, document analysis and a series of interviews with teachers who are teaching English language in these private universities, this study investigates how these private universities are helping the students to develop English language skills. It explores teachers’ perceptions of the problems students encounter while speaking English and the factors that help these learners to develop their speaking skills.

Keywords: globalisation, English-speaking skills, Bangladesh, skill development

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Snapshot of a generation: bridging the theory-practice divide with project-based learning

Author/s: Dr Julaine Allan

Edition: Volume 47, Number 1, April 2007

Summary: In this example from the human services field, project-based learning is used to connect theoretical knowledge and practice skills by taking a project from industry and completing it within the peer supported learning environment of the classroom, returning the project product to industry. The theoretical ideal of participation was the project’s goal and the way Snapshot of a generation fulfilled this goal on several levels is discussed. The benefits of project-based learning are an injection of new perspectives and energy from students to the workplace, completion of tasks that human services workers view as important but do not have time to do, and critically important workplace experience for students in an environment of peer support and learning. Project-based learning is a subversion of the usual practicum because of the way abstract theory is embedded in the doing rather than separate from it.

Keywords: human services, project-based learning, theoretical knowledge, practice skills, peer-supported learning

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Prices and values: a perspective on adult and community education

Author/s: Graeme Wells

Edition: Volume 47, Number 1, April 2007

Summary: Government-provided services are caught in the jaws of a ‘cost-tax vice’. On the cost side, the long-term trend of rising relative prices of services, including education, seems set to continue. The other jaw of the vice is the high efficiency cost of raising additional taxes. Recent research making the case for public provision of post-compulsory education has concentrated on the difficult task of quantifying its economic and social benefits. However, given the effects of the cost tax vice, this paper argues that it may be wise to change the focus of research and to direct more attention to new ways of financing adult and community education.

Keywords: costs, taxation, post-compulsory education, economic benefit, social benefit, cost tax vice

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Human capital development: reforms for adult and community education

Author/s: Sarojni Choy & Sandra Haukka

Edition: Volume 47, Number 1, April 2007

Summary: The adult and community education (ACE) sector is consistently responsive to changing community needs and government priorities. It is this particular function that has drawn ACE into the lifelong learning debate as one model for sustaining communities. The responsiveness of ACE means that the sector and its programs continue to make valuable contributions to the quality of social and economic life, particularly in local communities. Although a major focus of ACE is on non-vocational outcomes, there is potential for the sector to make a greater contribution to the human capital stream of the Council of Australian Governments’ National Reform Agenda. This paper briefly describes the ACE sector and its current provisions, and proposes ways in which it could make a greater contribution to the human capital stream of the National Reform Agenda. Reforms to ACE are critical at a time when the Australian Government is planning activities for the Reform Agenda, when there is an urgent need of skilled workers, when the ageing population is seeking pathways and opportunities for economic outcomes, and when traditional vocational education and training providers are unable to meet the skill shortages experienced by industry across Australia. This paper attempts to initiate debate around an enhanced role for ACE, in terms of not only the Reform Agenda, but also a rather more defined position in meeting the learning and skilling needs of the broader community.

Keywords: ACE sector, National Reform Agenda, ageing population, skilled workers, vocational education

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A very peculiar practice? Promulgating social partnerships with small business – but what have we learnt from research and practice?

Author/s: Karen Plane

Edition: Volume 47, Number 1, April 2007

Summary: The ideologies underpinning public / private partnerships (PPPs) have been much contested in theory, but what does promulgating a social partnership mean in practice? This qualitative research study has been ‘critiquing’ a construct of ‘ecologies of learning’ or ‘capacities of capital’ for social partnerships between industry, vocational education and training (VET) and a regional community. This paper critiques one of these ecologies by exploring the discourses of social capital which present challenges for small business/ community partnerships in practice. It argues that there is a need to question the impact of neoliberalism on social partnerships with VET and how the entities of industry: ‘fortress enterprise’, the community: ‘fortress Australia’, and governance: ‘terra publica’ are positioned within this predominant economic rationalist discourse. It concludes that policies for ‘globalising neoliberalism’ can be capacity reducing for promulgating social partnerships with VET at the local level.

