The dilemma of providing effective education particularly in developing countries with limited resources and ambiguous calculations of rates of return due to unstable economies and labour market fluctuations makes it an absolute necessity to consider costs and benefits associated both with academic and vocational education. Through argumentation and scholarly literature analysis the paper brings together the benefits of academic education and emphasizes its multiple positive implications as opposed to secondary-school level vocational education that has a number of problematic issues to tackle. The argument further develops towards shifting vocational education from secondary-school level to on-the-job short-term technical trainings. The paper also brings arguments from scholarly literature that while rich developed countries can afford certain amount of vocationally oriented subjects incorporated into comprehensive secondary school curricula, the most optimal way for developing countries to find the solution to the problem would be to conduct vocational training courses at job places and adhere to general academic education in secondary schools. (Contains 2 tables and 2 footnotes.)