Teaching or Testing: The Role of the State in Japan
Japan rarely fails to get a mention these days when the inadequacies of Britain's system of vocational education and training are discussed. Whether it is the state-prescribed core curriculum proposed in the 1987 Great Educational Reform Bill, or the standard Ministerial complaint that British employers do not invest enough in their employees' training, comparison with Japan is often explicit. There is a firm belief that in the linkage between Competence and Competition (the title of a much-quoted report a US/ Germany/Japan/Britain comparison published by MSC/NEDO, Hayes et al., 1984), the Japanese have it better.
How The Japanese Learn To Work
1. The General School System 2. Who Goes Where? 3. Vocational Streams in the Mainline Formal Educational System 4. Post-Secondary, Non-University VET: Public Sector 5. Private Sector Non-University Training Schools 6. Training in the Enterprise 7. Standards and Qualifications 8. The Cost of VET and How it is Shared 9. Policies and Prospects.
Initial Teacher Training: the French view
ABSTRACT This paper, against the background of trends in the development of initial teacher training in Europe as a whole, identifies and explains some of the recent, radical reforms which were introduced in France by a socialist government. These include the need to raise the status and the competence of the teaching profession; the creation of new teacher‐training institutions of university status (Instituts universitaires de formation des maitres); the introduction of common entry qualifications at degree level for both primary and secondary levels; the harmonisation and the extension to 2 years of the post‐degree teacher‐training course and the increase in emphasis placed on professional training, both theoretical and practical. These reforms provoked a storm of protest and an examination of the reasons for this reveals a multiplicity of crucial questions which have far‐reaching implications.