Publications and Resources

Due to its close links to the labour market, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) can play an important role to improve job opportunities and livelihoods for young people, and in particular for disadvantaged youth. However, this pot ...

Summary report
This summary captures the key outcomes of the thematic BILT Workshop on ‘Migration and TVET’, held at University of Nottingham, United Kingdom, on 10-11 December 2019.

Discussion paper
In the context of increased international migration, the importance of education and training and a global governance of migration is widely acknowledged in academic and international development debates. This discussion paper looks at the relati ...

Definitive version subsequently published in International Journal of Educational Development, 32(5),(2012), http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S073805931200017X
CIER researcher, Lesley Powell, presents some of her doctoral findings on why learners value vocational education and training in South Africa. This paper applies the capabilities approach to the broader debate of the role of vocational education an ...

published in: Journal of International and Comparative Education, 2014, Volume 3, Issue 2
Vocational Education and Training (VET) policy in South Africa is based on a narrow set of assumptions regarding the identity of learners and the reasons that they are in public further education and training (FET) colleges. These assumptions reflect ...

In a paper presented to the Association for the Development of Education in Africa in 2012, CIER researcher Lesley Powell, reviews the history of research on skills development in South Africa.

The orthodox account of vocational education and training for development is firmly based in Neoliberal assumptions about the primacy of the economic. Yet, there are a range of alternative accounts of development, receiving increasing attention, that ...

A definitive version was subsequently published in International Journal of Educational Development Volume 32, Issue 5, September 2012, Pages 696–708
Much of VET policy internationally draws on a toolkit that has been seriously questioned for its logic, international relevance and effectiveness by considerable amounts of academic research. Reflecting primarily on our experiences of leading a compl ...