Given the comparisons of student performance nationally such as Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) available, teacher quality has become a global concern since it undergirds student success. It makes no exception for vocational educators. Unfortunately, the status of vocational education and training (VET) educator is relatively obscure compared to their counterparts in the general education, resulting in its scarcity empirically (Berger &D’Ascoli). This paper aims to close this research gap by investigating what contributes to a quality vocational educator workforce. 

To clarify, vocational educators refer to the individuals who teach vocational education. The forms of constructing vocational education vary from country to country. For example, in the U.S., vocational education is delivered by clusters of courses usually at the upper-secondary level and properly at the lower secondary school. On the other hand, some countries run the track of vocational education parallel with the other general/ academic track, including Switzerland, German, the other European countries and Taiwan. Due to its popularity and well-known artificial industry, the success of vocational education and training in Switzerland has been drawn much attention. Given the similarity in the design of tracking system to separate vocation from general education, the Swiss design of VET educators assures to bring the lessons of best practices for Taiwan.      

To embody the spirit of VET in Switzerland, the design of teacher education and the social expectations will be introduced as a drop back to appreciate its success. That is, the factors of social and culture will take into account when analyzing the VET in Switzerland. Specifically, the characteristics of research-oriented professionalism intertwining with teacher identity will be the focus of discussions (Hokka & Etelapelto, 2014). 

In the context of Taiwan, students choose to enroll in either general or vocational high school mostly by test scores or other traits like talents or interests. Conventionally, the general high school is more prestigious than their vocational counterpart (Yang, Lin & Lin, 2011), resulting the stigma of second–class choice for vocational high school. Moreover, the traditional influence of Confucius culture expedites the disadvantage of VET in Taiwan. Namely, the strategies to shape and establish new ideas about VET educators are crucial, which should be attained from their establishment of teacher identity. Realizing this, this current paper will study the success of VET in Switzerland as drop-back to enhance the understanding of challenges for VET educators in Taiwan.                                          

Reference Berger, J.-L., & D’ Ascoli, Y. (2010). Motivations to become vocational and education training educators: A person-oriented approach. Vocations and Learning, 5, 225-249. Hokka, P., & Etelapelto, A. (2014). Seeking new perspectives on the development of teacher education: A study of the Finnish context. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(1), 39-52. Yang, C.-H., Lin, C.-H. A., & Lin, C.-R. (2011). Dynamics of rate of returns for postgraduate education in Taiwan: the impact of higher education expansion. Asia Pacific Education Review, 12(3), 359-371. doi: 10.1007/s12564-010-9132-y