The Quality and Status of School-Based Norwegian VET

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The status and quality of vocational education and training (VET) represent a challenge in many countries, including Norway. The political goal in Norway in recent decades has been to ensure that vocational programmes at upper secondary level achieve equal status with academic programmes. Considerable efforts have been made to enhance the quality of vocational programmes to achieve this. A further goal has been to equate the scope and status of VET teacher education with teacher education in other fields, the rationale being that quality in VET teacher education is closely linked to quality in VET. This chapter presents an analysis of challenges in school-based Norwegian VET related to reforms implemented in recent decades. The analysis is particularly directed at issues of vocational relevance and coherence between educational content and the qualification needs of the vocations. The aim is to identify obstacles to relevance and coherence and to discuss the attempts that were made to enhance both status and quality. The results indicate that one key principle for improving the status and quality of VET is equal opportunities for vocational and academic students in terms of scope and level. Another key principle is a holistic organisation of VET where learning and work experience, knowledge, skills, theory and practice are integrated.KeywordsVET modelVocational relevanceCollaboration VET schools – CompaniesVET curriculaHolistic vocational competence