Documents vocational education 117 results

"We analyse the gender training gap (i.e. the disadvantage of women in receiving work-related continuing training) based on individual data from the first wave of the Adult Education Survey (AES). The interaction of gender and education, we argue, has been overlooked in previous work. For only one of 22 European countries do we find a statistically significant training gap for women with a university degree—but in six countries, we find a statistically significant and sizeable training gap for women without a university degree. Multilevel analysis supports the results and shows that institutions are linked to the chances of training. In particular, a system of vocational education and training geared towards firm-specific skills enhances the female training gap. Overall, our paper shows that the widespread perception of a disappearing gender training gap is premature."

"In a rapidly evolving world, society faces multifaceted challenges, including digital transformation, which significantly reshapes how we work, learn, and engage within communities. The European Union's digital strategy, "A Europe fit for the digital age," aims to facilitate this transformation for citizens and businesses while aligning with the climate neutrality goal by 2050. Digital technologies impact various life aspects, necessitating the development of digital skills among workers and citizens to address the widening skills gap and labor market demands. Vocational Education and Training (VET) plays a crucial role in bridging education with the labor market, facilitating reskilling and upskilling to enhance EU's strategic autonomy and competitiveness. VET's digital transformation is essential for maintaining competitiveness and enabling businesses, particularly SMEs, to leverage digital opportunities. The European Commission's initiatives, such as the European Skills Agenda and the Digital Education Action Plan, support VET's adaptation to the digital age. Research by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre explores enablers for VET's digital transformation, emerging trends, and the use of the SELFIE tool to foster collaboration between VET institutions and companies. This research informs policies to ensure EU VET systems remain competitive, offering quality training aligned with labor market needs. The studies highlight the importance of digital skills in VET and provide valuable insights for policymakers to address workforce competence requirements effectively."

"To continue catching up with living standards in other OECD countries Poland needs to invest in higher skills. Crucial elements include: i) making sure that all children have access to high-quality early childhood education; ii) strengthening the basic skills of vocational education students and the relevance of their studies through stronger links with firms; and iii) improving the quality of universities by linking university teachers' pay and career progress with their teaching and research performance. The Polish government has taken action in many of these areas. More needs to be done to put immigrants' skills to better use. Polish return migrants frequently complain about difficulties in using their skills acquired abroad, while many immigrants of foreign origin work in professions that do not match their qualifications. Ongoing reforms to improve recognition of foreign credentials and new possibilities to validate work experience through formal qualifications will be helpful."

"Young people have been among those most affected by the recent financial crisis. Vocational education and training (VET) is often viewed as the silver bullet for the youth joblessness problem. In this article, the authors provide a better understanding of VET in industrialized countries, proposing a typology with three types of vocational systems: 1) vocational and technical schools, 2) formal apprenticeships, and 3) dual apprenticeship systems that combine school training with a firm-based approach. They first describe the strengths and challenges of each system. They subsequently review the evidence of the effectiveness of VET versus general education and the relative effectiveness of the different VET systems. Results indicate that VET is a valued alternative beyond the core of general education and that the use of apprenticeships combined with institutional learning tends to be more effective than school-based VET."

"Am Beispiel der Maurerausbildung in acht Ländern zeigt der Beitrag relevante länderspezifische qualitative Unterschiede hinsichtlich der beruflichen Qualifikation auf. Ursächlich sind verschiedene Berufsausbildungsformen, der jeweilige Einfluss der Sozialpartner (Gewerkschaften und Arbeitgeber) und die unterschiedliche Gewichtung von breiten fachlichen Grundkenntnissen sowie Allgemeinbildung. Ein besonders augenfälliger Unterschied besteht zwischen Ländern, in denen der Maurerberuf noch immer vorrangig als "trade" im Sinne der englischen Bezeichnung gesehen wird, wofür nur enge Anlernqualifikationen notwendig sind, und anderen Ländern mit einem breiten Berufsbild und beträchtlicher Wissensgrundlage. Das aber bedeutet, dass die unterschiedlichen Berufsausbildungssysteme in einen Widerspruch zum europäischen Arbeitsmarkt geraten, der vergleichbare Qualifikationen fordert. Daraus folgt die Notwendigkeit eines europäischen sektoralen Qualifikationsrahmens (SQR), der es ermöglicht, die unterschiedlichen Qualifikationen einzuordnen und anzuerkennen, und der damit die Umsetzung des Europäischen Qualifikationsrahmens (EQR) auf Branchenebene erleichtert."

"Policy debates about the balance of vocational and general education programs focus on the school-to-work transition. But with rapid technological change, gains in youth employment from vocational education may be offset by less adaptability and thus diminished employment later in life. To test our main hypothesis that any relative labor-market advantage of vocational education decreases with age, we employ a difference-in-differences approach that compares employment rates across different ages for people with general and vocational education. Using micro data for 18 countries from the International Adult Literacy Survey, we find strong support for the existence of such a trade-off, which is most pronounced in countries emphasizing apprenticeship programs. Results are robust to accounting for ability patterns and to propensity-score matching."

"Based on interviews with youth in Canada participating in a high school based apprenticeship programme, this article investigates the extent to which such programmes affect stated policy goals of facilitating school-work transitions and developing workplace skills. Although embedded in very different education and labour market structures, Germany's dual system is often discussed as a successful model for youth apprenticeship programmes. A comparison between Canadian and German youth apprentices therefore provides a rare critical look at how these differences shape individual experiences in apprenticeships, but also how they affect the accomplishment of policy goals. Findings show that the study participants themselves viewed their apprenticeships as positive and meaningful experiences. Yet the Canadian apprentices had only a cursory knowledge of apprenticeship regulations and career paths, and the German apprentices were restricted in their choices by the early streaming processes in Germany's education system. Skill development in Canada was limited by a focus on workplace-readiness skills and a lack of integration of what participants did at work and what they learned at school. Rather than gaining an understanding of their rights and responsibilities in the workplace, they were learning to accept their under-privileged place in it."