Leesa Wheelahan Launches ‘Pathways to Education and Work’

On February 25, 2016, Leesa Wheelahan and Gavin Moodie presented at the Centre for Researching Education and Labour (REAL)’s Knowledge and Work Symposium at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. The paper titled What should qualifications look like if the links between qualifications and jobs are so weak? focused on wealthy liberal market countries and explored how the qualifications are shaped and conditioned by the structures of the labour market. 

Leesa Wheelahan then traveled to London, England to present at the Association of Colleges Governance Summit (March 2, 2016) alongside Professor Ewart Keep (Director of the Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance at Oxford University). Professor Wheelahan presented on the topic of outcome agreements, what these could look like, and what uses these might fulfill in the English policy context. Leesa subsequently presented at the Association of Colleges’ Higher Education Conference and Exhibition (March 3, 2016) in London, England on the purposes of qualifications as well as the nature of skill and the role of theoretical knowledge in curriculum development, social mobility and occupational progression in the labour market.

The Pathways to Education and Work Research Group led by Leesa Wheelahan recently launched their website. The website provides an overview of the team’s research projects which investigate the nature of pathways within and between colleges and universities, as well as between postsecondary education and the labour market. These research projects are supported by funding from the Ontario Council on Articulation and Transfer (ONCAT), the Ontario Ministry for Training, Colleges and Universities through the Ontario Human Capital Research and Innovation Fund (OHCRIF), and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).