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International Review of Education

, Volume 63, Issue 2, pp 257–280 | Cite as

Returns on vocational education over the life cycle: Between immediate labour market preparation and lifelong employability

  • Jeroen Lavrijsen
  • Ides Nicaise
Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

An important issue in the design of secondary-level education is the balance between conveying general and occupation-specific (vocational) skills. On the one hand, vocationally oriented programmes, providing occupation-specific skills with immediate labour market relevance, have repeatedly been shown to secure safe pathways into employment. On the other hand, these programmes tend to put less emphasis on developing general knowledge, skills and competencies, including numeracy and literacy, which are foundational to lifelong learning. Hence, when the needs of the labour market change, employees who opted for a vocational track when they were at secondary school risk being less flexible in adapting to such changes later in their career. The authors of this article examine whether this results in a trade-off between short-term gains and long-term losses by considering differences in the labour market careers of vocationally and generally educated respondents in the 2012 Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). Their results suggest that early labour market benefits of vocational specialisation decrease over time; the authors relate this to its lower ability to equip secondary school students – future employees – with skills for lifelong learning.

Keywords

Vocational education long-term effects labour market outcomes lifelong learning versatility 

Résumé

Rendement de la formation professionnelle au cours du cycle de vie : Entre préparation immédiate au marché du travail et employabilité tout au long de la vie – Concevoir un enseignement secondaire suppose notamment de trancher l’importante question de l’équilibre entre compétences générales et professionnelles, propres à un emploi. D’un côté, comme cela a été démontré à de nombreuses reprises, des programmes à vocation professionnelle, qui fournissent les compétences spécifiques à un emploi, immédiatement applicables sur le marché du travail, garantissent d’accéder sans heurt à l’emploi. De l’autre côté, ces programmes tendent à moins mettre l’accent sur la culture, les capacités et les compétences générales, telles que la numératie et l’alphabétisme, qui sont fondamentales pour l’apprentissage tout au long de la vie. Au cours de leur carrière, lorsque les besoins du marché du travail auront évolué, les salariés ayant choisi une formation professionnelle dès le secondaire risquent ainsi d’être moins flexibles pour s’adapter. Pour examiner si ce constat conduit à un compromis entre des gains de court terme et des pertes à long terme, les auteurs du présent article analysent les différences entre les carrières professionnelles des participants au Programme pour l’évaluation internationale des compétences des adultes (PIAAC) de 2012, selon que ces derniers ont suivi un cursus professionnel ou général. Leurs résultats suggèrent que les avantages d’une spécialisation professionnelle en début de carrière se réduisent au fil du temps, ce que les auteurs rapportent à la plus faible capacité de ces filières à doter les élèves du secondaire – les futurs salariés – des compétences nécessaires à un apprentissage tout au long de la vie.

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Notes

Acknowledgement

This research was funded by the Flemish Government (Policy Research Centre for Educational and School Careers).

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© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht and UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.HIVA – KU LeuvenLeuvenBelgium

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