Vocational Education
Vocational education refers to
education for a particular occupation. Industrialized countries have seen a fall
in demand for unskilled workers, and an increase in jobs in the professional,
technical, commercial, and administrative sector. Vocational education is
traditionally associated with trades and crafts: young people were apprentice to
employers for a number of years and learned on the job. Today the focus has
shifted from the workplace to secondary and higher education institutions, and
from employers’ to government provision and finance. Trainees in most
occupations combine workplace training with study at a technical or academic
institution. In the former Soviet Union, school and work were always strongly
linked from primary school. Germany provides nine out of ten young people not
entering higher education with vocational training, and training is planned from
national down to locate level through joint committees of government
representatives, employers, and trade unions. In some countries, skills are
being grouped and "job families" created so that individuals can move between
jobs with similar technical requirements. In others "competency-based education"
is advocated to equip individuals with "transferable" as well as specific
skills. In developing countries, where it is traditional for children to work
from an early age, only a tiny proportion of students follow a formal vocational
program, while the long specialist training of professionals such as doctors,
lawyers, and engineers is a costly burden. Training places for technicians,
nurses, teachers, and the essential workers are often limited. Worldwide, there
is a slow but steady increase in the numbers of women training for occupations
of influence in science, technology, law, and business. It is also
becoming clear that one course of vocational education is not enough for a life
time. Retraining, through continuing education is
essential. |
