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

International Review of Education volume 63, pages257–280(2017)Cite this article

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.

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

  1. 1.

    Secondary (or high school) education is the level of schooling for students typically aged 13–18 and from Grades/Years 7 to 10 or 12.

  2. 2.

    Polish-American labour economist Jacob Mincer (1922–2006) was a pioneer in identifying schooling and work experience as decisive variables in calculating human capital. The Mincer model we use here expresses the relationship between earnings on the one hand, and years of schooling and potential work experience on the other in an equation for the purpose of statistical estimation.

  3. 3.

    In a dual education system, apprenticeships consist of a combination of practical on-the-job training (workplace learning) and studies in a dedicated vocational school. To qualify for their final certificate, apprentices need to pass examinations in both components. The dual system is practised in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

  4. 4.

    Initially developed by UNESCO in the 1970s, the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) is a framework for compiling and presenting education statistics both nationally and internationally. In this paper, we use the ISCED-97 scaling, which classifies education programmes by their content using two main cross-classification variables: levels of education (ranging from 0 early childhood education to 6 doctoral or equivalent level) and fields of education.

  5. 5.

    ISCED level 5 captures the level of tertiary education. Within this level, ISCED 5A refers to programmes which are theoretically based/research preparatory and give access to professions with high skills requirements; ISCED 5B refers to programmes which are more practically or technically oriented.

  6. 6.

    A senate weight makes the contribution of each country in the statistical estimation equal, regardless of its actual number of respondents.

  7. 7.

    Note: the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) classified qualifications using the International Standard Classification of Education ISCED-97 scale.

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Acknowledgement

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

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    Jeroen Lavrijsen & Ides Nicaise

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Correspondence to Jeroen Lavrijsen.

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Lavrijsen, J., Nicaise, I. Returns on vocational education over the life cycle: Between immediate labour market preparation and lifelong employability. Int Rev Educ 63, 257–280 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-017-9630-9

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Keywords

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