The Convergence of Educational Systems and the Role of Vocationalism

Abstract

There has been a substantial convergence in the educational systems of many countries.' Starting with different educational backgrounds, political systems, and economies, both advanced and developing countries have developed similar educational ideologies, institutions, and curricula. One link among some common developments is vocationalism-the orientation of education around preparation for labor markets. In both advanced countries and LDCs, there has been a tendency to consider specific skill training, especially secondary-level vocational education, to be the principal manifestation of vocationalism. This conception is too narrow: every level of schooling, including the university, has become suffused with vocational goals, differentiated along vocational lines, and judged by vocational criteria. To understand the power of vocationalism, it is important to examine the full range of its consequences. In the first part of this article I will discuss different manifestations of vocationalism-understood as specific skill training-in both advanced countries and LDCs. The second section examines some larger consequences of vocationalism, especially its role in educational inflation and in defining the social roles of education. A finding common to many countries is that, despite claims of economic "relevance," vocationalized approaches prove to have little economic justification, fail to resolve the problems that they are designed to address, and generate new problems for education systems. The final section hypothesizes why, given these discouraging findings, vocational solutions to educational and economic problems continue to surface.