By Volker Wedekind. South Africa’s Department of Basic Education has a plan to address the country’s youth unemployment crisis and its skills shortage. A task team established by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has proposed that learners who leave the formal school system at the end of Grade 9 be awarded an exit certificate. More...

By Melanie Macleod. Practical skills are what counts in the arts and media, so get some hands-on experience with a vocational BTec course. More...

By Glenda Quintini. Vocational education and training are highly valued by many. In 2010, the European Ministers for Vocational Education and Training, the European Social Partners and the European Commission issued the Bruges Communiqué, which describes the global vision for VET in Europe 2020. In this vision, vocational skills and competencies are considered as important as academic skills and competencies. VET is expected to play an important role in achieving two Europe 2020 headline targets set in the education field: a) reduce the rate of early school leavers from education to less than 10 percent; b) increase the share of 30 to 40 years old having completed tertiary or equivalent education to at least 40 percent.
But just how good is VET compared to general education in getting people into well-paid jobs? Unfortunately, the few existing studies yield mixed results partly due to differences in the structure and quality of VET across countries. The new study “The effects of Vocational Education on adult skills and wages. What we learn from PIAAC?” by Brunello and Rocco (2015) released today addresses precisely this question by using the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). Data comparability across countries, the breath of countries involved, and the almost unique presence of information on assessed skills, training, earnings and employment makes this survey especially valuable to study the different facets of VET as compared to more academic education. More...