Vocational education and training - VET

Abstract About 50 percent of all Dutch students enroll in a vocational education program. All efforts of vocational institutes are aimed at guiding students towards a diploma; yet, on average, about 28 percent of the students drop out.

Research messages is a summary of research produced by NCVER each year. This year’s compilation includes a range of research activities undertaken during 2023, comprising of research reports, summaries, occasional papers, presentations, webinars, consultancies, submissions, the 32nd ‘No Frills’ national research conference, and various additions to VOCEDplus knowledge resources.

After more than 50 years of research on drop-out from Vocational Education and Training (VET), databases provide vast amounts of drop-out studies from around the globe that entail hundreds of potential drop-out factors. However, many scholars tend to explore the topic without detailed and theoretically grounded foundation. Several diverging research foci exist within the research field of drop-out from VET: Studies differ with regard to the analysed phase of drop-out (development, decision-making, paths after dropping out), the applied sample perspective (learners, educators, further stakeholders), and the overall research perspective that is applied based on a specific theoretical approach. Given the range of drop-out factors, stakeholders, and possible theoretical approaches within studies, this article aims at organising the research on the multi-facetted phenomenon for future endeavours by presenting a framework model that comprises a three-step recommendation: First, the model illustrates different phases (Development-, Decision-, Adjustment-Phase) of drop-out research that should be differentiated. Second, it is argued that the chosen sample perspective is highly relevant for drop-out research and must be chosen carefully. Third, the overarching disciplinary research perspectives on drop-out from VET, which scholars may adopt within their research, entail particular relevant variables and focal points and should therefore be discussed. Four examples of research perspectives (economical, psychological, sociological, pedagogical) are briefly presented, structured on a micro-, meso- and macro-level, to exemplify different theoretical accesses to drop-out research. Throughout the article, the novel organisation framework is explained and exemplified by illustrating relevant aspects of each research area and exemplary literature. The presented framework will help organising the research field and enable scholars to delimit their work more precisely, leading to a more traceable structure of further research efforts and more significant contributions to the state of knowledge.

Higher vocational and professional tertiary education includes programmes with very different design features and functions, ranging from two-year programmes in tertiary institutions through professional bachelor degrees to free-standing professional examinations designed to upskill existing practitioners. In some European countries the scale of enrolment in the higher vocational and professional tertiary education sector now rivals that in regular universities. But not all countries have established a separate sector; in some countries applied, practically oriented programmes are taught within multi-purpose institutions alongside programmes like history or physics.

This report compares this sector across OECD countries, drawing on quantitative and qualitative data. It describes types of programmes across countries and assesses data quality. The report zooms in on pathways leading into vocational and professional programmes and transitions into further learning or the labour market, as well as the profile of learners served by these programmes and links to the labour market.

Comparative data in this area have major gaps because of the lack of internationally agreed definitions for programme orientation at tertiary levels. This report proposes a three-way classification to resolve this problem and sets out practical tools to implement this and thereby improve data availability and quality.

This volume focuses on the micro-level stakeholders involved in the implementation of TVET skilling programmes and/or their components. It will suit lecturers, administrators and programme designers interested in understanding some of the challenges and opportunities of introducing new qualifications and competencies into TVET programmes.

The volume aims to address the role and contributions of TVET providers and companies in identifying, integrating and implementing new qualifications and competencies, drawing on contributions from literature as well as expert engagements and case studies. Readers are encouraged to explore the other two volumes for additional insights: ‘TVET advocacy: ensuring multistakeholder participation’ targets the meso level, and ‘TVET governance: steering collective action’ focuses on macro-level stakeholders.

This volume is written with the macrolevel or system-level stakeholder in mind. Macro level stakeholders can be any number of bodies with a mandate for collective action in TVET. This primarily covers ministries and statutory bodies with legally assigned duties in the governance of TVET.

Policy and operational managers interested in understanding some of the challenges and opportunities of introducing NQCs into TVET systems are most likely to benefit from the findings in this volume, but readers are encouraged to explore the other two volumes for additional insights: ‘TVET advocacy: ensuring multistakeholder participation’ targets meso-level stakeholders, while ‘TVET delivery: providing innovative solutions’ focuses on micro-level stakeholders.

Highlights
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Vocational educated workers receive higher wages than those with general education.

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No significant differences by comparing to university graduates in science and engineering with the same years of education.

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The wage premiums associated to vocational education tend to increase at older ages.

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Females with tertiary vocational education are more likely to receive a higher long-term wage premium than males.


