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In Germany, various approaches have been taken to tackle the current teacher shortage in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). One attempt to remedy the shortage in Bavaria has been the introduction of an engineering education study programme at universities of applied sciences. Ideal candidates for this programme should have an interest in both engineering and social interaction. For effective recruitment, therefore, it is necessary to know applicants’ characteristics such as their vocational interests. In this study, the vocational interest profiles of students in TVET teacher training programmes were identified and their interest profiles and further characteristics were compared with those of other VET students at universities and universities of applied sciences.

An online questionnaire based on Holland’s interest theory and adapted from the Allgemeiner-Interessen-Struktur-Test-3 (interest structure test) was administered to 85 students in TVET teacher training programmes at universities and universities of applied sciences in Bavaria. Items regarding reasons for choosing a particular study programme, university location and other personal details were added.

The vocational interest profiles of students at universities and universities of applied sciences can be described as similar but weakly differentiated. Insights are provided by the characteristics of students such as the majority being first-time academics in the family. The reasons for choosing the degree programme and university location highlight the fact that a large proportion of students in engineering education would not have chosen a teaching-related degree programme if it had not been offered at the respective university of applied sciences.

Although the sample in this study was small and, therefore, limiting, it represented a high proportion of TVET teacher training students in Bavaria and a substantial proportion of first-year students in TVET teacher training programmes at universities and universities of applied sciences in Bavaria (section 2.2 and 3.1). Thus, the findings provide valuable insights into commonalities in interest profiles between engineering education students at universities of applied sciences and other TVET students at universities. With respect to the domain of the chosen vocational specialisation, differentiated profiles emerged that, for example, showed a stronger artistic orientation among students in construction technology/wood. For further analysis, the previous variable-centred orientation of the analysis can be supplemented by person-centred analyses (e.g. cluster analysis and latent variable mixture modelling, LVMM) (cf. Leon et al., 2021).

The findings in this study reveal the potential for attracting candidates to universities of applied sciences if they prefer to study in rather rural areas close to their hometowns. With the aim to educate prospective teachers for future work not only in metropolitan regions but in rural areas too, offering bachelor degree programmes in rural areas would seem promising. A regional option can boost the recruitment of new students and attract candidates that otherwise would be unable to pursue studies or a career as a teacher in vocational education. The results of this study and those of previous studies suggest that universities of applied sciences can cooperate with universities to help solve the teacher shortage problem.

Overall, it is apparent that the students' interests reached comparatively high values in all interest orientations and thus are only weakly differentiated. If undifferentiated profiles indicate low levels of career readiness, this significantly affects the recruitment of young people for the teaching profession. Assessing career orientation and promoting vocational interests should be prioritised during secondary school education. Vocational orientation measures are essential and should provide insight into typical activities of daily work life in different professions and thus pique and foster interests.

This study provides insight into how to respond to the teacher shortage in VET by identifying important characteristics of engineering education students using vocational interest profiling.

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.

While technical vocational education training (TVET) has been studied in-depth, the evolution and performance patterns of the subject remain unknown and limited. A bibliometric analysis was performed to examine the global scientific literature to assess the state of the art in TVET research over the past 23 years.

The Web of Science (WoS) database was searched to explore TVET-related research from 1999 to 2021, resulting in the identification of 7,512 articles. The VOSviewer software was used to investigate the network of collaboration between authors, institutions, countries and author keywords.

The results reveal that the subject categories of “education” and “educational research” are the most prolific contributors to TVET-related research, with 3,314 articles. Most of the previous studies in Phase I (1999–2006) focussed on human capital resources development in the TVET sector. Phase II (2007–2014) follows with the centralisation of TVET, focussing on technology transition in education. However, in Phase III (2015–2021), researchers appear to focus on vocational studies in higher education towards increasing the productivity of human resources via the implementation of technology transition.

The valuable findings of this study can facilitate better understanding among scholars on the trends of TVET research developments and on the direction of future research.

This study aims to explore vocational teachers' perceptions regarding workplace learning that align with students' training models and collaborative teaching involving specialised professionals within the context of industry-university collaboration.

Using a qualitative approach, the study conducted nine semi-structured interviews from three subject areas to better understand how vocational teachers’ work-based learning enhances their pedagogical practice in guiding students’ professional training. Thematic analysis was adopted to identify patterns that emerged from concepts and theories related to coding categories.

The authors identified three key components: vocational teachers’ workplace learning in connection with students’ training models, collaborative teaching with specialised professionals and teachers’ regular interactions with enterprises. The findings demonstrate that vocational teachers’ engagement in workplace learning pertaining to specific subjects provides a valuable avenue for enhancing curriculum design with collaboration with industry experts. This is key for supporting vocational students’ transitions into the workplace and ensuring their knowledge and skills are tailored to the industry-standard practice.

