Technical, economical, and social changes place great demands on the qualification of professional forces in all areas of the national economy. The decisive foundations for these qualifications are built in vocational education. Vocational education is an investment in the future and one of the decisive pillars of the prosperity of every state in…

Governments recognise that careers guidance, underpinned by accurate labour market information, can help learners make post-secondary education choices that match their interests, aptitudes and abilities, and lead to rewarding employment. For this reason, they have invested in building linked education/employment information systems and other…

One response to challenges of national vocational training systems has been a move towards greater flexibility within vocational training systems. This article focuses on an investigation of modularisation as a tool for achieving this flexibility. Many European countries have introduced modular forms into their vocational training system. We…

Concise, clear and comprehensive snapshots of vocational education and training systems in EU, Iceland and Norway: this is what the Cedefop Spotlight on VET series offers. Building on individual country Spotlights, this publication provides an overview of VET systems with their distinctive qualities, such as main accession and progression routes…

This research paper is the fifth in a series produced as part of the Cedefop project The changing nature and role of VET (2016-18). Based on comparative analysis of labour force survey data from 2014, the report analyses the vocational effect on labour market and education outcomes, asking whether any advantages conferred by vocational…

This report is the result of an explorative study, carried out at a time when interest in apprenticeship for adults was on the rise and research and evidence on the topic was scarce and fragmented. It has explored the topic from a conceptual and theoretical point of view, reviewing relevant existing research. It has also considered a practical…

While the benefits of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services to better learning are now widely acknowledged, a widespread and accessible provision for these services also helps support gender equality in the workforce. In particular, the availability, intensity, reliability and affordability of ECEC play an important role in engaging…

Across OECD countries, more and more individuals have attained tertiary education and the share of those with less education has declined. Although there are more tertiary-educated individuals than ever before, they still achieve good labour market outcomes. This confirms that labour market demand is generally keeping pace with rising educational…

A decade ago, the world was not prepared for the widespread impact of the global financial recession. Gradually, the operating focus of higher education sector in many high-income countries around shifted, causing budget-cuts to become a recurring and dominant theme. Yet, at the same time, the expanding middle-class in emerging countries were keen…

Nowadays, women outperform men in educational attainment in many countries. Still, large variation between countries remains. Emancipatory contexts in which individuals are raised might explain these differences in male-female educational attainment, both over time and across countries. This study examines individual and contextual factors that…

This paper looks at the importance of mechanisms that give formal recognition to vocational skills acquired through work-based learning and how such mechanisms might be developed. It describes how skill recognition can benefit individuals, employers and society as a whole, and identifies in which contexts skill recognition has the highest…

"Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators" is the authoritative source for information on the state of education around the world. It provides data on the structure, finances and performance of education systems in the 35 OECD and a number of partner countries. With more than 100 charts and tables, Education at a Glance 2018 imparts key…

A strong VET system is increasingly seen as essential to overcoming the current economic crisis in Europe. VET is seen as a powerful tool to assist in balancing labour market inefficiencies, increasing youth employment possibilities, and reducing skills mismatch. Its inherent flexibility and closeness to the labour market place VET in a good…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore structural and systemic influences in the development of competence models and qualifications systems at sectoral and national levels across Europe, considering the influences of different socio-economic models of skill formation on the processes of design and provision of qualifications.…

This paper explores the impact of policies and institutions on employment and unemployment of OECD countries in the past decades. Reduced-form unemployment equations, consistent with standard wage setting/price-setting models, are estimated using cross-country/time-series data from 21 OECD countries over the period 1982-2003. In the…