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The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of contemporary perspectives, policies, and practices relating to reported vocational education and training (VET) teacher recruitment and retention challenges, with a particular focus on England and Australia.

This position piece discusses the topic from a transnational perspective by reviewing the relevant literature and examining the impact of policies and practices in England and Australia.

The paper finds that there is a paucity of empirical research relating to VET teacher shortages, but that globally, experience in the sector suggests there are challenges in recruiting and retaining the qualified VET teaching workforce required to address current and future training needs. It recommends that further research is undertaken with an international approach to better understand the problem from the perspective of VET teachers, leaders, and education institutions, and to identify potential solutions.

The paper does not report on empirical research but suggests that further studies are required to better understand the problem and identify potential solutions based on the respective socioeconomic, demographic, and policy contexts.

While there are studies examining VET and VET teaching from the perspectives of quality, reputation, and esteem, few examine the issue and impact of VET teacher shortages, or the challenges of VET teacher recruitment and retention in the contemporary and comparable contexts of Australia and England.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between academic motivations and the risk of Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) among university undergraduates and Vocational Education and Training (VET) undergraduates.

The sample included 402 Vietnamese university undergraduates and 250 VET undergraduates in the southern region of Vietnam. Students took part in a survey, with all participants being informed about the study’s purpose and assured that their involvement was entirely voluntary. In addition to descriptive statistics, the study employed linear regression in SPSS to examine hypotheses.

The findings indicate that, for university students, intrinsic motivation and mastery approach motivation are associated with reduced NEET risk, while performance avoidance motivation is positively linked to this tendency. In contrast, for VET students, extrinsic motivation and performance approach motivation are negatively associated with NEET risk, but mastery approach motivation may exacerbate the risk.

Grounded in the principles of Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Achievement Goal Theory (AGT), the study proposes that university students may prioritize competence improvement, knowledge acquisition and the satisfaction of their learning interests, which they believe will help them acquire valuable knowledge beneficial for their future careers. Conversely, VET students emphasize performance and external achievement, which may enhance their outcome and reduce NEET risk. These findings offer significant theoretical and practical insights into the adoption of SDT and AGT and also provide educators or policymakers with more detailed information regarding university and VET students’ learning and development.

This paper examines students’ educational choices in vocational education and training (VET) to understand the low reputation of vocational education in China. By analysing the individualisation of these choices within structural and individual relationships, the study explores how the decline of state endorsement and the shift towards rational, individualistic actions influence students' decisions.

Multiple types of data were collected in this study, including administrative records, interviews and autobiographical stories, which were analysed using individualisation theory.

The research indicated three historical periods of the educational choice of Chinese VET students. Stage one (1978–1991) saw vocational education treated as “the first choice” for graduates. Stage two (1992–2000) was marked by the polarisation of educational choice during the social transition from a socialist planned economy to a market economy. During this period, more students started to choose academic high schools over vocational schools, even though the latter still had certain advantages for attracting the better-performing students. The third stage (2001-now) is a time in which vocational education is viewed as “the last choice” under the socialist market economy system. During this period, junior high school graduates prefer to enrol in academic high schools rather than in vocational schools. Aligned with the overall individualisation trend in Chinese society, vocational education decisions situated between societal structures and individuals are also experiencing a shift towards more micro-level individualized behaviours.

The paper provides a historical analysis of education and training provision in China and the complexity of students’ educational choices, revealing the influencing factors across different stages.

This paper draws a comprehensive analysis of the developmental trajectory of vocational education in China across different historical periods, notably under the socialist planned economy and the socialist market economy systems.

Periodic economic instabilities and structural changes in the labour market have given rise to a variety of forms of job insecurity. This article compares the scarring effects of different forms of job insecurity on future employment chances, and how they vary across education groups.

Using a sample of real vacancies and data collected in a vignette experiment with employers in Switzerland, a country with a strongly developed vocational education and training (VET) system, this article investigates how employers evaluate a period of unemployment, job hopping and work experience in deskilling jobs when hiring candidates.

