Conference Agenda

This double symposium explores the important role that vocational colleges and similar types of institutions play in supporting social, educational, and cultural development in their local communities and regions. We argue that the role colleges play is not as well understood or theorised as is the role of universities and schools, and that this matters because colleges are vital for the well-being of their local communities. They support their regions and communities in many ways that are not prominent beyond immediate participants. However, the ways in which they do so differs in different countries and this symposium includes diverse contributions from very different systems.

The domain of this symposium is the second vocationally oriented tier of post school education. This tier may offer other programs, but its key mission includes offering short-cycle tertiary education of about two years’ duration with a vocational / professional orientation, classified in the International Standard Classification of Education ISCED 2011 as category 55 short-cycle tertiary vocational education (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2012, pp. 48-50).

The roles of schools and universities are generally understood and institutionalized as broadly intellectual and cultural that are well established historically and globally. In contrast, vocational colleges are ‘mainly local organizations justified by specific economic and political functions or shaped by particular historical legacies or power struggles’ (Meyer, Ramirez, Frank, and Schofer, 2007, pp. 187, 210).

Colleges are under theorized, which leaves them vulnerable to vicissitudes of marketisation and privatization (Meier, 2013), and undermines the institutional conditions that support them. They are justified mostly by their preparation for work, and gaps in the correspondence between vocational education and work are almost always considered only a supply-side issue for colleges, rather than being co-constituted by education and work (Livingstone, 2009, p. 150). Colleges are therefore thought not to respond sufficiently to the labour market, and to need disciplining by competing with for-profit providers.

This thinking is particularly prevalent in the liberal market economies of Australia, Canada, England, the USA, and others. But it is also projected onto low and middle income countries by intergovernmental and non government organisations.

This double symposium seeks to investigate, compare and analyse colleges’ diverse social roles in different countries, explore commonalities in colleges’ social roles, and invite perspectives from participants in the symposium. Part 1 will comprise 3 presentations, and part 2 will comprise 3 presentations and a discussant.

One third of French young people are in the vocational track in secondary education (vocational high school or apprenticeship, RERS, 2021). The French education system relies on a strong academic convention (Verdier, 2008) embodied in a specific grammar of schooling, a “forme scolaire” (Robert, 2013). Although the vocational baccalaureate is presented as a baccalaureate "like any other", the vocational route suffers from a hierarchy of disciplines imposed by academic convention (David, 2021). Indeed, the vocational baccalaureate is thus a baccalaureate somewhat apart (Maillard, Moreau, 2019), whose identity and comparative advantage are regularly questioned. This paper discusses the structure of vocational preparation in France, and considers the different types of institutions that offer this provision. The paper explores vocational high schools, apprenticeship centres, and production schools (on-campus applied education that provides an alternative training path for young people aged between 14 and 18 years), as well as post-school institutions such as University Institutes of Technology (IUTs) that offer the diploma in technological studies (called in France a Diplôme universitaire de technologie - DUT), which are two-year diplomas leading to occupational outcomes. While IUTs have long enjoyed academic recognition because they are attached to institutions of higher education, vocational high schools have been criticized for their inability to forge links with the professional world. The latest reforms in vocational education (laws of 2009, 2018, bill of 2023) are therefore aimed at promoting apprenticeship to increase the integration rate of young people. Concerning IUT, the 2021 reform strengthens the links between IUTs and academic logic by changing their flagship diploma (DUT) from a 2-year diploma to a 3-year diploma (BUT - Bachelor Universitaire de Technologie) which corresponds to a vocational license level. How to build the articulation towards the higher education in the middle of these different conventions? Based on two monographic researches about vocational high schools (ethnographic approach of 10 schools, 50 interviews), this paper aims to analyze the intertwining of the academic and vocational conventions in the vocational path between multiple political injunctions and daily management of training needs.

David, P. (2021). Pratiques d’enseignement en formation professionnelle initiale: entre forme scolaire et socialisation professionnelle. Éducation et Sociétés, (2), 77-93. Maillard, F., & Moreau, G. (2019). Le bac pro. Un baccalauréat comme les autres?. Octarès éditions. MEN. (2021). Repères et références statistiques. DEPP. Robert, A. D. (2013). The French School system and the Universalist metanarrative (1880–2000s): Some reflections about so-called explanatory historical notions such as ‘La Forme Scolaire’. European Educational Research Journal, 12(2), 190-200. Verdier, E. (2008). L’éducation et la formation tout au long de la vie: une orientation européenne, des régimes d’action publique et des modèles nationaux en évolution. Sociologie et sociétés, 40(1), 195-225.

