Editorial

Citation

Holden, R. (2007), "Editorial", Education + Training, Vol. 49 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2007.00449aaa.001

Editorial

One of the key objectives of Education + Training is to address the transition from education to work - particularly as it affects the younger end of the labour market. The issues, the questions, the subject matter of this theme, has been a source of personal inspiration to me in both my teaching and my research. Whilst, overall, I feel this focus remains a credible and legitimate one for the Journal I want in this editorial to highlight the case for two related developments which, together, I feel will enhance the contribution and impact the Journal can make. One concerns the age “boundary”, noted above, and the other relates to the type of research which predominates in this field.

A nagging concern over the years that I have worked in and around this field is what is referred to as the “skills agenda”. What skills does a 17 year-old need as he/she leaves school and begins, let’s say, an apprenticeship? What skills does the new graduate need as they leave behind their three or four years within higher education and begin to take a significant step down a career pathway? Within the context of one of the current “flavours of the month” (at least in the UK) what skills should enterprise education equip its students? Not only is this big business now in our universities but increasingly so in schools. I am told there is requirement for all schools to include enterprise on the curriculum. What I wonder will schools be asked to do next? But, I digress. There is a problem with this “skills agenda” and the problem is this. All too often it is de-contextualised. Any meaningful understanding of employment skills needs to start with examination of performance or behaviour in employment. Lists of skills based on perceptions of desirable attributes, precisely because they are rarely based on rigorous research, in situ, and over time, are largely rendered meaningless generalities. Specifically within the context of graduate employment, and as Holmes (2001) argues more powerfully than can I, the skills agenda “provides little help in understanding the complexity of post-graduation career trajectories for it assumes that the process of gaining a job is simply a matter of matching skills required and skills possessed”. A somewhat different illustration of this problem is furnaced by the “intentions” surveys done by a number of universities, including my own, in the context of entrepreneurship and business start-up. The results are not wholly without interest. They tell me, for example, of the greater propensity of students who describe their ethnic origin as Asian to start their own business. But, of more significance, I would suggest, is what they do not tell me. What impact, for example, does enterprise education and training have on the quality of any subsequent start-up? Precisely because of their reliance on what students, at one point in time, say they are likely to do in the future they provide minimal understanding of the “pathway” from higher education to start-up (or not as the case may be).

Looking back over the last ten or so volumes of Education + Training the numbers of longitudinal studies which seek to explore the processes of engagement between student and employer, apprentice and employer, graduate and employer, are very thin on the ground. The Journal’s key theme of transition is not only perfectly suited to studies which take more than a snap shot approach it is positively in urgent need of re-vitalising through such work. The dominance of the “skills agenda” has left a hole and I think the hole is getting bigger. Such research need not be difficult nor hopelessly expensive. Returning to my own university’s “intentions” survey, done in collaboration with other universities in the region, on a yearly basis since 2002. Would it be really so difficult to mount a qualitative study, with a few carefully chosen “sub groups”, and run this in parallel with the main survey, to address in detail the unfolding decision-making processes? Alternatively, a study might simply seek to “track” students over a relatively short period of time but during a critical phase of some “transition”. In a modest way a Special Issue of the Journal later on in this volume will seek to report on a study which did just this, commencing as a group of graduates completed their degree programmes and finishing one year later.

There is a further dimension that I feel might be highlighted as an important source and opportunity for valuable discussion on this same broad issue. Whilst it would be misleading of me to claim a high level of familiarity with the developing relationships in the UK between employers and education providers I am aware that a lot is happening in relation to work-based and work-place learning. No longer does the sandwich degree stand alone. We have work experience as a requirement of the school curriculum. Within further and higher education we have short placements, long placements, work shadowing and work based assignments. We have a foundation degree, firmly based on work-based learning in partnership with employers. Insight and understanding of these activities and processes within the context of “qualifications”, “employability” and “transition” warrant enhanced understanding. One interesting issue surrounds assessment. Increasingly there is a desire for such “engagement” to be assessed. Perhaps the pressure for imaginative and innovative ways of assessing may help provide the stimulus to develop frameworks for understanding based on a different set of assumptions to those promulgated by the skills agenda. Here, though, and this is my point about the potential restrictive nature of a focus within the Journal on only the younger end of the labour market, I think the Journal must be prepared to address transition amongst those who do not neatly fall into a pathway where this is all done and dusted by the time they reach 24.

Looking a year ahead 2008 will mark the 50th anniversary of Education + Training. I am hopeful that Emerald will acknowledge this achievement in some appropriate way (free gifts for all readers?). My own efforts will extend to the Editorial Advisory Board and indeed any “friend” of the Journal by inviting them to contribute a suitably focused “reflection” on Education + Training or “education and training” to mark the occasion. And now looking back. I should like to record my thanks to Vikki Smith for her contribution over recent years as Associate Editor. She has now moved on (from the Audit Commission to the City & Guilds) and I am delighted to welcome Professor Erica Smith in this role. (It is not a requirement, I must assure readers, that Associate Editors are called Smith!). Erica is based at Charles Sturt University, Australia, where she is Professor of Vocational Education and Training. A big thanks also to David Pollitt who has been the Journal’s News and reviews editor for many years. David is also moving on and we have taken this opportunity to revise somewhat the format of the journal. While we will continue to feature reviews of pertinent books and training/education materials on a regular basis, in addition there will now be an occasional Research news section. Finally welcome back to Vicky Harte, Editorial Assistant, after the birth of her third child – Sarah. Perhaps Sarah could be respondent number one in a special E+T study of transition through lifelong learning!

Rick Holden