The findings reveal that work in deskilling jobs is by far more scarring than unemployment or job hopping. The study also demonstrates that applicants with upper secondary vocational education are impacted the greatest by all three forms of job insecurity.

The study makes use of real vacancies. While experiments have the strength of high internal validity, most experimental studies in recruitment research rely on students as respondents. As this study works with real employers hiring for positions it benefits from high external validity.

Pedagogical and digital innovation in vocational education training (VET) is scarce as well as research on the subject. The pandemic may have prompted a modernization of VET that needs to be examined with a focus on the main subjects: the students. The purpose of this paper is to analyse students' perspectives on henceforth VET pedagogies. We aim to investigate students' perspectives and satisfaction regarding the didactic strategies and teaching modalities they experience to inform further trends in VET.

A quantitative and cross-sectional study was conducted, gathering the views of 460 Catalan VET students through a questionnaire. Data were analysed descriptively and applying the generalised linear model (GLM) mediation model to address the specific aims detailed below.

The findings show that the most frequent and preferred teaching strategies are lecturing and active learning, while situated learning is found to be less frequent and preferred. Face-to-face is the preferred teaching mode for all teaching strategies. The internship modality does not affect students' satisfaction with teaching strategies, while the professional brunch does.

The limited responses gathered and the impact of the pandemic on the students' views limit the widespread applicability of the results. Future work must collect data from a broader sample and within a context of normality to determine current pedagogies and the use of digital technologies in VET.

Literature on VET pedagogies is scarce, and little is known about the predictable boost that the pandemic gave to the digitalisation and pedagogical modernisation of VET. Our study sheds light on the shift towards combined teaching strategies with a particular focus on active learning.

Vocational education in Hong Kong suffers from an image problem. Stakeholders often perceive it as a second-best option for those who fail to advance in academic education. In 2016, to promote vocational education, the Hong Kong government launched a publicity campaign and rebranded vocational education and training (VET) as vocational and professional education and training (VPET). This study critically analyzes the new discourse crafted by this campaign and assesses its potential to change VPET’s status.

This study applies critical discourse analysis to the set of television public service advertisements produced as part of the government publicity campaign.

The messaging of the publicity campaign consists of two major discursive strategies. One stresses the ability to find self-fulfillment through VPET. The other stresses the academic ability and middle-class status of VPET students as well as the non-manual and high-end career opportunities for graduates. While the first strategy offers a new basis on which to value VPET, the second recreates assumptions about the value of academic achievement and what constitutes respectable employment, even as it attempts to challenge stereotypes. It reinforces that the ultimate goal of education is financial gain and social status. It overlooks other values of education and the potential value of VPET in enhancing individual choice and agency.

Discourse analysis does not provide information about audience perceptions and interpretations.

The government could consider reframing their messaging in terms of the diverse values and experiences of VPET students. Highlighting the values that VPET students themselves see in their education provides alternative discourses that can better challenge hegemonic ideas.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first discourse analysis of the government’s publicity campaign to promote VPET.

This article focuses on the assessment of entrepreneurship competence by selected vocational teachers in Italy. The exploratory research question addresses the extent to which entrepreneurship assessments are competence based, and the research seeks to identify fully fledged assessment programmes with both a formative and summative component, and the use of assessment rubrics. It also explores the extent to which entrepreneurship competence is referred to in school documentation and later assessed, and the tools and strategies used for such assessment.

This case study is part of a larger European research project promoted by Cedefop; in Italy it focused on six selected vocational IVET and CVET programmes and apprenticeship schemes. It used a wide range of instruments to ensure triangulation and multiple perspectives: analysed policy documents and undertook online interviews with experts and policy makers. At VET providers' premises it deployed: analysis of school documents; observations of learning environments; interviews and focus groups with (in schools) teachers, directors and vice directors, learners and alumni (in companies) instructors, company tutors and employers, apprentices and alumni.

