This article sheds light on cooperation between different educational fields as seen from the point of view of experts in education. The authors present the initial findings from the group discussions of a DFG project which started recently. These findings cast doubt on whether cooperation can succeed when different occupational groups know so little about one another within and outside their educational sectors. It remains to be seen whether future data expected from the project confirms the c…
From 1992 to 2007 a considerable amount of German and EU funding was put into development projects described as “Qualification Development Management” (German acronym: QUEM) and aimed to support the quality of vocational qualification structures in the former GDR. QUEM was sponsored by the ABWF (Study Group for Corporate Continuing Education Research). In this article the author, a scientist working on QUEM, sums up the activities in the programmes and projects which were funded. He identifies …
The education cheque, introduced in North Rhine-Westphalia, is a funding instrument which has been running since 2006 and is based on demand. This article presents the central results of an independent evaluation carried out in 2008. The quantitative aims have been achieved, or are likely to be achieved (212,000 attendees funded, 42,000 small and medium-sized enterprises approached by 2013; increasing attendance of continuing education courses in SMEs by two percent). On the negative side the a…
Diversity management is a popular management approach. It promises to allow diversity in organisations and thus to appreciate people for what they are. It undertakes to recognise different points of view, ideas, abilities and potentials; not to standardise cultural variety but to reinforce it. For adult education, this concept seems highly promising. After all, one claim of educational management is to promote personality development and personal progress in a business context. However, critica…
Learning at the workplace – an “intimate” event The author takes the example of two female employees with a background of migration to show how strongly adults’ motivation to learn and their learning decisions are influenced by personal, deeply private motivations, even when they are pushed into learning by an external influence, as is often the case in companies. The theoretical basis on which the author interprets the case examples in the light of the “intimacy of lifelong learning” is th…
