Vocational education and training systems in Europe: A cluster analysis

Abstract

European countries differ widely in terms of vocational education and training (VET) tradition and the delivery of VET at the upper secondary level. A statistical approach to build a classification of VET systems in Europe is presented in the present article on the grounds of the size of the vocational enrollment, on the one hand, and the percentage of vocational enrollment in programs in which work and school are combined, on the other hand. Twenty-two European countries with full available information are considered in the study: 18 European Union (EU) countries, three Schengen Area (non-EU) countries (Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland), and the UK (non-EU state outside Schengen). Cluster analysis is a quantitative form of classification. The country groupings emerging from the K-means analysis performed in this paper allow us to distinguish mainly between vocational-oriented countries with high vocational specificity (e.g. Germany, Switzerland, and Austria), highly vocational-oriented countries with traditionally school-based VET programs (e.g. the Czech Republic and Slovakia), and less vocationally-oriented countries (general education-oriented countries such as Estonia and Spain).

Territorial Configurations of School‐To‐Work Outcomes in Europe

“…The cluster analysis with the 𝑘-medians method will thus produce 𝑘 different clusters with the greatest possible distinction. 𝐾 represents the number of groups specified by the analyst; the decision on 𝑘 is often ad hoc and depends on prior knowledge, assumptions, and practical experience (Salas-Velasco, 2023;Steinley, 2006).…”

The Influence of Self-Efficacy, Knowledge, Attitude, and Skills on the Organizational Performance of the Ministry of Transportation, Mediated by Personnel Competence, Graduates of Indonesian Aviation Higher Vocational Education

“…According to Law Number 12 of 2012 concerning Higher Education in Article 16, paragraph 1 states, vocational education is a higher education diploma program that prepares students for jobs with certain applied skills to applied undergraduate programs. The description above shows that vocational education implements educational programs closely related to employment (Rahdiyanta et al, 2019;Salas-Velasco, 2023;Tran, 2021;Winangun, 2017).…”