Abstract
This paper estimates the potential impact of vocational education on wage differentials between vocational and general graduates over the life cycle in Thailand, using the national Labor Force Survey (LFS) from 2017 to 2022. The returns to vocational education are analyzed at three levels of education: upper secondary, diploma, and college. The inverse-probability-weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA) method is implemented to account for non-random assignment in choosing the academic track. The results show, on average, that vocational educated workers receive higher wages than those with general education, but it has no significant differences by comparing to university graduates in science and engineering with the same years of education. Additionally, the wage premiums associated to vocational education tend to increase at older ages. The empirical evidence corroborates the crucial role of vocational education in increasing long-term earnings and the number of technical-skilled workers in the Thai labor market.

This report presents the conceptual foundations of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Vocational Education and Training (VET), currently in the Development Phase of implementation which aims to provide a comprehensive and rigorous international survey of student knowledge and skills that are essential for success in selected occupational areas. The PISA-VET assessment covers professional knowledge and skills in five occupational areas (automotive technician, business and administration, electrician, nursing/healthcare assistant and hotel receptionist), plus an evaluation of learners’ employability skills, including literacy, problem solving, task performance (conscientiousness) and collaboration with others. This publication includes the frameworks for assessing all the knowledge and skills included in the assessment. These chapters outline the content knowledge and skills that learners need to acquire in each domain, how each domain is assessed, and the contexts in which this knowledge and these skills are applied. The publication also presents the frameworks for the various questionnaires distributed to students, principals of VET institutions, teachers and trainers, including a questionnaire for trainers in work-based learning environments and a system level data questionnaire for participating countries. The questionnaires are also included as an annex to the publication.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC), in Ecuador, 26 percent of women and 11 percent of men between the ages of 15 and 24 are neither working nor in school  (the so-called “NiNis”).

Nineteen-year-old Diana Tates, who graduated from high school in 2020, is a “NiNi.”  When the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic hit, she had to drop out of university because she could not afford the tuition fees. She decided instead to take care of her younger siblings because she believed that she would not be able to get a job without a degree.

For young people like Diana, technical education offers a powerful educational alternative, because they can acquire practical knowledge in a short time and have easier access to the labor market, thus paving the way for the development of a high-quality labor force in the region.

A World Bank report has shown that academic and labor market outcomes of short-cycle programs help generate employment and develop skilled human capital to meet the demand for these skills in a short amount of time and at a lower cost per student.

Three advantages of technical institutes:

Their students graduate at higher rates than students in university degree programs
Their graduates earn more than persons who only have a high school diploma or who have not completed a university degree.
The unemployment rate is lower among their graduates.
In this context, technical degree programs, which typically last two or three years and are oriented to the labor market, could be extremely helpful in generating employment by offering a path to fairly quick, well-paying job opportunities. 

Are short-cycle programs a solution to the crisis?

Given the potential of technical and technological careers, there is an urgent need to provide young people with access to high-quality, short-cycle education programs. To that end, in 2016, the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Technology, and Innovation (SENESCYT) and the World Bank launched a US$52 million project to improve the infrastructure of public technical and technological institutes and enhance the importance of their programs for the productive sector.

The project provided infrastructure and equipment for four technical and technology institutes and enhanced the quality of their academic programs. One of the project’s activities was the construction in the city of Machala of the Instituto Tecnológico Ismael Pérez Pazmiño, a technology institute that can accommodate over 2,800 students. The institute is the most modern in the country, with 18 laboratories, two workshops, 32 classrooms, and a library, and is staffed by 130 faculty who provide instruction in more than 10 technical degree programs.

Like the students in Machala, the students at the Yavirak Institute in Quito are also undergoing an educational transformation. The rehabilitation of the institute’s infrastructure, which included the construction and equipping of a building for the Ecuadorean culinary arts program, led to a 90 percent increase in enrollment.

For Adrián Calle, a student, this has been a game changer:

“In my first semester, we were in a classroom that was not a kitchen: it was an office with a bathroom and there was no refrigeration for food ... But now we are in the new workshops where we can innovate, modifying or preserving traditional Ecuadorean flavors... I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to study in these facilities.”
 

A mix of new and renovated institutes

The project also financed the renovation of the Instituto Tecnológico Luis Arboleda Martínez in the port city of Manta. With a view to improving the quality of education, we worked closely with the private sector to align educational curricula so that they can better meet the demand for technical skills and discuss the equipment needed to develop those skills that will help strengthen port operations.

In the area of quality, the project included activities such as the implementation of a computer-assisted mathematics remediation program, access to the internet in all institutes in the country, testing of cross-cutting skills for students and teachers, the development of an Integrated Academic Management System, and the rollout of virtual reality laboratories in six institutes in the areas of engine repair and industrial risks.

