Unleashing the Creative Potential of VET

Zollikofen, 06 March 2019 – Does vocational education and training still adequately prepare young adults for the working life and for society? The 6th International Congress on Research in Vocational Education and Training (VET) addressed fundamental questions about VET in times of insecurity and disruption that require new technological and social competences as well as creativity and innovative ideas.

archideaphoto / Fotolia

140 participants from 16 countries attended the biannual VET Congress hosted in Bern from 14 to 16 March 2017 by SFIVET, the Swiss Federal Institute of Vocational Education and Training. The research paper on public attitudes towards the role of the state and the private provision of training by Andreas Kuhn, Jürg Schweri and Stefan Wolter won SFIVET’s 2017 Best Paper Award competing against over 90 entries.

For the first time, a documentary video as well as a science slam contribution received awards in their categories. Sandrine Cortessis and Saskia Weber-Guisan from SFIVET in collaboration with Kimyan Flückiger and Rodrigo Munoz from ECAL (Haute école d’art et de design HES-SO) received the video award for their documentary «My apprenticeship in Vidy». Auguste Dumouilla and his team were the winners of the science slam award for «A construction of a pseudo-serendipitous competencies training and the evaluation of its effects among young French NEETs».

Lene Tanggaard Pedersen from Aalborg Universitet, Denmark, emphasized in her keynote the role which craftspeople play in the creation of new things. «Creativity requires hard work and can be learned. The foundation for creativity is knowledge», she concludes. Justin Powell from the University of Luxembourg reflected on global trends in higher education and vocational education and discussed how countries selectively follow up on international policies such as the Copenhagen or Bologna process while struggling with the implementation of dual system features.

Sandra McNally from the London School of Economics described the UK government initiative to create 3 million apprenticeships until 2020. Her research showed that young men seemed to increasingly benefit from such apprenticeships, regarding employment and earnings, while young women benefited less. Thus, questions regarding barriers to accessing apprenticeships remain to be answered. Pepper Culpepper from the European University Institute in San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy, took an outlook on grand scale educational developments from a political science perspective, pointing out the constraints which increasingly merging academic and vocational education could bring about.

Further information:

Antje Barabasch, Congress Chair, @email, +41 58 458 27 89

www.ehb.swiss/vet-congress-2017