Vocational Education for Knowledge Workers in the Contemporary Workplace

Social and economic trends have influenced characters of work and skills have changed as the characters of work have been changed. In today’s volatile work environment, work activities are characterized not by deterministic but by contingent nature of expertise. On the other hand, the contemporary focus on knowledge-intensive industries can be seen in the emphasis on the ‘innovation’ represented by ‘patents’. Today’s honored skills model can be seen as a mix of the Anglo-Saxon skills framework and German’s. In addition, the required qualification at knowledge-intensive work lies in the harmony of theoretical knowledge and soft skills. In order to foster knowledge workers appropriate for knowledge-intensive work, vocational education curricula needs to be designed to respect individual choice and learners’ voluntary efforts with fully utilizing limited resources rather than emphasizing social efficiency.