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Session Submission Summary

Community colleges, TVET institutions, and global counterparts: challenges towards sustainability for vocationally oriented jobs

Mon, April 15, 1:30 to 3:00pm, Hyatt Regency, Floor: Pacific Concourse (Level -1), Pacific M

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

PANEL SUMMARY
Institutions within the Community College (CC), TVET, and Global Counterpart (GC) sector include those that offer short cycle, short-term, two-year, associate degree, and applied baccalaureate programs that are three - four years in length. Institutions within this sector include Community Colleges, Technical Colleges, Technical Schools, Vocational Schools, Vocational Training Centers, Technical Lycées, Professional Lycée, and University Institutes of Technology. Variations of these institutional types exist around the world (Raby and Valeau, 2018; Wiseman, Chase-Mayoral, Janis, and Sachdev 2012). These institutions have evolved into complex educational organizations that fulfill multiple functions, yet, a main mission remains the offering of credentials and degrees to train skilled workers to be work-ready in a fast-changing global economy. Today they play an increasingly global role due to the increasing specialization of career fields to help provide needed skills for an increasingly unstable and changing job market.
Community Colleges, TVET, and Global Counterparts share strong similarities around the world. Their locations are strongly related to geographic areas that allow easy travel and that help to ground close ties with local industry. These locations also aim to service rural and urban, poorer, admitting non-traditional and under-served students (age, gender, ethnicity, SES, displaced workers, un/under-employed, adults) (Raby and Valeau, 2018). The Community College, TVET, and Global Counterparts missions focus on the need to prepare of job-ready graduates, largely for middle and lower level jobs in a changing job market. Curriculum offered is one that is “useful” as a relevant driver for economic growth and that supports the needs of local industries and entrepreneurial agencies (Lauglo & Maclean, 2005). Included are apprenticeship and internship programs that include on the job training and related instruction leading to a certification (VanNoy, Jacobs, Korey, Bailey & Hughes, 2008). In each of these institutions, there is a curriculum that includes a mix of academic focus along with vocational, career-oriented, technological and specialist programs that is delivered via on-campus, mobile training, and online training forums (Ignash & Townsend, 2000; D’Amico, Morgan, Robertson & Houchins, 2014; AACC, 2016) to serve multiple missions that include a mix of non-credit and for-credit programs. In addition, these institutions offer courses that conventional universities do not, such as masons, hairdressers, biotechnology technologists, etc. Credentials are largely defined by workforce and earned in college that interconnect industry-based standards (D’Amico, Morgan, Katsinas, Adair, & Miller, 2016).
CC, TVET, and GC maintain a belief that education answers the unemployment problem and supports vertical social mobility as it improves the quality of life (UNESCO, 2016). This is seen as in both institutional types graduates and even those with some completed college courses, gain employment (Carnevale, Jayasundera & Gulish, 2016; Raby, Friedel, & Valeau, 2014). Yet, In contrast, these institutions tend to be poorly funded and have low public opinion that results in a constant quest to upgrade in terms of purpose, institutional structure, program offering, and even the names of the institutions (Raby and Valeau, 2018).
There are also five notable differences between CC and TVET institutions. First, TVET tend to be more privately funded while CC are more publically funded (Cohen, Brawer and Kistker, 2014). Secondly, TVET have roots in secondary level and maintain strong links between secondary and post-secondary instruction. In comparison, CC’s are strictly post-secondary, although in some countries, they do accept concurrently secondary school enrollment. Thirdly, TVET are mostly government-run while CC’s are organized at the state and local level. Fourthly, different government branches oversee these institutions and credentialing stems from a variety of sources. For TVET, there is typically a national system of workforce certification and credentials are terminal. In some CC, TVET, and GC, these credentials enable transfer to complete the earning of a baccalaureate degree. Finally, there are some TVET that still have an exclusive focus on workforce training while CC and GC mostly have a range of missions.
Vocational and technical institutions have as a central core the focus on training skilled workers to work in an increasingly specialized career field. One modification has been the addition of an academic focus, similar to that of the CC, to help provide needed skills for an increasingly unstable and changing job market. The presenters on this panel will examine a commonalities and challenges that college graduates from Community colleges, TVET, and Global Counterparts have as they try to enter and succeed in a competitive job market. In line with the conference theme “Education for Sustainability”, the presenters will address issues of articulation, job-market integration, the value of TVET and career credentials as perceived by employers, and other related topics from experiences in several different regions. Examples are drawn from Canada, Chile, China, Taiwan, and the United States.
The panel will be structured in five presentations. The first presenter will introduce a comparison matrix for institutional similarities and differences among Community Colleges, TVET, and Global Counterparts. Data is compiled from a 50-year literature review of targeted institutions. Sustainability is examined in terms of continuity of institutional form as well as academic drift that changes institutional name, mission, and design. The second presenter will analyze articulation of TVET institutions in Chile from the perspective of quality assurance over the last 20 years, as a strategy to promote sustainability within the system. Data is compiled from qualitative methodological approach grounded in description, analysis, and systematization of experiences. Sustainability is examined in terms of strategies that target quality within TVET to learn from for future positive change. The third presenter will detail applications of social justice through Technical and Vocational Education in Taiwan. Data are compiled from analysis of published statistics and systematic review of literature along with survey and interview. Sustainability is examined in terms of the whole-person education ideology that sustains life-long education. The fourth presentation will detail the experiences of international graduates of Ontario Colleges as they try to gain career employment and permanent residency. Data are compiled from in-depth interviews with 18 international Ontario colleges graduates from eight countries Sustainability is examined in terms of the strategies used to overcome barriers faced by such students.
The final presenter will detail a long-term cooperation policy with industry at Chinese Technical and Vocational institutions. Data are compiled through a literature review of ongoing efforts and inventory of current colleges. Sustainability is examined in the form of a long term and international projects that target funding and support to build new colleges.

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Individual Presentations