The data are limited to the review of interviews from three vocational subject areas as the representative sector in the study. However, this research implies effective knowledge transfer between workplace settings and vocational institutions, and vocational teachers need to integrate work-based vocational knowledge and skills in a relevant and applicable way across diverse classroom settings.

Fostering collaborative partnerships with local industries and professionals can be a primary way to facilitate authentic learning experiences that are linked to a specific vocational field and bridge the gap between diverse classroom learning and real-world work scenarios.

This study combines contemporary workplace learning theories with the conceptual understanding of vocational teachers’ involvement with industry-specific practice. Connecting teachers’ knowledge to the industry extends the input and collaboration from professionals and field experts to the diverse vocational classrooms.

The research aims to discuss technical and vocational students' long-term and complete evaluation of learning effectiveness under school-wide thematic teaching design.

This study adopted a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach to measure the learning effectiveness of thematic teaching in technical vocational schools using the Kirkpatrick model. Qualitative research conducted in-depth interviews with 32 interviewees, including students, parents, teachers, graduate alumni and the supervisors of off-campus internship units. Quantitative research conducted a questionnaire survey on vocational students. A total of 221 valid questionnaires were collected. In addition, this research conducts another quantitative survey on cooperative enterprises to compare the actual effect of the implementation of the school-wide thematic teaching students with the others, and a total of 35 valid questionnaires were collected.

The results of the research found that the effectiveness of thematic teaching method can achieve the expected goals of each level of Kirkpatrick model. The students taking thematic teaching are significantly better and fitting in the industry expects. Therefore, this research suggests the comprehensive introduction of school-wide thematic teaching to other school operators.

This research is the first study used the Kirkpatrick model to evaluate the effectiveness of school-wide thematic teaching design in hospitality education and providing a practical case for schools. This research combined qualitative and quantitative research methods to investigate the effectiveness of the teaching method through multiple perspectives. Through the feedback from supervisors of the hospitality industry, the school-wide thematic teaching design provides a good foundation for technical and vocational graduates.

There is a global concern about the effectiveness of vocational education and training (VET) programmes in developing job-related skills and competencies for real-world environments for disadvantaged and unemployed youths. Experiential learning (EL) is a major component of VET programmes. This article aims to examine the effects of facilitating VET through EL theory to promote youths' skills acquisition. The study looks at the effects of material resources on the use of experiential learning theory (ELT), the types of EL and the contribution of ELT to VET programmes.

The research design mainly entails a qualitative research design and research method to allow the researcher to view the reality as is experienced from the inside out by the trainees and training centre managers on important data for a thorough understanding. The study participants were 512 young trainees who completed different training courses from the VET programmes and 24 centre managers in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.

The findings reveal that the use of ELT in VET programmes helped the trainees to gain real-world skills, hence contributing to their empowerment in terms of work experience and competence for their future employment. Based on the findings, the study concludes that ELT is an effective instrument to promote VET programmes for disadvantaged and unemployed youths.

The practical and social implications of the findings are that, while disadvantaged youths cannot access and afford higher education, public and private sectors can remedy their situation by providing non-school-based technical and vocational training to help such youths enter the labour market. The findings will motivate the providers of skills development for unemployed youths to use ELT in designing course curricula, planning resources and directing teaching-learning approaches to help trainees to acquire skills and competencies to perform tasks close to real-work situations.

The socio-economic implication of the article is that skills development plays an important role in poverty reduction. Investing in the skills development of citizens is vital to raise the incomes of poor groups and to reduce poverty (ILO, 2018). Although the causes of unemployment have also to do with economic factors in a country, skills development is an essential ingredient in developing capacities for labour market entry and increased income generation of a vulnerable group of people.

The article is significant because the study provides new insights into the use of ELT in VET programmes to improve their effectiveness in developing job-related skills and competencies for real-world environments for disadvantaged and unemployed youths. The study contributes to the body of knowledge by establishing a solid base for the evidence-informed practice of the effects of facilitating the VET programme through ELT to promote skills acquisition for the employment of unemployed and disadvantaged youths.

In the current period quality assurance (QA) and technical vocational education and training (TVET) are known as the two comprehensively examined ideas in schooling, dependent on exceptional abilities in this modern era of Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0. The incapability or need for QA of technology-oriented programs has been dissected by policy makers as a hindrance in accomplishing the TVET objectives. Consequently, the reason for this exploration paper was to contemplate over the impact and association of QA on TVET programs and level of preparedness of TVET teachers for the market of IR 4.0 in Pakistan.

In this study a quantitative research method with survey-based research has been used whereas, two research questions and hypotheses were structured and explained to lead the study. The research sample was 475 TVET teachers having technical competence for Pakistan using the random sampling technique. The instrument was an adapted questionnaire using five Likert scales. Moreover, mean and standard deviation was utilized while one-way ANOVA and Pearson correlation was used to test the hypothesis.

