Conference Agenda

As the global demand for higher education (HE) rises, vocational education and training (VET) systems are offering alternative routes into HE and providing opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds (Field & Guez, 2018). Following a previous VETNET symposium on 'Vocationally Oriented Schools as Stepping-Stones Towards Higher Education for First Generation Students? (ECER 2022 conference in Yerevan), several contributions to a subsequent thematic issue (Imdorf et al., 2025) investigated vocational schools as pathways to HE in various European and Asian countries. These contributions analysed the potential of vocational schools to enhance educational and social mobility. They demonstrate how vocational schools in various countries influence the permeability between VET and HE, shedding light on the diverse narratives across different educational settings. While in some countries (e.g. Germany and Austria) vocational schools have developed into legitimate, politically motivated paths towards HE, in other countries (e.g. Switzerland and Japan) they are less politically prioritised for widening HE access (Imdorf et al., 2025).

Despite the potential of vocational schools to act as a bridge to HE, the findings regarding their ability to compensate for social inequalities in HE access remain mixed. While they have increased access to university, they still appear to perpetuate social inequalities, albeit to a lesser extent than traditional access routes (e.g. Gymnasium in German-speaking countries or lycées généraux in France). However, some authors suggest that vocational schools could improve their impact by targeting their efforts more effectively, for example through stronger teacher engagement, better information and orientation for students, and structured pathways that acknowledge and address students’ diverse needs (Barber & Netherton, 2018; Dörffer & Bernhard, 2025). Nevertheless, studies demonstrating how vocational schools enable vulnerable young people to access HE remain scarce. Little is particularly known about this issue in Eastern Europe and the Global South, where vocational schools have become important access routes to HE (see Lukina et al., 2026, for Russia). This symposium therefore aims to further develop this emerging research field, focusing particularly on the institutional and social permeability (Bernhard 2019) of vocational schools and HE in (Eastern) Europe and Asia.

Against the backdrop of extensive social selection and reproduction in access to HE in Bulgaria, a country where nearly half of the youth population enrols in vocational education, Paper One examines the extent to which vocational schools and academic achievements mitigate or exacerbate social inequality in HE access, and whether boys and girls reap equal benefits from the permeability between vocational education and HE. Paper Two explores the attitudes and actions of Chinese vocational schools towards students' expectations of HE in the Shandong region, and how the organisational behaviour of these schools is shaped by social dynamics. Although Norway offers several pathways for VET students to transition to HE, various factors prevent them from doing so (Schmees et al., 2024). Paper Three examines the social permeability of the supplementary academic year, which provides vocational students with access to higher education in Norway. It asks whether this measure broadens HE access for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, focusing particularly on the Healthcare programme.

The three contributions bring together different conceptual perspectives, such as organisational sociology, institutional analysis, academisation versus vocationalisation, and social inequality and permeability, as well as methodologies, including surveys, case studies and the analysis of register data. This allows us to understand vocational schools as potential stepping-stones towards HE for vulnerable students. The contributions advocate the recognition and enhancement of vocational schools as vital components of the HE landscape in the interest of educational equality.

Vocational schools in Eastern Europe generally play an important role as paths to higher education (Frommberger 2019). In Bulgaria up to 90% of students in some vocational education and training programmes (e.g. in economics) continue their education in higher education immediately after graduation (Terziev et al. 2025). However, even though all general and vocational secondary schools enable access to higher education (HE), both academic and vocational programmes at the upper secondary education level are differentiated (Boyadjieva & Ilieva-Trichkova 2019). Vocational schools, which until recently used to accommodate half of youth, differ not only in relation to their programmes, but also in the selectivity of their access procedures, quality of teaching and prestige (ibid.). Against the background of extensive social selection and reproduction in the access to HE in Bulgaria (Ilieva-Trichkova & Boyadjieva 2014), it remains unclear to what extent vocational schools and academic achievements compensate or reinforce social inequality in university access, and if boys and girls benefit equally from the permeability between vocational and HE. We therefore ask (1) how various upper secondary school types in Bulgaria differ in respect to their social composition with regard to its pupils’ social origin and gender, and (2) how likely these school types and the academic achievements of their students are to result in higher education entrance if social composition is taken into account. Conceptually, the study links different institutional characteristics (selection principles, quality of teaching, programme orientation) of upper-secondary school types (Boyadjieva & Ilieva-Trichkova 2019) to gender and social origin. We analyse the nationally-representative Bulgarian School-Leavers Survey (N=2100), carried out in 2014 (Imdorf & Stoilova 2017), and apply bi-variate descriptive and logistic regression analyses. Preliminary results show a considerable variation in transition patterns to HE according to the general and vocational school types which moderate the effects of pupils’ social origin, gender and academic achievement on their transition to HE. Semi-profiled non-selective general schools and vocational schools without exam are more socially inclusive, especially for boys from non-academic families. However, these two school types have different HE-access chances. Compared to the average of graduates who enrol in HE (48%), the respective share among those from vocational schools without exam is especially low with 24 percentage points. In contrast, the share of pupils from semi-profiled non-selective schools corresponds approximately to the average. The findings are discussed in the context of more recent trends in the Bulgarian education system.

