Books. Managing Vocational Training Systems: A Handbook for Senior Administrators

Citation

(2001), "Books. Managing Vocational Training Systems: A Handbook for Senior Administrators", Education + Training, Vol. 43 No. 8/9. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2001.00443had.001

Books. Managing Vocational Training Systems: A Handbook for Senior Administrators

Books

Managing Vocational Training Systems: A Handbook for Senior Administrators

Vladimir GasskovInternational Labour Office2000ISBN 9221108678£12.95Keywords: Vocational training, Management

Vocational education and training systems face many challenges. They include remaining up to date with the constantly changing demands of industry and commerce in the modern economy, raising increasing amounts of money from commercial sources rather than relying on the public purse, and picking up the pieces of a failing secondary-education sector. Success, against such a background, depends largely on having good organization and management skills. But Gasskov, author of Managing Vocational Training Systems: A Handbook for Senior Administrators, claims that, in many countries, vocational education and training systems are failing to use their capacity efficiently. There are too many parallel and overcentralized structures. Meanwhile, administrators often lack the skills to determine priorities adequately, and fail to apply strategic-management concepts or to use modern planning, budgeting and funding techniques. Gasskov seeks to remedy these deficiencies by providing state-of-the-art materials and frameworks for co-ordinating important management and structural reforms, and offering practical guidelines for managing budgets and finance, evaluating performance and developing strategic operational plans.

Vocational education and training administrators increasingly need professional management skills as well as a technical understanding of their field. Gasskov suggests a framework for developing the management competence of senior administrators and encourages them to move towards professional excellence. The framework is designed to help managers to identify national education and training needs, establish strategic priorities and targets, take part in the government budgeting process, and develop internal management policies for staffing, planning, allocating resources and measuring performance.

The book is organized by areas of management function and consists of six modules with 19 learning units. It assumes, therefore, that senior managers are able to identify their areas of weakness and will consult the relevant modules. The modules deal with: managing the public role in vocational education and training; the management concept of vocational education and training; vocational education and training management and organizational structures; vocational education and training target setting and planning; financing vocational education and training; and guiding training providers. Each module includes illustrations of vocational education and training management practice in both industrialized and developing countries. Current trends and best practice in the administration of national vocational education and training systems are reviewed in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, the Republic of Korea, Pakistan, the UK and the USA. The descriptions, which have been provided by national experts, define the situation between 1995 and 1997. They would therefore fail to satisfy anyone looking for a picture of the most up-to-date situation.

Despite this weakness, the book deserves a wide readership among public administrators and managers, government officials, policy makers and employment specialists.