The findings of this study uncovered that there is no significant impact of QA of TVET programs to fulfill the need of IR 4.0 in Pakistan. But there is strong and positive association between QA of TVET programs as per the demand of IR 4.0 and level of preparedness of teachers toward it. The study suggested that in order to meet the labor market's requirements according to IR 4.0, future employment demand could be met by assuring their TVET programmers' QA and putting them into practice in accordance with the indicators and the TVET framework suggested in literature and by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is widely accepted. The findings will also help to detect current trends in teaching, providing important insights in terms of QA and the focus of digitalization in TVET education.

The implication of this study is that in order to influence TVET's technological development, employment and national development, policy makers, TVET principals, coordinators and teachers must work on important aspects of their access that are very important on inclusion, financing and quality – the assurance of standards, as it meets the needs of the country according to the IR 4.0 labor market.

This is one of the unique studies of its nature which has focused on the QA on TVET programs for the digital employment market of IR 4.0 in Pakistan and South Asia.

Vocational education and entrepreneurship are constantly increasing in research fields. However, what is the current state of vocational education and entrepreneurial research? Where will the area go next? These questions are still unanswered; thus, this study tries to map the research landscape of the study area to get insights and provide directions for future research.

This research collected extant literature on vocational education and entrepreneurship using Scopus scientific database. Bibliometric analysis has been performed to extract insights from 175 documents published in the study area. Content analysis on the extant literature has also been committed to getting contextual information and developing an integrated research framework for future researchers.

The bibliometric analysis revealed that training, career choice, curriculum, self-employment, student psychology, better job opportunity, learning environment and innovation are the most discussed in the vocational education and entrepreneurship literature. Developed nation’s strong presence, indicated by the number of publications in the field.

This study significantly contributes to entrepreneurship by disclosing advances in the literature and some of the most active research fronts in this sector, delivering insights that have yet to be wholly appreciated or appraised. The study also developed an integrated framework that could benefit various vocations, education and entrepreneurship stakeholders.

In the realm of construction education, the investigation of immersive learning and extended reality (XR) technologies has experienced a surge in recent times. Nevertheless, there remains a notable lack of comprehension surrounding the most efficient ways to integrate these technologies into tailored teaching approaches for vocational construction training. This research study aims to pinpoint the key factors that construction vocational education and training (VET) providers must consider when introducing XR technologies into their training schemes.

This study conducted an in-depth literature review to develop an initial framework to summarise training, technology and institutional factors influencing the educational-technology integration of XR technologies in VET. In addition, this study utilised a Delphi technique, including semi-structured group discussions and two rounds of online follow-up questionnaires, to capture VET experts’ judgements on the importance of decision-making criteria.

This study has identified the critical factors to be considered in the VET sector when adopting XR technologies. Findings revealed institutional factors were the most important criteria for participants, followed by training and technology factors.

The current decision-making process focuses on selecting XR technologies rather than evaluating their performance after implementation. Therefore, more research is needed to monitor the implementation of this technology in curricula from a senior management perspective. This will help to understand the cost and value factors related to the value proposition of XR technologies in courses.

To ensure the success and long-term viability of the technology-curriculum interface, it is important to consider factors such as the availability of technical and educational support, data security and cost-effectiveness. It is also crucial to focus on ease of use and content development that emphasises instruction to create engaging content for learners.

The potential impact of this study is underpinned by two facts: (1) it constitutes the first effort made in the field to comprehensively elicit VET expert judgements in relation to XR technologies, and (2) it offers decision-making criteria that are at play in seeking to take advantage of high-cost technologies that are rapidly evolving. While there is no simple checklist for XR implementation, this study takes a step further to identify significant factors influencing XR integration in vocational construction training.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the scope for action of local human resource managers, who are employed in foreign subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNCs), for implementing training activities. These managers are situated in relationships to headquarters and the local environment. Related to this is the question whether MNCs contribute to the local skill base by implementing training activities or whether they exploit the existing skill formation system.

This study focusses on German subsidiaries of MNCs with headquarters in the USA and the UK, France, China and Japan. The study is based on 107 expert interviews with subsidiary managers and representatives of local stakeholder organisations, such as educational organisations, chambers, economic promotion agencies and governmental bodies in Germany.

The study reveals that headquarters introduce general schemes for training. In addition to these MNC-internal trainings, local managers use their information advantage over headquarters to implement dual training activities.

The training activities of subsidiaries are dependent on the institutional settings of the host country.

Albeit dual training activities are laborious and tie the local managers down for the medium and long term, the future need of the subsidiary for adequately skilled workforce prompts local managers’ engagement in implementing dual training activities.

Subsidiaries contribute to the local skill base and do not act in a free-rider position, at least in the German variety of capitalism.

The study deepens insights on distanced relations within and how subsidiaries generate scope for action by using this kind of relationships.