Demands-based and employer-driven curricula: defining knowledge in higher vocational education and training

Abstract

Access to, and participation in, higher education is expanding.

Employers placing orders and students as commodities: Swedish post-secondary vocational education and training policy

“…Because power and control over the HVE programmes are, to a great extent, exercised locally by employers, different types of institutional relations between publicly funded education, education providers, the labour market and employers are created compared with elsewhere in the Swedish education system. In the HVE system, an employer who initiates or collaborates on an HVE programme can expect, within two or three years, to have some 20-30 graduates to choose from when hiringgraduates who have been trained according to a curriculum meeting the employer's specific needs (Köpsén 2019). By then, the employer has also had the chance to try out students by offering them placements for the work-based learning portion of the programme.…”

“…Nor does it specifically promote any form of consolidation of employers to collaborate more comprehensively than on the management boards of single programmes. HVE programmes and their curricula are initiated and formed locally and align with specific positions for workers in the involved enterprises (Köpsén 2019). Hence, the formation of qualifications and the positions of HVE graduates are not negotiated by the stakeholders of the traditional Swedish model, in which national employers' organisations and trade unions are central actors.…”

“…The programmes are granted funding and permission to start following an annual call for applications from the National Agency for HVE. The programmes are intended to be initiated locally by employers, and decisions on educational content are made in the local contexts of each programme (Köpsén 2019). Additionally, management is carried out by a local management board for each HVE programme, made up primarily of employer representatives.…”

Individual development in a neoliberal context: Climbing to a ‘glass ceiling’? A plea for liberal pedagogy in upper secondary vocational education

“…Hodgson & Spours, 2017;Thompson, 2009), and Sweden (e.g. Köpsén, 2019), calling for a reconsideration, to which this paper provides input.…”

Knowledge in VET curricula and power in society and labour market : Policy and practice: demands-based and employer-driven Swedish higher vocational education

“…For articles 2 and 3 (J. Köpsén, 2020bKöpsén, , 2020d which focus on curriculum and the knowledge in HVE it is foremost the typologies, discussions and previous studies presented in the sections 'Different approaches to knowledge in VET' and 'Employers and the knowledge in curricula' that have been used (e.g., Avis, 2012;Brockmann et al, 2008;Gamble, 2014;Nylund & Rosvall, 2016;Nylund et al, 2017;Wheelahan, 2007Wheelahan, , 2009Young, 2006Young, , 2013 but also research that pose critical questions of whether the expanded access to, and vocational pathways in, higher education actually are contributing to reducing inequalities play a crucial part of the backdrop for these articles (e.g., Bathmaker, 2017;Marginson, 2016;Webb, Bathmaker, et al, 2017;Webb, Burke, et al, 2017).…”