Students problem in Technical and vocational education thesis Introduction, Page 3 "Nature of Work Place "

According to Lankard (1990), “The rapid change in today’s employment scenario is creating new milestone to meet both for employers’ and employees. Employees are facing with a reducing labor group, come across many applicants who possess minimum jobs competencies. From candidate’s point of view, they must chose who have the greatest potential to meet the jobs requirements.  On the other end , the jobs for which employers are being hired today’s , required employees to obtain a broader range of competencies than ever before . This is not only specific to jobs but also comprise all the related admistarative and interpersonal skills, which was formerly demanded only for supervisors”.

Herr (1995) discussed that “the nature of today’s workplace is different from that of the past. It is characterized by global competition, cultural diversity, new technologies, and new management processes that require workers to have critical thinking, problem-solving and communication skills as well as advanced levels of job skills. Some educators believe that this new and emerging workplace eliminates the viability of vocational education (now known as career and Technical Education & Vocational Training, Lynch, 2000) programs that concentrate solely on the acquisition of job skills. They contend  in at vocational education should concentrate more broadly on all aspects of their students’ career development that it should expand its focus by initiating programs that prepare students with the basic academic skills, the teach-ability and flexibility, the commitment to lifelong learning that permits them to rapidly change in ways required by new organizations of work or content changes in the processes and performances of work”.

Kerka (1990) mentioned job associated basic skills beyond mere reading and writing. She defined job related basic skills, as those skills needed to function successfully in the context of the work place- in the performance of a job. AzarBeth(n.d) quoted Stephan Motowidlo, who separates job performance into two parts: task performance and contextual performance.

UNEVOC(1997) emphasized that:”the constant change in the knowledge and skills required for particular occupation, and need for frequent change in employment, makes it imperative that person should have the basis for developing further knowledge and skills as quickly and effectively as possible. This requires a sufficient knowledge base for developing an understanding of other related areas of knowledge, thatis “Generic knowledge” which includes, among other things, basic scientist, mathematic, and technological principles.

Task performance is the traditional notion of ability: how well workers perform and complete a specific task e.g. a fire extinguished, a report written etc. Contextual performance measures aspects of performance unrelated to specific task volunteering, putting extra effort, cooperating, following rules and procedures, and endorsing the goals of the organization.