From conflicting interests to collective consent in advanced vocational education: policymaking and the role of stakeholders in Sweden

Abstract

This study considers the policymaking process of forming a new tertiary vocational education and training (VET) policy in Sweden during the 1990s, and the influence that external stakeholders played in that process. Since the late 1960s onwards, the VET system in Sweden has been mainly integrated with general and school‐based education. Due to the changes in working life VET has recently undergone a transformation process moving towards a more demand‐led mode of functioning. Following perhaps the most significant education policymaking process on the reform of advanced vocational education, the study by analysing requirements and policy recommendations made by the six largest employer, employee and public education bodies from 1995 to 2000, suggests that private industry and commerce managed to establish their requirements, while the employee stakeholders made the largest concessions from an ideological standpoint.