Vocationalized Secondary Education

Abstract

‘Vocationalized secondary education’ refers to a curriculum which remains overwhelmingly general or ‘academic’ in nature, but which includes vocational or practical subjects as a minor portion of the students’ timetable during the secondary school course. Closely related terms are ‘diversified curriculum’ (Psacharopoulos & Loxley, 1985), ‘work orientation’ (Hoppers, 1996), ‘practical subjects’ in secondary schools (Lauglo, 1985), and ‘pre-vocational education’ (education especially designed to be preparatory for vocational education and training. The contrast with technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is worth emphasizing. Under TVET, the main purpose is vocational skills preparation and a student’s timetable will be dominated by the learning of work skills and related theory. In ‘vocationalized secondary education’, the main purpose of a student’s whole curriculum remains general education; and the curriculum allows the student to remain on the track that could possibly lead towards higher stages of academic education. Vocational subject matter then typically takes no more than one-tenth to one-fifth of curriculum time. Under vocationalized secondary education, the student’s weekly timetable typically conforms with a framework that is common to all secondary education. The same applies to the duration of the course. On the other hand, TVET often has substantially more weekly contact hours than mainstream secondary courses. The TVET-day is deliberately made to resemble a ‘real work day’. Technical secondary schools may be thought of as hybrid cases between TVET and vocationalized secondary education. They teach vocational courses to substantially greater curricular depth than under vocationalized secondary education— and yet they too remain preparatory for higher education. This they achieve by employing a longer school day and by running courses of longer duration. Examples are the technical secondary schools in Eritrea, or the technical secondary schools in Sweden under the old system from the 1960s, and the technical secondary schools in Mozambique included in a study by Billetoft and Austral Consultores (2005). The main goal of vocationalization is the improved vocational relevance of education. In practice, this has meant practical and vocational subjects, though this goal could presumably also be achieved by a more applied way of learning across different subjects. The goals of the practical or vocational subjects will usually include