This paper focuses on the usability of vocational and academic qualifications in the German labour market. Our general assumption is that the competition between academic education and vocational qualifications is particularly high if there are extensive similarities or overlaps in the required skills and the activities to be performed in the workplace. In contrast, a complementary relationship between both types of qualifications is more characteristic if the companies differentiate the tasks and fields of work of vocationally and academically qualified employees. Former research shows various determining factors for the extent of competition or complementarity (e.g. industry sectors, specific personnel structures, engagement and strategy in the field of training). The usability of educational qualifications in the labour market can be estimated by various aspects (e.g. income, employment status, position). This paper presents companies’ and the individuals’ evaluation of the usability of academic and vocational qualifications. The theoretical background is formed by rational choice theory (Arrow, 1989; Esser, 1990) as well as the signaling (Spence, 1973) and screening (Stiglitz, 1975) approach. The mixed methods research concept contains curricula and vacancies analyses, case studies in selected sectors and a quantitative survey. This paper focuses on the analyses of the employment survey, which provides in depth insights on the individual perspective on labour market usability of educational qualifications. The results derive from analysing the data from the German BIBB/BAuA employment survey of 2018. We assessed employees’ educational decisions based on their returns on educational investment. To evaluate the rationality of individuals’ educational choices we calculated an OLS regression model containing variables associated with a positive effect on income (education and work experience) (Mincer, 1974). To gain more differentiated insights on the impact of career aspirations and educational choices we successively included variables into the model representing the individuals’ rationales as well as their socio-economic background and types of qualification (academic vs. occupational). Our results show that employability and income aspirations have a positive effect on individuals’ returns on educational investments, indicating that their educational decisions are rational. The presented results contribute to the debate on the relevance of vocational qualifications in the labour market, driven by the trends of academization in different occupational fields. The case studies and the company survey showed that vocationally qualified employees tend to hold more often operational management positions while academically qualified employees are more likely to hold strategic leadership positions (project management, HR management or controlling).

Arrow, K. J. (1990). Economic theory and the hypothesis of rationality. In J. Eatwell, M. Milgate, & P. Newman, (Eds.), Utility and probability. The new Palgrave (pp. 25-39). Palgrave Macmillan. Esser, H. (1990). ‘Habits’, ‘Frames’ und ‘Rational Choice’. Die Reichweite von Theorien der rationalen Wahl (am Beispiel der Erklärung des Befragtenverhaltens). Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 19(4), S. 231-247. Mincer, J. (1974). Schooling, experience, and earnings. National Bureau of Economic Research, Columbia University Press. Spence, M. (1973). Job market signaling. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87(3), 355-374. Stiglitz, J. E. (1975). The theory of ‘Screening’, education and the distribution of income. American Economic Review, 65(3), 283-300.

Technical and Vocational Education and Training Colleges in South Africa have been shaped by economic inequalities, shifting curriculum and qualification policy, and insecure work conditions aggravated by some aspects of neoliberal models of educational delivery, combined with bureaucratic control, leading to schizophrenic institutions. They are part of a vocational education system that has been the subject of many reforms, and is regarded as a relatively weak part of the overall education and training system (Allais, 2013; DHET, 2013; Taylor and Shindler, 2016). TVET colleges have been reinvented in numerous ways—renamed, restructured, given new governance models. The current 50 Technical and Vocational Education and Training colleges, previously Further Education and Training Colleges (FET), were created by merging 152 Technical Colleges. The shift from Technical Colleges to FET colleges gave them substantially increased autonomy, through the FET Colleges Act of 2006 which gave councils wide-ranging powers, including hiring lecturers directly. This was supposed to enable colleges to function as ‘responsive providers’. The shift from FET to TVET was supposed to signal a stronger focus on the vocational side of their work, after political shifts and a location under a new Ministry of Higher Education and Training. Policy makers and industry continue to argue that the TVET system remains weak and that the TVET colleges do not meet their needs (Kraak, 2010; DHET, 2019; Allais and Marock, 2020). Reforms since the transition to democracy have led to an institutional environment that is complex and expensive, without much visible improvement in the system (Kraak, 2010; DHET, 2012; Allais, 2013; Ngcwangu, 2014). The qualifications system is enormously complex: layers of new qualifications and ways of designing qualifications have been added, without removing the previous ones. Recent changes to post-school funding led to a dramatic change, whereby college students were eligible for funding that was previously allocated to university students. This has affected the nature of the student body. TVET policy is developed nationally, focused on colleges and formal provision separately from sectoral industrial strategy. While in theory colleges should play a role in local economic development, and industry representatives are therefore included in governance structures, there is often tension between local, sectoral, and national economic needs. In short: these institutions, which serve students with weak educational achievement and generally from poor families, have enormous expectations put on them in a context of muddled governance and constant policy reform.

Allais, S. (2013). Understanding the persistence of low skills in South Africa. In J. Daniels et al. (Eds.), New South African Review 3 (pp. 201-220). Wits University Press. Allais, S., & Marock, C. (2020). Education for work in the time of COVID 19: Moving beyond simplistic ideas of supply and demand, Southern African Review of Education, 26(1), 62-79. DHET. (2012). Ministerial Task Team on Seta Performance. Report for the Minister of Higher Education and Training. Department of Higher Education and Training. DHET. (2013). White Paper for Post-School Education and Training. Building an expanded, effective and integrated post-school system. Department of Higher Education and Training, Republic of South Africa. DHET. (2019). National plan for post-school education and training. South African Department of Higher Education and Training. Kraak, A. (2010). A critique of South Africa’s national human resource development strategies, Southern African Review of Education, 16(1), 59-82. Ngcwangu, S. (2014). Skills development in post-apartheid South Africa: Issues, arguments and contestations. In S. Vally, & E. Motala (Eds.), Education, economy, and society (pp. 244-264). Pretoria: Unisa. Taylor, N., & Shindler, J. (2016). Education sector landscape mapping South Africa. Johannesburg: Joint Education Services.