Keywords: PPPs, public–private partnerships, ecologies of learning, capacities of capital, social partnerships, VET, industry

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Getting connected: insights into social capital from recent adult learning research

Author/s: Barry Golding

Edition: Volume 47, Number 1, April 2007

Summary: This paper begins by teasing out the nature of social capital and its particular and current relevance to adult learning policy and practice in Australia. The paper identifies a number of benefits and significant problems with social capital as an organising construct for adult learning research and policy in Australia. Some connections are made between social capital and lifelong learning, and important distinctions are drawn between ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ social capital. I draw on my experiences and insights over the past seven years using network diagrams as a research tool. Network diagrams are identified as a useful tool for charting relationships between learning organisations and individuals. The paper suggests ways of using the network relationships in these diagrams as a proxy for social capital in a range of formal and informal settings in which adult learning occurs in Australia. Network diagrams are seen to have particular utility in situations where communities and organisations become too small for surveys, where relationships become complex and ambiguous as well as in rural and remote communities where distance and spatial relationships affect access to learning.

Keywords: social capital, adult learning, policy, practice, research, lifelong learning

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The role of the University of the Third Age in meeting needs of adult learners in Victoria, Australia

Author/s: Roger Harris

Edition: Volume 48, Number 3, November 2008

Summary: Many older adults are interested in learning long past the age dictated by social norms. Some want to learn simply for the joy of learning, others because of the social contacts made by joining a community of learners, and still others want to learn so that they have a purpose in life. The University of the Third Age (U3A) is one of several models for lifelong education after retirement which have been developed worldwide. This article reports on a survey which explored the experiences of U3A members of two selected U3As in Victoria, Australia. The findings indicated that respondents were satisfied with their U3A experiences which had contributed in various areas of their lives leading to personal, mental, social and physical enhancement. It emerged that U3A is an important means of enhancing the quality of life for older adults through the provision of lifelong education.

Keywords: older adults, social norms, learning, social, lifelong learning, quality of life

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Faces in tertiary places and spaces: experiences of learning in both higher education and VET

Author/s: Roger Harris

Edition: Volume 48, Number 3, November 2008

Summary: The development in today’s society of knowledge workers for tomorrow is of critical importance. Worldwide, there is considerable interest in the respective roles of higher education (HE) and vocational education and training (VET) in building human capability. This paper is designed to provoke such questions as: what kinds of learning places and spaces are Australia’s HE and VET institutions? and how do individuals make sense of the learning and teaching in these sectors? The paper focuses on the experiences of those learners who have studied in both sectors – faces who are therefore in a unique position to analyse them as learning places and spaces. A survey was undertaken of 556 learners who commenced study in technical and further education (TAFE) and universities in South Australia. Subsequent interviews with 69 of these students explored their educational histories in greater depth. The data reflected important differences in the learners’ experiences within the sectors. The findings can provide policy-makers and institutional leaders with insights into how best to position these two sectors to the advantage of learners with changing needs, expectations and desired pathways. They suggest that greater recognition could be afforded to the different but increasingly complementary roles that HE and VET play.

Keywords: learning places, survey, role, higher education, vocational education

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Diverse pleasures: informal learning in community

Author/s: Phoenix de Carteret

Edition: Volume 48, Number 3, November 2008

Summary: In this paper I suggest that social dances and local markets are examples of resilient practices of place-making and community that involve active participation. These two activities create mobile and pliant communities of participants that involve considerable informal and incidental learning. With dances and markets in mind, I look at the two concepts, social capital and community, that are used to link adult education and development and explore the notion of place. Place is conceived here as necessarily involving the inter-relationship of environment, social and economic landscapes. Somerville’s place pedagogy framework is introduced as a methodological approach to research informal learning in the two activities and explore the pedagogies that sustain social attributes broadly conceived under the umbrella of social capital. The paper establishes dances and markets as a nexus of people, place and purpose, a ground from which to research the informal learning that occurs in these diverse pleasures.

Keywords: resilience, active participation, dance, social capital, adult education

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