The notion of "Bildung" has been booming in several European countries for almost twenty years now, but it has attracted little attention in vocational education. One reason for this is that "Bildung," the process of becoming human as a goal in itself, is understood in opposition to vocational education, which task would be to…

Indonesia has prioritized upper secondary vocational education since 2006. This study examines the labour market outcomes of upper secondary vocational education in terms of decent work (DW), using Indonesian Family Life Survey data and a research framework that links DW into the broader labour economics of the school to work transition. We…

The concepts glass escalator and glass ceiling have been widely used in studies of gender and organisations. In this paper we propose a novel metaphor to describe and analyse gender segregation and discrimination, that of a "glass funnel." This concept does not relate to men and women as groups in the sense of fixed collective entities,…

India has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and the highest working-age population. The country has a particular demand for skilled labourers, especially at the semi-skilled level, in various sectors. However, many young people find it challenging to acquire the skills employers demand. To approach the issue of youth…

This study explored the mechanism of labor market performance by confirming the role of secondary vocational education for young Korean employees of high school graduates. To this end, we focused on the Meister High School (MHS) policy for fostering the lead in secondary vocational education in Korea. In comparative perspective, data from 2,344…

This article intends to show that while the strong VET-labour market link has a long tradition in the Netherlands and likely maintains strong in the future, the dynamics that substantiate this link, especially in terms of institutional arrangement have seen a radical shift in the last decades. To explore the shifts we make use of Rageth and Renold…

The labour market for young STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) graduates requires flexibility and adaptability, which may potentially conflict with the spreading worldwide tendency toward delayed graduation. This is a cause for concern among academicians, policy makers and practitioners at all levels, as it may generate important…

Links between Qatar's labor market and post-secondary education are not fully effective and often result in neglected or duplicated development of human capital. Therefore, most development efforts occur in isolation involving outmoded programs with many complacent faculty unaware of new technologies and developments relevant to labor market…

The Netherlands has a binary higher education system in which academic education and higher professional education at EQF levels 5-8 co-exist. There is also secondary vocational education at EQF levels 1 up to 4. In this paper, I analyse policy documents resulting from the Bologna Process and argue that under neo-liberal conditions, higher…

Throughout the 1980s and 90s there was international interest in the UK's extensive experience (which began in the 1970s) with measures to alleviate youth unemployment. Today the UK attracts international attention on account of its low rates of youth unemployment and NEET, its (still) relatively rapid education-to-work transitions, and (according…

Some countries have certifying institutions for competence acquired at the workplace. These institutions provide incentives for workplace training that may have favourable effects on productivity, earnings and labour market participation. We present evidence on the earnings effects of attaining vocational qualifications in adulthood through two…

The article deals with the structural conflict between academic and vocational postcompulsory secondary education involving the negative selection to vocational education. The conflict is treated from the historical perspective with the aim of explaining historical factors and social mechanisms that have contributed to the persistence of the…

This paper identifies a nascent trend in several countries regarding increased collection, public availability and use of destination data for graduates of secondary education, with policy ambitions to support pupil-level decision-making and drive provider-level accountability. This trend mirrors the previous development of such data for higher…

Context: Thailand is facing skilled labour shortages, which has prevented the country from achieving significant economic progress. This paper examines Thailand's vocational education policy discourses from 1992 to 2014 and how successful such policies were in building the country's skilled labour force. Approach: This study utilised a qualitative…

The main goal of the secondary vocational education system is to fulfill the staffing needs of the Russian economy. The only way that we can effectively deliver on this objective is by ensuring there is a well-coordinated and stable system in place that allows vocational schools to cooperate with businesses. This article reviews how this…