Tackling social inequality and exclusion in education: from human capital to capabilities

Quadratic Indirect Effect of National TVET Expenditure on Economic Growth Through Social Inclusion Indicators

“…A recent empirical evidence from Senegal also pointed toward increased employment as a decrease in the gap between the demand and supply of high-skilled labor resulting from educational reforms (Boccanfuso, Larouche, & Trandafir, 2015). These findings are consistent with the notion of human capital theory that developing skills of people through education and training enhances their employability (Docherty et al, 2002;Handel et al, 2016;McGuinness et al, 2017), which represents their social status and achievement (Lawy & Biesta, 2006;Lister, 1997) and their social inclusion (Vandekinderen et al, 2018). The positive association found between TVET expenditure and wages is also consistent with existing empirical studies, which reported the significant contribution of TVET in enhancing individual's skill (Jothilakshmi et al, 2009), income (Benhabib & Spiegel, 1994;Mahmud et al, 2014;Mankiw, Romer, & Weil, 1992), and economic well-being (Mahmud et al, 2007).…”

“…Human capital theory (Becker, 1962;Schultz, 1960Schultz, , 1961 posits that developing the skills, knowledge, and attitude of the human capital facilitates them to find and retain appropriate jobs. This prevents social exclusion and promotes the inclusion of the educationally deprived individuals in the society by providing the opportunity to integrate themselves into the labor market (Dean, 2003;Vandekinderen et al, 2018). According to the human capital theory, the learner, as a human capital, is processed through vocational education and training to actively shape the work and the society (Bohne, Eicker, & Haseloff, 2017).…”

“…However, investing in TVET at national level provides a skill-building and employability opportunity to a wide proportion of the national population. The employability is an indicator of social status and achievement (Lawy & Biesta, 2006;Lister, 2000) representing the individuals' productivity and their social inclusion (Vandekinderen et al, 2018).…”

“…Particularly, there was an increase in national spending on TVET due to increasing emphasis of international governing bodies including UNESCO and World Bank, for alleviating the poverty, inequality, and overall economic prosperity (Comyn & Barnaart, 2010). Unfortunately, the national TVET reforms remained limitedly effective for resolving issues of skill development and social inclusion (Fleckenstein & Lee, 2018) as a significant proportion of population, particularly, the youth is still experiencing social exclusion in relation to education (Vandekinderen, Roets, Van Keer, & Roose, 2018). Thus, there is a need for TVET sector that facilitates the economies in fulfilling their skill gaps, enhancing community cohesion, and productivity (Hadawi & Crabbe, 2018).…”

A case study of a Turkish vocational high school, and the challenges for teachers

“…It is critically important in educational settings that have fundamental distributive roles such providing learning opportunities as well as socialisation experiences, which affect students' academic, social, and career life (Resh and Sabbagh 2016); thus provides a theoretical basis for the current study. TVET plays important role to bring social justice to socioeconomically disadvantaged rural areas by providing educational opportunities to develop students' skills for the world of work, which can help them to be employed (Gautam, Poudel, and Paudel 2018;Vandekinderen et al 2018). TVET has a potential to reduce poverty in those regions by improving students' academic and occupational skills and thus increasing the possibility for employment (Alcock 1997), which means promoting social justice (Gautam, Poudel, and Paudel 2018).…”