Editorial: Inclusion in vocational education and training (VET)

Abstract

The background for this special issue is the role that vocational education and training (VET) plays in the inclusion of young people from different educational and social backgrounds. Rising skill demands have made upper secondary diplomas a minimum for successfully entering the labour market and a basis for further participation in lifelong learning, and governments in most OECD countries have set targets to increase enrolment and completion rates in upper secondary education. In many countries, VET is assigned a key role in providing inclusion for diverse groups of students and in achieving the goal of education for all young people. On the one hand, this is connected to dropout rates, which are higher for vocational than general education programmes in most countries (Cedefop, 2016). On the other hand, this is also related to the potential of VET to attract and reintegrate young people into education and training, including those who drop out of general education (Cedefop, 2016; European Commission, 2014). VET offers a practical way of learning and the opportunity to work towards a specific profession, and it may thus constitute an attractive alternative to general education pathways for many young people. Therefore, including vulnerable young people in VET and reducing social inequalities in education has become one of the main aims of VET in many countries (e.g. Jørgensen, 2018; Moreno Herrera et al., 2022; Scharnhorst & Kammermann, 2020).