The educational transformation spurred by these initiatives must be sustainable over the long term.  To that end, the ongoing coordination work between the productive sector and the technical institutes, and the leadership work being done by the directors of these institutes will be essential to ensure that institutional management practices will translate into improved learning in the classroom. The commitment of the government, the institute, and the student community to maintain the infrastructure and equipment will be fundamental to ensure sustainability.

Ultimately, the quality of the teachers and a focus on their continuing education will ensure that students acquire the skills they need to contribute to local economies. This will provide the foundation for a structural change, not only of the education system but also, in the dynamics of social mobility of the most disadvantaged youth. 

 

In this paper, the perspective of international vocational education and training (VET) providers on the issue of transfer from Germany as a origin country to a specific target country is considered. The existing state of research on the topic of VET transfer has so far been largely located at the macro level. Still, to develop a better understanding of transfer, it is useful to include individual projects on a programme basis in the analysis as their understanding in turn shapes the entire transfer work. The study aims to identify the understanding of transfer of vocational training service providers in internationalisation projects, as well as different types of transfer. Case studies are applied that involve German VET providers, sampled from a German funding line. Based on qualitative and quantitative data, process documents and previous research, in-depth interviews with six project actors are conducted to identify the perspectives and approaches for transfer. Among other theoretical approaches, Dolowitz and Marsh's policy transfer framework and Gessler's levels of transfer form the theoretical framework of the study. In the context of the present study, different understandings of transfer can be attributed. Furthermore, using type-building content analysis, four ideal transfer types, namely imitative Re-Combination, adaptative Specialization, adaptative Re-Combination and transformative Specialization are classified. The transfer itself is determined by the project activity rather than by a pre-determined understanding of transfer on the part of the internationally active VET provider. In turn, the project activity shapes the type of transfer in combination with the project partners in the target country context. The project actors focus on structures and content; the transfer of practices and processes is largely understood implicitly and thus less directly forced.

This paper exploits a rich dataset from various administrative sources to study short- and medium-term labor market outcomes of vocational education and training graduates in Saudi Arabia. It examines five cohorts of graduates from institutes operated by the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation who are formally employed in the private sector. The outcome measures for the study are based on monthly earnings data from the private sector social insurance records covering up to five years after graduation for the first cohort. The analysis finds positive returns to technical and vocational education are sustained over time. However, program orientation and economic conditions at the time of graduation appears to impact wages. Furthermore, vocational education and training in Saudi Arabia is associated with higher job mobility after graduation from the program. Students’ mobility premium is enhanced by completion of the program, suggesting improved skills signaling and utilization contributing to higher returns to vocational education and training. The analysis identifies several challenges and opportunities to further improve outcomes of graduates, such as reducing the gender gap in labor market outcomes of female graduates and reducing the high incidence of vertical mismatch among graduates’ field-of-study selection and the occupations group in which they are employed.

This volume addresses the role of meso-level TVET stakeholders in the process of maintaining and updating TVET systems to ensure they remain fit for purpose. Meso-level stakeholders indicate institutions participating in the advancement of TVET systems. Of particular note in this document are organizations covering activities in specific economic sectors, such as business membership organizations (BMOs), trade unions, joint organizations or chambers of commerce, industry or crafts.

This volume is intended to give meso-level TVET stakeholders a better understanding of their role in the greater TVET ecosystem; potential tools for identifying, integrating and implementing NQCs for a TVET system; and action items for closer collaboration with other stakeholders. Readers are encouraged to explore the two other BILT NQC volumes for additional insights: ‘TVET governance: steering collective action’ targets macro-level stakeholders, while ‘TVET delivery: providing innovative solutions’ focuses on micro level stakeholders.

We evaluate the education and labour impact of vocational education and training (VET). Identification draws on different IVs from the large-scale, staggered introduction of VET courses in public schools in Portugal from 2005. We also exploit the large gender differences in VET, with many courses selected almost only by either boys or girls. Drawing on rich student-school matched panel data, we find that VET increased upper-secondary graduation rates dramatically: our LATE estimates typically exceed 50 percentage points. These effects are even stronger for low-achieving students and welfare recipients. Moreover, we find evidence of regional youth employment growth following VET expansions. VET graduates also benefit from higher wages and other positive outcomes over several years, compared to both academic-track and lower-secondary graduates.

Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) teachers play a crucial role in equipping individuals with practical skills for the workforce, yet their significance is often overlooked and underappreciated.  TVET focuses on providing youth and adults with relevant knowledge and skills for work and life. Thus, TVET teachers possess the most broad and complex mandate among all teaching levels.