WHAT ASSUMPTIONS DOES THE CONCEPT OF TRANSFER MAKE ABOUT THE Essay

WHAT ASSUMPTIONS DOES THE CONCEPT OF TRANSFER MAKE ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF AND THE APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS IN AND BETWEEN EDUCATION AND WORKPLACE - Essay Example llenge for vocational educational programmes is therefore to provide effective support to students so that they are able to effectively make the transition from school to the workplace. This assignment deals with the concept of transfer of knowledge and skills from school to the workplace and how effectively an understanding of the transfer process helps to evaluate the degree to which this is being achieved. Existing vocational education curricula are unable to effectively bring about the transfer of students from the context of the school to the workplace. What are the reasons for this and what is the role of knowledge and skills acquisition in the transfer process? These are the questions I will attempt to answer in this essay. This first section discusses the concept of knowledge itself, in order to provide a basis for assessing how far the transfer of such knowledge is supported by vocational education. It will examine the different kinds of knowledge as well as skills and the importance of possessing them in the workplace. Knowledge may be tacit, explicit or situated. While situated knowledge is relevant within a particular work context and may be taught through workplace training and the use of handbooks and manuals tacit knowledge is group knowledge that develops within a specific cultural context and may be more difficult to replicate (Guile and Young 2003). Guile ([2002] citing Drucker [1993]) mentions that some authors view knowledge as an embrained phenomenon, for example, it exists either as a product of someone’s mental abilities or as data that may be found on websites, therefore innovation in such an instance will involve transfer of skill and expertise from one section of an organization to another. Other authors such as Noneka and Takeuchi ([1995] as cited by Guile [2002]) have suggested that the development of innovation in business is dependent upon the extent to which the tacit knowledge possessed by the firm is successfully exploited,