Volume 1 of the Voctade reports and final deliverables presents a survey of the field of Vocational training at a distance in the European Union as a contribution to the development of knowledge in the field.
Volumes 2, 3 and 4 analyse the data as a further contribution to the development of knowledge in the field.
Volume 2 presents analyses of distance training as a form of provision of VET and as a distinct sector of VET in the European Union. Volume 3 deals with analysis, evaluation and certification. Volume 4 deals with transferability and transparency and the project's course data base.
Volume 5 proposes a structure for the continuation of the work;. A vast amount of data has been collected and analysed. A map of a whole sector of VET in the EU has been provided. But data dates quickly, and if annual data is not collected on the same basis, the study will quickly become out of date. It also lists conclusions from the study and practical and constructive pointers to the way forward so that viable structures for distance training in the 21st century can be put in place.
The survey data of the Voctade project present:
The success was based on:
Volume 2 presents a range of analyses as a further contribution to the development of knowledge in the field of vocational training at a distance in the European Union. Now that the data has been gathered it is crucial and central to the Voctade study that a major contribution to the literature of vocational education and training in the European Union should be achieved, and that the data and findings be disseminated widely. This is being achieved by the publication in book form of major scientific publications with ISBN numbering, which are integrated into search engines and national library data bases, so that the results of the study will remain permanently available to the public.
Vocational education and training, at least in the English-speaking, world is a field of research and analysis that has as yet not got a developed literature. It is felt that the contribution of the Voctade study, as a complement to the other studies listed in this report, will make a valid and important contribution to developing the field of vocational education and training in the European Union.
European documentation and policy documents seem little aware of the fundamental difference between individual-based training at a distance and group-based training at a distance. Furthermore, the four sectors of the two modes of presentation of distance education seem to be little known. These are:
The Voctade study again breaks new ground by listing the characteristics of distance education and training and underlining that distance training is above all the training of taxpayers, the chosen, and perhaps the only, form for many taxpayers. In a socio-economic analysis it is shown that taxpayers pay for the training of others with their taxes, the others being mainly in the 5 - 25 age grouping. Primary schools throughout Europe, secondary schools and training sectors and vocational training programmes and in colleges and universities are paid for by citizens' taxes, but distance training is a major form of training which is genuinely available to taxpayers.
It is claimed, in line with recent contributions of Sir John Daniel, vice-chancellor of the Open University of the United Kingdom, that there is a seamless relationship between distance education and web-based training. It follows that the theories of success and failure, principles of evaluation and system design developed for the distance training field (for students studying at a distance) in the European Union in the 20th century, are applicable to new electronic forms of training at a distance based on the World Wide Web.
There is now little doubt that the World Wide Web is the most successful educational tool to have appeared in a long time. It combines and integrates text, audio and video with interaction amongst participants. It can be used on a global scale and is platform independent. While largely an asynchronous medium, it can be used also for synchronous events. It is not surprising, therefore, that trainers, lecturers, distance education providers and teaching institutions at all levels are increasingly using the Web as a medium for delivery.
Considerations of European Union law are also separately examined so that the ramifications of such regulatory difference can be demonstrated at the single market level. Unfortunately it is difficult to be certain as to the reaction of the Court of Justice to this industry, but general norms regarding free movement of services and non-discriminatory measures make it possible to predict the most lightly reaction of the Court of Justice.
Finally, a cursory exploration takes place of other norms which, although not directly aimed at distance education, by their nature have a close relationship with this industry (e.g. prohibitions on doorstep-selling).
The legal analysis is not prescriptive. It is a simple sketch of the way things are in this industry. It is moot as to how things should be.
For this reason the Voctade study provides a market observatory, in an attempt to track financial trends and successes and failures in the market place. Socio-economic analysis barometers are provided, showing the industrialization of this form of training and its suitability for the growing privatization of European society. Voctade underlines the assets and dangers of industrialization and privatization to be encountered in this form of training.
The success of the Voctade researchers in carrying out a census study of the whole sector of European training is due largely to the successful implementation of the Delphi methodology.
Great encouragement was received for this methodology by the adoption of a similar methodology by the Spanish government in analyzing this field, and of leading French researchers in training in Europe, Oravep, in re-structuring its studies in this field to follow the Voctade methodology.
Researchers have reported what may be considered the demise of the questionnaire as a form of research in education and training. Numerous studies now report that citizens no longer reply to questionnaires unless paid to do so and the dismal response rates achieved by various institutions to questionnaire-based studies reveal a vacuum in methodology for vocational education and training research for the future. The Voctade study shows how the Delphi methodology can substantially fill this vacuum and replace questionnaire-based research in the European Union in the future.
The history of the government distance training model in the European Union is traced to the Centré National d' Eneseignement à Distance in France from the year 1939 to this day. It is claimed that this foundation gave the European Union leadership in the field of training at a distance.
The distance teaching university is traced to decisions in the United Kingdom, Spain and Germany in the 1960s and the realization of these projects in the 1970s, which again gave the European Union world leadership in the field of distance training with the creation of the European open universities.
Sadly, it is one of the conclusions of the Voctade study that confusion, lack of direction, and lack of informed decisions in the field of distance training, has lost a certain amount of this leadership, which these government institutions provided, and leadership in this field is now seen to be transferring to the United States of America, especially in the field of group-based distance education along with electronically-based and Web-based education.