Vocational education and training today: challenges and responses1

Abstract Vocational education and training (VOCED) continues to be a favored instrument of social engineering for achieving a series of objectives, such as accelerating economic growth, reducing youth unemployment and benefiting from economic globalization. This is in spite of a great deal of scepticism regarding its effectiveness. The article examines the arguments underpinning the great hope on VOCED as a panacea for many social ills, and offers a series of alternative or complementary actions that would make VOCED more relevant to the world of work and increase its effectiveness. Many of such actions lie outside the sphere of traditional VOCED provision, pertaining to the macro-economic environment, the general demand for labor and, paradoxically, to general (rather than specialized) education and training.