Authors

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c.Thomas Schröder

Editor-in-Chief of TVET@Asia Director of Institute of General Education and Vocational Education Chair of International Cooperation in Education and TVET-Systems

TU Dortmund University, Germany

Chair of International Cooperation in Education and TVET-Systems

Germany

thomas-werner.schroeder@tu-dortmund.de

http://www.fk12.tu-dortmund.de/cms/IAEB/de/home/Personen/index.html

EB, Issue 2, Issue 4, Issue 5, Issue 6, Issue 8, Issue 9

Field of expertise/main research projects:
Field of expertise/main research projects Prof. Schröder is the director of the Institute for General Education and Vocational Education at TU Dortmund University. He holds as full professor the Chair of International Cooperation in Education and TVET-Systems. His main research areas are TVET systems, work-based competence development and didactical concepts, the validation of informal and experiential learning, and the development of TVET systems in an international context. Prof. Schröder belongs to the academic tradition of applied action research that seeks to fruitfully combine societal and systemic innovation, capacity building, sustainability and research. From 2011 to 2014, Prof. Schröder worked for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) as director of the RCP Secretariat located at Tongji University/Shanghai. He supported its member universities in conducting various reform-oriented research projects, capacity building, and reforms in the field of technical and vocational education. The 14 member universities founded the Regional Association of Vocational and Technical Education in Asia (RAVTE) (http://www.ravte.asia) in March 2014. At present, RAVTE comprises of 27 universities from 10 nations from East- and Southeast Asia, who share a common interest in improving technical and vocational education through action research and capacity building. Prof. Schröder is a member of the RAVTE advisory board and Editor-in-Chief of TVET@Asia. In September 2016, Prof. Schröder was awarded an Honorary Doctoral degree from Rajamangala University of Lanna/Thailand by her Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn from Thailand.


Articles byThomas Schröder

Editorial Issue 6: The Greening of Technical and Vocational Education and Training

Editorial Issue 6: The Greening of Technical and Vocational Education and Training

Full issue 6
The importance of building ecologically sound economies (greening) in order to address climate change and other pressing environmental issues is widely acknowledged by govern­ments around the world. A notable example is the recently held 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris/France where 195 countries adopted the first universal climate change agreement. Although the outcome of the conference, the Paris Agreement, requires ratification by national governments, it demonstrates the strong will of the attending nations to address the pressing issue of climate change, to adopt the outcomes to their own legal systems and to sign the agreement.

Editorial Issue 2: Vocational teacher education and research as a task and challenge for the East- and Southeast Asian region

Editorial Issue 2: Vocational teacher education and research as a task and challenge for the East- and Southeast Asian region

Full issue 2
East and Southeast Asia are in the process of experiencing a period of outstanding economic growth and extraordinarily dynamic development and in view of the political regionalisation process achieving a common market by 2015 it should be lent a significant degree of additional momentum. To sustain the rapid development and face the challenges caused by the structural changes of economies, those societies involved will be depending on a highly skilled workforce and thus on functioning TVET-systems to meet both economic and societal demands. TVET-systems are in a process of permanent adaptation to the socioeconomic environment, which leads to an all-round increase and improvement of praxis-orientation in teaching-learning processes. It is evident that the sole employment of the traditional “chalk-and-talk” method in teacher-centred educational settings, does not produce the required workforce.

Work-based and Work-related Learning – Models and Learning Concepts

In Germany work-based learning – which goes by the long-established title: “Learning in the Process of Work”, has been gaining in importance since the 1970s. The term learning here is considered the ideal for the comprehensive development that delivers professional competence. The digitalization of work actually reinforces a renaissance of learning in and through work. This is mirrored in new business and work concepts, such as the learning company and industry 4.0. Although in practice many varieties and models of work-related learning have been developed, the related research is still in its infancy. The variants are differentiated according to the place of learning in work-integrated, work-connected, and work-oriented learning.

Moving beyond talk-and-chalk-teaching – a holistic didactical approach to teacher training through trilateral cooperation between Germany, Indonesia and Myanmar

A highly qualified workforce is the key prerequisite for strengthening the international competitive economy. Based on long-standing and successful cooperation between Indonesia and Germany in the field of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), a trilateral cooperation in the field of further vocational teacher education with Myanmar has been established. Vocational teachers from Myanmar participate in selected occupational sectors in a work task-based and action-oriented training program, which is conducted by teacher trainers and instructors from Indonesia.

Quality enhancement and assurance in research work via scientific coaching: a theoretical basis for inter-institutional and cross-regional research activities in East and Southeast Asia

The Regional Cooperation Platform for Vocational Teacher Education in Asia (RCP) was set up in 2009 with funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) under the aegis of the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ). In June 2011 the Secretariat of the RCP was established at the Tongji University Institute for Vocational Education in Shanghai, China. Among the Secretariat’s main tasks was to support cross-regional reform-oriented research projects to fulfil international scientific quality standards, carrying out capacity building measures and supporting research-based reforms.

Vocational educational science

The world-wide socio-economic processes of change such as globalisation, the information age and the changing environmental conditions have a considerable impact on our societies in terms of the design and organisation of the world of work, and also on vocational education. Alternative ways of re-thinking and new structures are imperative for vocational education to prepare the individual for meeting the challenges of changed requirements and for a long professional life with permanent changes (cf. Spöttl 2008; cf. Höpfner & Koch 2003; cf. Songthanapitak & Schröder 2012, cf. OECD 2013).

Work-based Learning in a Virtual Work Environment – the Future of Learning?

Work-based Learning firmly stands for the idea that self-determined action and experiential learning are inseparably connected, if the learning here is understood in the sense of holistic competences development. The successful establishment of work-based forms of learning organisation remains somehow difficult at an organisational level, especially if the concept strives for an inclusion of learning at the place of work. From an international perspective, the vast number of TVET systems is for various reasons, school, college or university based and remains in traditional chalk-and-talk-mode addressing the input of knowledge, whether it may be relevant or not for the learner’s future employment.

Regional Cooperation in Vocational Teacher Education – building a platform for common research and development, consultancy and reform in East and Southeast Asia

On March 28th 2014, 14 Universities from 9 countries in East and Southeast Asia, that had been actively involved in activities organised by the Regional Cooperation Platform for Vocational Teacher Education in Asia (RCP), founded a self-governed Regional Association for Vocational Teacher Education in East and Southeast Asia (RAVTE) with the support of the Thailand Ministry of Education.

Its organizational predecessor, the Regional Cooperation Platform for Vocational Teacher Education in Asia (RCP), was started as a project funded by the German government, that is to say the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and has been operated since 2009 by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

Vocational Teacher Education at Technical University of Dortmund/Germany – recommendations for interoperability of regional standards and local operation in the ASEAN-region

The continuing discussion on the requirement to standardize the vocational teacher education (VTE) and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is evidence of its relevance for a continuous societal and economic development and the sustainable betterment of the livelihoods of 608,000,000 people in 10 nations within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). At the political level, standardization and harmonization are claimed to be a precondition for the mobility of lecturers, students and skilled workers. The free movement of people is a precondition for the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community 2015 and hence an urgent development target for a regional approach in VTE (Gennrich 2015, Schröder 2013). But what does the requested standardization practically and structurally imply for a politically, socially, economically, and culturally diverse region as Southeast Asia? Could elements of organizational structures and procedures of a federally organized educational sector as in Germany serve as a micro model for vocational teacher education in the ASEAN region?

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