Does Vocational Education and Training Improve Young People’s Situation on the Labour Market?

First of all, what is vocational education and training?

At the upper secondary level, vocational education and training (VET) comprises all courses that prepare students for transition into the labour market. At least 25 per cent of the course contents are of a vocational nature. In contrast, general education, such as offered by grammar schools, prepares students for academic programmes. Principally, we distinguish between two types of vocational education and training courses. School-based VET predominantly takes place at school. Programmes where more than 25 per cent of the curriculum is taught at work are referred to as dual vocational education and training, or ‘Berufslehre’  in Switzerland.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has used this definition to determine the percentages of students in general education, school-based VET and dual VET in 35 countries in the period from 2004 to 2014. However, this study does not reflect the considerable differences in education systems in regard to further dimensions, for instance different professions or quality standards.

Measuring the situation of young people on the labour market

To reflect the complex situation on the youth labour market, the authors have used a series of indicators in their study. Indicators such as the unemployment rate relate to the integration of young people into the labour market while others relate to employment conditions, such as temporary work or income.

Impact of vocational education and training on the situation of young people on the labour market

The study is based on the hypothesis that rising percentages of students in vocational education and training improve the situation of young people on the labour market. In addition, the authors assume that, thanks to the substantial weighting of work-based training, dual VET programmes are more successful than school-based VET. Nevertheless, the economy needs both graduates with vocational qualifications and those with general qualifications, leading to a certain complementarity of general and vocational education and training on the labour market. Bolli, Oswald-Egg and Rageth therefore also investigated whether the positive impact of vocational education and training declines with a rising percentage of students in the respective training programmes.

Contrary to expectations, more school-based VET hampers the integration of young people into the labour market. Even though the quality of the training conditions does not generally deteriorate, the results indicate that school-based VET does not fully meet the needs of the labour market. This could be due to the fact that the courses do not include any work-based training where young people can apply their vocational skills and develop soft skills such as teamwork ability. Furthermore, school-based VET may not involve any communication between the education system and the employers, which may result in obsolete education standards. Consequently, school-based VET is no panacea, but its form and quality play a significant role. This is also supported by the fact that the negative impact of school-based VET does not occur in countries with a high percentage of vocational education and training in schools. This indicates that the form and quality of school-based VET is better in these countries.

In contrast, the high percentage of work-based training in the dual system seems to provide young people with optimum preparation for the labour market. Both labour market integration and employment quality improve if the percentage of students in dual vocational education and training increases. However, the results also show that the positive impact of dual VET diminishes with higher percentages. This confirms the hypothesis that the economy needs an optimum combination of workers with different complementary qualifications.