Quality Improvement in Adult Vocational Education and Training: Transforming Skills for the Global Economy

Citation

Holden, R. (2009), "Quality Improvement in Adult Vocational Education and Training: Transforming Skills for the Global Economy", Education + Training, Vol. 51 No. 1, pp. 85-86. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2009.51.1.85.2

This book is set in the context of national vocational education and training systems. Its basic premise is that such systems need to perform to high standards if the assumed link between “skills” and “prosperity” is to be realised. The authors set out a model of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) with three interlocking elements: provision, national awards and inspection. At the heart of the model are providers offering education and training. This is flanked by, on one side, a system of delivering vocational qualifications to set standards and on the other “a system for guaranteeing good services to learners and other stakeholders and for stimulating the continuous improvement demanded for success in a globalised economy” (p. 20). It is this third element, inspection, but more often described as “quality assessment and improvement” that is the focus of this book.

The authors draw on their extensive experience, both in the UK and internationally, to deal rigorously with this often disparaged but critical perspective within a nation's VET system. They outline early on in the book what they call “The Transformational Diamond”; their “solution to the challenge of securing continuous improvement in learning” (p. 31). Appropriately perhaps in a book on quality in VET the model consists of four “A's: Aspiration (to excellence), Assessment (of position on the path to excellence), Assistance (for weak but aspiring organisations) and Accumulation (of good practice). This sets the framework for the detailed guidance on how to achieve the principles enshrined in the diamond”.

With the framework established subsequent chapters address particular themes; for example, “how to judge learning”, “using self assessment” and “using data”. Throughout the authors are at pains to acknowledge and address a view of inspection as negative and abrasive, and focused on identifying failure rather than building improvement and effectiveness. They argue their approach has not been one of “naming and shaming” but rather one designed to generate openness, trust, collaboration and address and support the real needs of the institutions they work with. Each chapter ends with a detailed case study which helps clarify the exact nature of their work and its purported impact. These include leading workplace learning providers such as Unipart, BMW and Toni & Guy and which helps also give the work the credibility and status it deserves. A concern though arises from one such case study, BMW. This discusses BMW's apprenticeship training and details how in a quality assessment in 2002 it received a grade 4, “unsatisfactory”. The case notes that “the company's response to the inspection report, which appeared on the internet and which was harmful to its reputation, was to accept promptly that it had a problem … . it took all its service apprentice training in‐house … At a further inspection in 2004 it was awarded a grade 1 (outstanding)”. This seems to me to be a pretty powerful testimony to the “name and shame” approach.

Taken as a whole, the book fills an important gap in the literature on VET. It is unashamedly process oriented. For my money I would have liked to see the book address some of the thorny questions that surround VET. These are touched upon at the outset but are not re‐visited. For example, questions such as the impact of “quality” NVQs on skills (and by implication productivity) in the UK and the relative importance of, and the extent to which, informal learning in the workplace can be “quality assessed”. Perhaps a sequel beckons?