This paper deals about curriculum planning of practice related teaching.

The motivation for focusing on practice related teaching are the current challenges in European VET, the most important being that too few students enroll in VET and too many students drop out alongside a repeatedly formulated need for skilles qualifications in the labour market.

The force of VET is the close connection between education and training on the one hand and practice within the skilled professions other hand, particularly evident in the dual organisation of the programs.

Transfer of knowledge and skills from school to practice is the central aim in VET  and consequently a pedagogical challenge. According to research into transfer, transfer is enhanced by identical elements between the context of learning and the context of transfer. The more identical elements between the two context the better transfer (Thorndike & Woodworth, 1901). Furthermore transfer depends on the learner's motivation for transfer, and the learner is motivated for transfer, if (s)he experience a needsto transfer the obtained knowledge or skills in order to perform in practice. Thus the more the learner perceive the course matter to be relevant the greater the opportunity for transfer (Haskell, 2001).

Practice related teaching is perceived as a central pedagogical tool, being a means of creating near transfer, i.e. relatively many identical elements between the learning and the transfer contexts (Yamnill & McLean,(2001); Barnett, 2002; author, 2011)  

Practice related teaching means that the school based teaching connects to the practice within the particular vocations.Practice related teaching connects the horizontal discourse and the vertical discourse (Bernstein, 199) the challenge being to keep both in mind at the same time. the students should be able to use examples from verious practices to understand and illustrate the use of theoretical knowledge. This is difficult for the students, in praticular for those who are concrete thinkers.

Research shows that the teachers' perceptions of practice related teaching differ from that of the students. The teachers' perception of practice-related teaching is routed in their particular subject. The English teacher will say: It is important to learn English, and in order to motivate the students for that subject I will have to include examples from their practice. The teacher's perception of practice-related teaching is "theory-based "

The students's perception of practice related teaching is practice-based; the students' main wish is to be qualified skilled workers; they will think: What do we need to learn in order to be skilled workers? They do not focus on specific subjects; rather they focus on developing competences that they experience they need in order to perform in the job. Therefore they perceive part of the so called practice related teaching as a pseudo practice relation (author, 2007)..

However based on current empirical studies the assumption is that the students' perceptions of practice related teaching is complex, being influenced by a number of factors, e.g. the vocation, the kind of knowledge: instrumental or communicative, the student's cognitive abilities and the student's practical experiences.

Accordingly based on emprical data from different vocations, subjects and students, the aim of the paper is to systematize the impact of different forms of practice-related teaching on the students' perceptions of - and their outcome of practice related teaching. 

The reseach question is: How do students in VET perceive practice related teaching and how do various forms of practice related teaching influence the students' learning?

The theoretical framework includes model for curriculum planning (Him & Hippe, 2005) elaborated by including the distinction between instrumental and communicative learning (Mezirow, 1991) and surface and structural elements (Holyak & Koh, 1987).

Author (2007). Kan man lære teori i praksis? En teoretisk og empirisk analyse af praksisrelateret undervisning i erhvervsuddannelserne. DPU. Eng: Can you learn theory through practice? A theoretical and empirical analysis of practice related teaching in VET. Author. (2011). A Taxonomy for Teaching Transfer Skills in the Danish VET System. NORDYRK - Nordic Journal of Vocational Education and Training. Barnett,S.M. & Ceci, S.J. (2002) When and Where Do We Apply What We Learn? A Taxonomi for Far Transfer. Psychological Bulletin, 128(4), 612-637. Bernstein, B. (1999). Vertical and Horizontal Discourse: an essay. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20: 2, 157-173. Chi, M. T. H., & Bassok, M. (1989). Learning From Examples via Self-Explanations. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), Knowing, Learning and Instruction. Essays in Honor of Robert Glaser. New Jersey: LEA. Haskell, R.E. (2001) Transfer of Learning - Cognition, Instruction, and Reasoning. SanDiego: Academic Press Hiim, H. & Hippe, E. (2005) Didaktik for fag- og professionslærere. Eng: Didactics for teachers in VET and the professions. København: Gyldendal. Holyak, K.J. & Koh, K. (1987) Surface and structural similarity in analogical transfer. Memory and Cognition, 15 (4) 332-340) Mezirow, J. (1991) Transformative Dimensions in Adult Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Thorndike, E.L. & Woodworth, R.S. (1901) The influence of improvement in one mental function upon the efficiency of other functions. The psychological Review VIII(3), 247-261). Yamnill, S. & McLean, G.N. (2001) Theories Supporting Transfer of training. Human Ressource Development Quarterly, 12(2), 195-208.