Boyadjieva, P. & Ilieva-Trichkova, P. (2019). Horizontal differentiation matters: Moderating influence of the type of upper secondary education on students’ transitions. European Education, 51(1), 32–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/10564934.2017.1411764 Frommberger, D. (2019). Wege zwischen beruflicher und hochschulischer Bildung. Ein internationaler Vergleich.Bertelsmann Stiftung. https://doi.org/10.11586/2019005 Ilieva-Trichkova, P. & Boyadjieva, P. (2014). Dynamics of inequalities in access to higher education: Bulgaria in a comparative perspective, European Journal of Higher Education 4(2): 97–117. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2013.857946 Imdorf, C. & Stoilova, R. (2017). Bulgarian School Leaver Survey 2014 [Dataset]. Distributed by FORS, Lausanne.https://doi.org/10.23662/FORS-DS-864-3 Terziev, V.; Lyubcheva, M.; Georgiev, M. & Simeonov, S. (2025). Vocational Education in Bulgaria – Status and Opportunities. In: Anunciação, P., F., Chasqueira, C., S., C., da Graça Alexandre Chasqueira, H., M. (2025). Innovation and Sustainability in Digital Era. The Role of Economics and Business Strategies with Education Perspectives(pp 475-487). Berlin: Peter Lang Verlag.

Over the past decade, the proportion of graduates from upper secondary vocational schools who have progressed to higher education (HE) has increased significantly in China (Shandong Provincial Department of Education, 2024). One of the core goals of China’s development of VET is to promote social mobility (Zhang et al., 2020). As in many countries (Eini et al., 2023), students in China’s vocational schools are generally from disadvantaged groups, with more than 70% coming from rural and urban poor families (Ministry of Education, 2024a; Gao, 2015). With the opening of multiple pathways to HE, China's vocational schools may no longer be "broken ladder" that cannot provide opportunities for upward mobility (Xiong, 2015), but "elevator" that almost automatically deliver HE opportunities. In this context the study asks why vocational schools that used to focus on employment shift to emphasizing further education and how vocational schools help students progress to HE. Employing organizational sociology, particularly resource dependence theory and new institutionalism the study explores the attitudes and actions of Chinese vocational schools toward students’ expectations for HE and it aims at explaining the social dynamics that shape organizational behaviour. A multiple case study of three public secondary specialized schools in Shandong was conducted in 2024 to provide an in‐depth examination of the under‐researched role vocational schools play in HE progression. Through thematic analysis of semi‐structured interviews with thirteen organizational members, along with policy documents and administrative data the findings reveal that vocational schools have actively promoted the “HE progression” trend. This role serves not only as a strategy for organizational survival—addressing challenges related to resource dependence and the pressure of institutional isomorphism—but also as a means of establishing organizational legitimacy. To improve HE admission rates, the schools in our case studies have implemented similar efficiency mechanisms in response to environmental pressures. These include enhancing the delivery of integrated‐education programs with symbolic quality control during the transfer process, adopting classification‐based student management systems that differ in form but are similar in substance, and establishing systems characterized by strong “examination‐oriented” features. Given that vocational students are usually a ‘hidden disadvantaged’ group transitioning from VET institutions to HE institutions (Brunken & Delly, 2011), the improvement of HE opportunities cannot be separated from the government's active regulation. Countries that are determined to improve vocational students’ college access may learn from China, adopt strong policy measures to broaden the pathways to HE, and support vocational schools’ HE preparation.

