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JACE: Abstracts

Volume 9, Number 1, 2003

Doors close, windows open: a British Columbia case study on widening access
This essay addresses ways of widening access to university degree-completion programmes for mature, mid-career people. Our focus is on the Integrated Studies Program (ISP) at Simon Fraser University, Canada. The ISP, leading to a Bachelor of General Studies degree, is designed for students who would otherwise feel unwelcome in a mainstream university environment, or who would simply not be able to complete a course of study in a reasonable timeframe, given their responsibilities in the workplace and at home. This innovative programme relies on implicit prior learning and recognition (PLAR) credits and a compressed teaching framework that allows students to maintain fulltime employment as well as a cohort-based approach that fosters co-operation among students and reduces student attrition. The leadership focus of the ISP means that students will be involved in courses from the humanities and social sciences and that they will be able to apply new concepts, methods, and approaches in their workplace and community. We present findings from a case study of access patterns undertaken through the SFU Centre for Integrated and Credit Studies. Special attention is paid to the cohort-based Integrated Studies Programs in Liberal and Business Studies (LBS) and in Justice & Public Safety Leadership (JPSL). We trace a pattern of declining representation of older  students with full-time employment and family responsibilities and discuss how the ISP may contribute to greater diversity and social inclusiveness at this University. We also caution that despite provincial and national interest in lifelong learning, access to post-secondary programs may be hindered for many other interested applicants who face rising tuition fees, uncertain access to courses, and inflexible and possibly irrelevant course content.

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The adequacy of the study skills of a cohort of first year nursing students: an investigation of attitudesThe focus of this investigation was the study methods of nursing students during their first year. The sample was 113 first-years. Quantitative data were gathered from all who completed Section C of the revised version of Entwistle and Tait’s (1995) Approaches to Learning and Studying. Analysis showed that the majority did not consult their tutors; however peers provided a strong source of learning support. The skills of reading, writing essays, listening to lectures and contributing to seminars were generally satisfactory. However, there was some concern about some of the other basic academic skills of this cohort: in particular their ability to read textbooks.

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Global trends and local bends: Australian VET developments
This article explores how Australian governments have responded to global trends for reform of vocational education and training and the pressures for change. Australian VET policy is changing as a consequence of three interrelated factors: the need for VET to develop a sectoral identity in relation to the school and higher education sectors; the interplay of state and federal government relations; and, challenges to the current ‘industry-driven’ paradigm for the sector. There is pressure for VET to move beyond the current framework where VET is regarded principally as an instrument of micro-economic reform, to a broader and more inclusive role. The extent to which change is possible is limited however, by the mandated requirement that all VET qualifications remain within the framework of competency-based, industry-derived national training packages, which are similar to the National Vocational Qualifications in the UK.

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Towards the second chance university? Polity, politics and policy in the Greek case
The present study, based on a methodological strategy constituted from a contextualisation process and a policy impact analysis circle, begins with a short critical interpretation of the international status quo regarding lifelong education projects and the second chance university, and focuses on definitional and epistemological issues. It provides a historical review of the Greek case. The study mainly focuses on the relationship between the main state policies, the official (and less official) discourses and texts and the actions towards the establishment of a lifelong education network and a ‘second chance university’ in the context of the Greek educational system during the past decade. It attempts to reveal and interpret the ‘politics’, the legitimating strategies, the reactions and the counteractions, the real priorities and the social and economical dimensions of these efforts. It also inquires into the way emerging educational practices and trends (such as consumerist control of education and choice-driven systems, ‘regional experimentalism’, multidisciplinary versus unidisciplinary higher education institutions, total quality management and PCDA circles in educational policy, human resource development) and new prevailing significances and theories (employability, profitability, accountability, efficiency, excellence, public choice, managerial culture, positive discrimination, competitiveness, self-interest survival strategies, individual finalism) affect the existing lifelong education projects and the form/type of the ‘second chance university’ being legislated for. Finally, the study examines the relationship of the above-mentioned planned projects to specific forms of pro-, in- and outservice training and on-the-job training projects, existing in Greek educational, social and economic life.

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Globalisation, lifelong learning and their impacts on adult education of Central East-European countries
The challenges of the new millennium are turning everything upside down. Modernisation, globalisation, and a change of paradigm since 1989 have altered our perspectives of the mechanisms by which the societies of Central and Eastern European countries operate. Life expectancy has increased throughout the world, overpopulation has stopped in Europe, and integration movements have exerted increasing influence, constraining societies by outlining and reshaping not only the ‘map of the future’, but also of sub-systems and groups of societies of Central and Eastern Europe. It is evident that, in future societies, the real wealth generated from natural and social resources will depend upon the quality and wealth of human resources. This article scrutinises this issue within the context of lifelong learning.

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Scotland’s high road to lifelong learning: A foreigner’s observations
The final report on lifelong learning of the Scottish Parliament’s Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee is distinctive in being one of the few national lifelong learning policies of such breadth, which apparently express a deep and long-term national commitment to lifelong learning. The Committee’s core proposal to make a standard basic entitlement to lifelong learning available to very citizen may have its greatest effect in increasing the demand for postcompulsory education from under-represented groups, since as the Committee observes, one of the challenges in redressing the relatively low participation of under-represented groups is to increase their aspiration to study at the highest level. However, the Committee qualifies its recommendation that part-time learners be entitled to the same fee and loan arrangements as full-time learners, thus undermining one of the main points of a lifelong learning policy to encourage a seamless transition between, if not integration of, study and family, work and civic engagement. The breadth and ambition of the Committee’s proposals is also its main challenge, and the development of priorities and measures to assess progress will be crucial to the policy’s success.

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