The golden age of BTEC: the business education curriculum in 1980s further education |
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| Authors: | Roy Fisher |
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| Institution: | School of Education and Professional Development, University of Huddersfield |
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| Abstract: | This article provides an account of ‘three generations’ of the Business Education Council (BEC)/Business and Technician (later Technology) Education Council (BTEC) curriculum as implemented in further education colleges between 1979 and 1992. There is discussion of aspects of the underlying philosophy of BEC/BTEC, the structure and content of the programmes, skills, assessment, work experience, learning strategies, and aspects of monitoring and quality control. It is argued that BEC/BTEC, through a form of vocational progressivism, successfully transformed pedagogic practices in FE during the 1980s. The advent of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications, however, and the subsequent introduction of General Advanced Vocational Qualifications in 1993 effectively marked the end of the ‘BEC/BTEC’ era and the establishment of a more directly instrumentalist approach to vocational education. |
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| Keywords: | Bec Btec Vocational Business Further Education |
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