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The purpose of this paper is to detail how the need for secondary‐level career and technical education (CTE) programs to keep up with technological change in the workplace is conflicting with policy, procedures, and beliefs held by many in the education community. More specifically, the conflicting areas are the manner and type of professional development offerings provided to CTE teachers; funding priorities at the federal, state, and local levels; CTE administrative support and structure; and partnerships between CTE teachers and their local businesses.

The paper is a viewpoint supported by extant literature.

The paper finds that in order for secondary‐level CTE to be readily accessible and of high rigor, large systemic change needs to occur at the federal, state, and local levels.

This viewpoint is intended to be a call to action concerning the sustainability of secondary‐level CTE.

Entrepreneurship is defined as a “life skill”, and the European Union (EU) has recently called on member states to promote the development of entrepreneurial attitudes from primary school right through to university level. The paper aims to investigate which factors influence entrepreneurial thinking and attitudes towards entrepreneurship in vocational and general secondary education in Austria.

The paper is based on the configuration approach. This approach was adapted as a conceptual model for the origins of entrepreneurial orientation and start‐up inclinations among school pupils. The model consists of four dimensions: person, education context, education process, and environment. A total of 900 Austrian pupils at secondary‐level schools were surveyed with a standardized questionnaire.

The results show that entrepreneurial orientation as well as inclinations to start up a new business can indeed be influenced considerably, with potential targeted influences at the personality level, in the education process, and in the pupil's immediate and general environment. It is easier to influence entrepreneurial orientation than start‐up inclinations.

Owing to the heterogeneous school systems in Europe it may be difficult to transfer findings from one country to another. Much more research is needed for identifying country‐specific factors of influence.

The results provide evidence that the potential for developing entrepreneurial orientation and promoting the abilities needed for a free and self‐determined career has not been exhausted by any means.

The study shows that the education process can have a considerable influence on entrepreneurial orientation, and that the EU's call for the promotion of entrepreneurial spirit can be fulfilled in the sphere of education.

The purpose of this paper is to explore objective and subjective career success and to identify factors contributing to career success among a sample of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) “late bloomers” working in Malaysia.

Incorporating a mixed method design, the authors quantitatively surveyed 86 TVET graduates from two multinational companies, followed by in‐depth qualitative interviews with five high‐performing “late bloomer” TVET graduates.

Quantitative results indicate that the respondents progressed in their careers both in terms of salary and promotions, while most were satisfied with their careers and felt that they were internally and externally marketable. Qualitative findings indicate that the success of the late bloomers was the result of a perceived good fit between an individual's strengths and the organization's ability to compensate, motivate and support the individuals in their career progression.

The limited sample size employed can only provide initial insights into career success levels and contributing factors of career success. The results may spur larger scale research on career success of TVET graduates in Malaysia and the neighbouring region.

The paper provides important initial findings on the technical and vocational career line as an alternative pathway for Malaysian youth, particularly school leavers and underachievers, to achieve career success and enhanced social inclusion through higher salaries, job status and educational attainment.

The paper highlights the unexplored potential of career success as a facilitator of educational attainment and social inclusion, rather than the traditional path of educational attainment first, followed by career success.

How do institutional settings and their embedded policy principles affect gender-typed enrolment in educational programmes? Based on gender-sensitive theories on career choice, we hypothesised that gender segregation in education is higher with a wider range of offers of vocational programmes. By analysing youth survey and panel data, we tested this assumption for Germany, Norway and Canada, three countries whose educational systems represent a different mix of academic, vocational and universalistic education principles. We found that vocational programmes are considerably more gender-segregated than are academic (e.g. university) programmes. Men, more so than women, can avoid gender-typed programmes by passing on to a university education. This in turn means that as long as their secondary school achievement does not allow for a higher education career, they have a higher likelihood of being allocated to male-typed programmes in the vocational education and training (VET) system. In addition, social background and the age at which students have to choose educational offers impact on the transition to gendered educational programmes. Overall, gender segregation in education is highest in Germany and the lowest in Canada. We interpret the differences between these countries with respect to the constellations of educational principles and policies in the respective countries.

This study examines whether students graduating from SSC-VOC perform better in diploma engineering programs.

This study uses quantitative and qualitative methods to examine how secondary school certificate-vocational (SSC-VOC) graduates perform in their subsequent vocational programs.

Despite having vocational training orientation, this study finds that graduates from SSC-VOC receive lower grades than their public counterparts by 0.109 cumulative grade points average (CGPA).

Findings imply that policymakers should increase teachers' numbers, salaries and laboratory facilities. In addition, collaboration between SSC-VOC institutions and polytechnics would allow them to offer a quality engineering education. In such a way, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) programs prepare human resources to promote economic development and employment, expand production opportunities and improve employment quality.

This is the first piece of work conducted in Bangladesh that has examined the quality of VET graduates for furthering their studies. This study added value by providing some pragmatic suggestions for practical implications.

