The transition from vocational education and training to regular employment is an important step in the occupational biography of apprenticeship graduates. In the last decade, the retention rate of apprenticeship completers has remained stable at a high level, and graduates face good job opportunities in Germany. Despite these positive…

While research on universities is well elaborated within the field of higher education, less effort has been made to study other institutions of tertiary education. Complementary to the need of hybrid (specific and general) human capital for German Mittelstand firms, the system of tertiary dual education in Germany has succeeded in hitting two…

Purpose: The aim of this article is to explore the phenomenon of gifted migrants in vocational training and education. To date, migrant apprentices have been predominantly discussed from a deficit perspective. Special attention has been given to competence insufficiency and underperformance, as well as to migrant adolescents' lack of professional…

Over the past 25 years, the total number of students in college has increased by about 50 percent. But the number of students graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects has remained more or less constant. In 2009 the United States graduated 89,140 students in the visual and performing arts, more…

In this era of global competition, human resources will play a decisive role in the battle for efficiency and competitive advantage, where nations and organisations with superior and quality-oriented human capital will soon outperform those with inefficient and quantity-oriented labour force. Rate of human capital formation will be more important…

A distinctive feature of the British approach until the 1960s was that vocational education and training (VET) should be provided by employers. This is conventionally contrasted with the much more formal state coordinated approach of Germany. The question posed is whether the British style was the "spontaneous order" that results because…

Job training is a powerful tool for growth, but only if embedded in a climate of pro-growth policies that it complements. To attract capital to create growth and jobs, a country has to offer favorable supply side conditions. A skilled labor force is one of several important supply side categories, whose growth effects are strongest when the other…

This book looks at ways European governments can create changes in institutions that will foster cooperation among states, focusing on company investment in general skills and using data from France and Germany. Chapter one provides a general description of the challenges governments face in developing policies to change company-level vocational…