Assessment tasks were rarely embedded within fully fledged assessment programmes involving both formative and summative tasks, and assessment rubric for grading. Most of the time, entrepreneurship programmes lacked self-assessment, peer assessment and structured feedback and did not involve learners in the assessment process. Some instructors coached the students, but undertook no clear formative assessment. These findings suggest institutions have a testing culture with regard to assessment, at the level of both policy and practice. In most cases, entrepreneurship competence was not directly assessed, and learning outcomes were only loosely related to entrepreneurship.

One limitation concerned the selection of the VET providers: these were chosen not on a casual basis, but because they ran programmes that were relevant to the development of entrepreneurship competence.

At the policy level, there is a need for new guidelines on competence development and assessment in VET, guidelines that are more aligned with educational research on competence development. To ensure the development of entrepreneurship competence, educators need in-service training and a community of practice.

So far, the literature has concentrated on entrepreneurship education at the tertiary level. Little is known about how VET instructors assess entrepreneurship competence. This study updates the picture of policy and practice in Italy, illustrating how entrepreneurship competence is developed in selected IVET and CVET programmes and apprenticeships.

Stakeholder satisfaction relates closely to service quality and performance of educational organizations. Often, this relationship is addressed in literature through the lens of excellence models, such as the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model. Nevertheless, limited studies focus on the effect of the EFQM model enablers on stakeholder satisfaction and hardly any in vocational education. To fill this void, the aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between EFQM enablers (leadership, human resources, processes) and stakeholder satisfaction under the different perspectives of teachers and students in Greek public vocational education.

To address the research purpose, the authors used the case study methodology. The authors used mixed research methods, the focus group method and survey. Specifically, the focus group method used to distill the EFQM enablers related to the Greek context and to develop a questionnaire administered to teachers and students of a vocational education school. From September 2021 to June 2022, 90 teachers and 216 students participated in the survey.

The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method was used for data analysis, indicating that leadership and human resources have a positive and significant relationship with the satisfaction of both students and teachers. However, results did not corroborate the relationship between processes and stakeholder satisfaction either from the student’s or the teacher’s perspective.

This paper fills a gap in existing literature by exploring the impact of EFQM enablers on stakeholder satisfaction in vocational education and training (VET), from the perspectives of both teachers and students. The findings assist VET institutions in prioritizing areas for improvement and help companies to develop strategies that consider key stakeholders' needs.

Our study explores the effects of immigration on the employment of native middle-skilled workers, focusing on how this effect varies with the specificity of their occupational skill bundles.

Exploiting the 2002 opening of the Swiss labor market to EU workers and using register data on the location and occupation of these workers, our findings provide novel results on the labor market effects of immigration.

We show that the inflow of EU workers led to an increase in the employment of native middle-skilled workers with highly specific occupational skills. This finding could be attributed to immigrant workers reducing existing skill gaps, enhancing the quality of job-worker matches, and alleviating firms' capacity restrictions. This allowed firms to create new jobs, thereby providing increased employment options for middle-skilled workers with highly specialized skills.

Previous literature has predominantly highlighted the disadvantages of specific occupational skills compared to general skills in the context of labor market shocks. However, our findings reveal that workers with specific occupational skills can benefit from an immigration-driven labour market shock. These results suggest that policy conclusions regarding the role of specific occupational skills should be more nuanced.

This study aims to analyze employer’s engagement to the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system among ASEAN member states by developing the analytical framework.

Data collection has been made through collaboration between the research team and the ASEAN regional consultants recruited for the project by using the survey questionnaire. ASEAN member states are analyzed based on the framework, which includes the existence of meeting, the existence of law or regulation, the degree of influence of meeting to TVET and the degree of influence of the employers to TVET.

Employers’ engagement can play its significant role as part of monitoring the skills demand of labor market. If the country can build feedback mechanism which circulates skills supply and demand on behalf of individual sectors, it will help reduce the skills gap.

The pace of economic development is and has been more rapid among 10 ASEAN member states. To analyze employer’s engagement to the TVET system among ASEAN member states, developing the analytical framework is imperative. Not only is there insufficient labor market information for each country, but there is also a lack of information linking the labor market and TVET system.