Brunken, A., & Delly, P. (2011). Access to success. Education, Knowledge and Economy, 4(3), 143–155. Eini, N., Strier, R., & Shoshana, A. (2023). Lived experience of youth in vocational schools: “I stopped focusing on my past and started living the present so I could reach the future.” Children and Youth Services Review, 150, Article 107006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2023.107006 Gao, F. (2015). Zhong zhi bi ye sheng neng fou cheng wei gao zhi yuan xiao zhong yao sheng yuan shi zheng yan jiu. Zhi ye ji shu jiao yu, 36 (25), 31–38. Ministry of Education. (2024a). Dui shi si jie quan guo ren da yi ci hui yi di 3471 hao jian yi de da fu (Jiaozhicheng Jianyi [2023] No. 128). China Government. Shandong Provincial Department of Education. (2024). Shan dong sheng zhi ye jiao yu zhi liang bao gao 2023 nian du. Government of Shandong Province. Xiong, Y. (2015). The broken ladder: Why education provides no upward mobility for migrant children in China. The China Quarterly, 221, 161–184. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741015000016 Zhang, J., Chen, Z., Wu, Z., & Hora, M. (2020). An introduction to technical and vocational education in China: Implications for comparative research and practice on internships. Center for Research on College‐Workforce Transitions.

Norwegian upper secondary education allows for permeability between vocational and academic tracks via a supplementary academic year, which grants vocational students access to higher education. This route is particularly common among vocational students in the Healthcare programme. However, concerns persist regarding both the academic preparedness of these students and the potential impact on the supply of healthcare assistants (see Meld. St. 16 (2010–2011), NOU 2019:25). This study compares Healthcare students who transition into higher education with peers from the academic track. Research questions: 1. How successful are students from the Healthcare programme in completing the academic qualification through the supplementary year? 2. Are Healthcare-students who have completed the supplementary programme as likely to start higher education as students from the general academic track? Conceptual embedding of the research question: There are different ways of viewing youth who start on a vocational education but transfer into an academic programme and end up with an academic qualification rather than a vocational one. Generally, this is thought of as ‘academisation’, or what is often described as a move away from the practice of ‘on the job-training’ (Kaiser, 2020). However, there are several other similar ways of interpreting this phenomenon. In the German-speaking countries this is often talked about in the terms of ‘permeability’ (see for example Hartmann et al (2009) and Caves et al (2023)). The concept of permeability is understood as opening up access to higher education for students not coming through the regular academic access routes, which potentially can contribute to reducing social inequality in access to higher education. The introduction of the academic supplementary year in Norway can thus be seen as a way of opening up for more access to higher education via alternative routes. Data: In this paper we use administrative data from Statistics Norway that covers all educational activity. In addition, we have information on gender, birthyear, place of birth, parents’ educational level when students were 16 and immigration background. Preliminary results: Bivariate analyses show a performance advantage for females from the academic track. Yet, when controlling for background characteristics, only minor differences emerge in academic qualification completion, higher education access, and bachelor’s degree attainment. These findings suggest that the supplementary year prepares students for higher education and broadens access for those from less advantaged backgrounds, contributing to increased diversity and social mobility.

Caves, K. M., McDonald, P., Naço, D. & Renold, U. (2023). A ticket up and a ticket out. Promoting and ensuring permeability in education system reform (CES Studies 32). ETH Zürich. https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/handle/20.500.11850/599202 Hartmann, E. A., Knust, M., Loroff, C. & Stamm-Riemer, I. (2009). Towards permeability between vocational and academic education. Experiences and analyses from current initiatives in Germany. European Journal of Education, 44(3), 351-368. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-3435.2009.01390.x Kaiser, F. (2020). Academisation of the vocational school teaching profession and the genesis of vocational educational science: A historic country comparison of Sweden, Finland and Germany. In F. Kaiser & M. Götzl (eds.), Historische Berufsbildungsforschung. Perspektiven auf Wissenschaftsgenese und Dynamik (s. 47-71). Eusl Verlag. Meld. St. 16 (2010–2011). Nasjonal helse- og omsorgsplan (2011–2015). Helse og omsorgsdepartementet. https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/meld-st-16-20102011/id639794/?ch=1 NOU 2019:25. Med rett til å mestre. Struktur og innhold i videregående opplæring. https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/2c79526bf80444b7ba90d1f22e52530b/no/pdfs/nou201920190025000dddpdfs.pdf