Agricultural education and training (AET) institutions will play a strategic role in helping to prepare Africa’s rapidly growing youth populations for productive careers in agriculture and related agri-businesses. The purpose of this paper is to examine the magnitude of skills and youth employment needs emanating from high-population growth rates. It then explores how agricultural education institutions are responding to these challenges in four different countries at different levels of food system development: South Africa tier 1, Tanzania in tier 2 and Malawi and Uganda in tier 3.

Demographic and school enrollment data provide information on the magnitude of job market entrants at different levels of education while Living Standards Measurement Studies in the respective countries provide a snapshot of current skill requirements in different segments of the agri-food system. In order to evaluate AET responses, the authors have conducted country-level reviews of AET systems as well as in-depth assessments at key tertiary AET institutions in each of the four case study countries.

Growth rates in primary school enrollments are high in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, because of budgetary constraints, transition rates decline rapidly – about 40 percent from primary to secondary and 7 percent from secondary to tertiary. As a result, substantial numbers of primary and secondary school graduates seek jobs.

The case study countries are limited to four. Had more financial resources and time been available, researchers could have spread further afield and in so doing increasing the precision of the results.

Estimation of the number of primary and secondary school leavers seeking employment because of failure to proceed to the next level of education. Estimation of the level of education shares in the various components of the agri-food system.

During 1980, training officers received (or not!) copies of a substantial number of official reports, discussion papers and the like which they should have found important to them. In the early part of January, for example, there were three issued in rapid succession. It would not be surprising therefore for a busy training officer to have missed reading the Design Council Report, DESIGN EDUCATION AT SECONDARY LEVEL, or, having skipped through it, to have missed its potential significance for industrial recruitment and training — ‘potential’, because, without action by industrial training staff, the education service is not going to produce the next generation of recruits with the skills, aptitudes and basic knowledge which we could and should be asking for.

The aim of this paper is to examine the perceptions and attitudes towards enterprise education at secondary level[1] in Ireland from a multi‐stakeholder perspective. The key stakeholders involved in enterprise education are teachers, principals, pupils and parents. The examination encompassed profiling the Irish educational system and the evolution of enterprise education, appraising the role of the teacher in enterprise education and the identification and evaluation of the various programmes for enterprise at secondary level.

The research methodology adopted for this study was a subject‐specific questionnaire personally administered to 95 respondents comprising teachers, principals, pupils and parents.

The research findings suggest that tangible and intangible learning is obtained from such programmes, which create awareness of the possibilities for self‐employment, encourage more enterprising behaviour and result in important personal skills and competency development. It also indicates very positive feedback for the need and continued development of such programmes as an important intervention in creating a more entrepreneurial mindset in students.

The research findings add value to the empirical base of research at secondary schools by addressing a number of stakeholders. The findings highlight and provide the rationale for the need by policy makers to consider the mainstreaming of enterprise education at secondary level. Furthermore, commitment by the Irish government to the provision of increased resources, the development of programme material and teacher training are fundamental to the effectiveness of these programmes. To encourage greater participation by teachers and pupils, there is a need for formal recognition and accreditation of such programmes within the curriculum. Finally, greater awareness of the benefits of the programmes needs to be communicated to parents for them to encourage their children to participate in such programmes.

The purpose of this article is to document the extent of girls' under‐representation in nontraditional high school career and technical education courses, examine the role of sex discrimination in these disparities, and identify legal remedies for addressing the problem.

This article uses high school CTE enrollment data from 12 states to document female students' under‐representation in nontraditional courses and uses wage data to show the negative implications for girls' future earnings. Drawing on the experiences of female students, this study explains how sex discrimination contributes to their low rates of participation in nontraditional training. The study then discusses how laws and regulations at the federal and state levels may provide means to address such discrimination.

Finds high levels of sex segregation in CTE course enrollment, with female students making up on average 15 percent of students in nontraditional courses and 87 percent in traditionally female fields. Substantial evidence of sex discrimination in CTE makes a strong case for its role in contributing to girls' low enrollment in nontraditional courses. Varied state laws can be utilized to address this underlying cause.

While much research has looked at girls in math and science, less attention has been paid to their participation in nontraditional CTE. This paper offers quantitative evidence of girls' under‐representation in such courses and qualitative evidence of the role sex discrimination plays. Offers a unique solution by showing how state laws can be used to address such discrimination and increase girls' participation in nontraditional training.

Against a broader global and regional shift toward “quality education for all,” the chapter explores education policy developments and trends related to teacher education and professional development in Latin America and the Caribbean. We examine how multilateral education policy circulation and regional horizontal cooperation has guided these education policy developments. The chapter is organized into three parts. It first provides a discussion of educational multilateralism and new forms of horizontal cooperation, as it relates to educational development efforts. We argue that these new forms of multilateralism and horizontal cooperation guide the development of policies that seek to enhance both educational equity and quality education, particularly through advancing teacher education and professional development. The second section explores several recent education policy trends that relate to teacher education and professional development in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the challenges that Ministries of Education face when designing and implementing programs of teacher education and professional development. Lastly, the chapter examines the role of regional organizations in promoting new forms of regional horizontal cooperation specific to teacher education and professional development, focusing on the example of Organization of American States’ (OAS) Inter-American Teacher Education Network (ITEN).