For many governments, higher education (HE) has been seen as the main vehicle to skilled employment (Davies and Ercolani, 2021). Government policies have been strongly influenced by the idea that HE improves students’ knowledge and skill levels, which then improve productivity and economic performance (Keep, 2020). While HE institutions, predominantly universities, are clearly playing an important role in terms of the knowledge economy, generating intellectual property, the skills economy focuses on understanding and recognising the skills underpinning the knowledge developed. A good illustration is the vaccine development for the current Covid-19 pandemic. Highly developed knowledge has been involved in the vaccine’s development in conjunction with many finely-honed, high-quality skills from technicians helping to produce and deliver it globally. In a symbiotic way knowledge and skills have coalesced to provide an answer to a global health and economic crisis.

The skills taught and developed through the technical and vocational training route are imperative for economic productivity and growth (OECD, 2017). A skills economy is underpinned by the development of high quality skills and creates jobs that are valued by all members of society. Despite the vocational education and training (VET) system offering value to the economy, VET has suffered from a poor prestige and low status, particularly in comparison to academic education routes (Billett et al., 2019). VET often suffers from a lack of social standing among students and their families (Abrassart & Wolter, 2019). The academic-vocational divide is manifested across many countries across the world and often highlights social divides such as class and gender (e.g. Nylund et al., 2018). This matters as the attractiveness of training routes are affected by their prestige (Duemmler et al., 2020).

Over the last couple of years, the UK is aligning skills policy more with Europe, as outlined in the ‘Skills for Jobs’ White Paper for England (Department for Education, 2021). And many countries globally, similar to the UK, have recognised that making the VET route attractive needs to be a policy priority (Ministry of Human Resource Development, 2020, for example). Indeed, underpinning this imperative for esteem for the VET route is the understanding that quality of provision and teaching standards are inextricably linked to prestige. Employers, education and training providers, and policy makers must work together in any endeavour to improve the quality and prestige in VET, making it an attractive pathway.

The paper is based on a research WorldSkills UK (WSUK) commissioned (James-Relly et al., 2021) and investigates the purpose and prestige of VET in seven countries - Austria; Brazil; France; Hungary; India; Japan and South Korea. It investigated how employer involvement, curriculum development and high quality teacher development are all drivers of excellence in each of the county’s systems. Also WorldSkills competitions were seen as a vehicle of developing VET excellence within countries.

This research draws on distinctive insights into global skills systems. Innovations and developments in other countries have long held fascination for policymakers and educators in the UK. While taking regard of the cultural and political contexts, looking to other countries to understand better their education and training system brings many advantages for policy learning (Raffe, 2011a; Raffe, 2011b) and contextualised learning. This research endeavours to show how other countries enable technical and vocational education and training to be at the forefront of curriculum and workforce development. The following research question is posed: How do other countries develop their VET system in order to improve its status and prestige?

The study focusses on the policy and governance structure of VET systems in seven countries: Austria; Brazil; France; Hungary; India; Japan and South Korea, to gain an understanding of the drivers used to develop and deliver technical excellence. It consisted of three phases: phase 1: a desk-based literature review of policy, academic, and grey literature; Phase 2: semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders from the countries; Phase 3: cross-country analysis. A snowball methodology was adopted for the interviews. WSUK introduced the research team to key WS members in each of the countries. In turn, these WorldSkills (WS) members introduced us to key stakeholders within the wider VET sector, who subsequently introduced other participants. In total, data was collected from 56 semi-structured online interviews with WS delegates, teachers, policymakers, students, training supervisors in companies, VET experts, CPD managers, and representatives from Chambers of Commerce. The interviews were conducted in each countries’ local language online between January 2021 and April 2021. The interviews consisted of a series of questions about the purpose of VET, curriculum development activities, teacher/tutor/lecturer recruitment and selection, continuing professional development, assessment frameworks and assessment journeys, students’ pathways and experiences, the challenges the sector faces, positive policy developments, trajectories of change, and the role of WorldSkills in the countries’ systems. Each interview was audio-recorded and transcribed, and lasted between 45 minutes and 1.5 hours. Interviewees were not identified by their role or named in the research to ensure anonymity. The data was analysed using thematic analysis to draw out common themes within the data (e.g. Braun & Clarke, 2006).

The positioning of VET pathways in relation to academic educational routes had a profound impact on the nature of those pathways, the nature of policy interventions, and the cultures and practices of the teaching workforce. There were varying as well as similar perceptions and levels of prestige of VET across the case countries. However raising the esteem of VET was a policy priority in many of the countries. The research highlights some of the initiatives that have been used to raise the perceptions of VET. For instance, in France, there remains a value-based distinction between the academic and technological Baccalaureate, the ‘intellectuels’ and the vocational tracks, the ‘manuels’, or those who work with their hands. However, reforms in 2018 were seen as having a positive impact on the value placed on vocational pathways. These policy changes appeared to be making a notable change on both the numbers of apprentices/ vocational students and the training structures and resourcing, despite the impact of Covid. A highly structured and multi-layered VET system in Japan, combined with high quality industry training and links, for example, with Toyota, have seen positive changes to the perception of vocational training. Additionally, Kosen colleges have the highest level of esteem of all vocational institutes in Japan, where all teaching staff must obtain a PhD, and their graduates have a good track record of high employment rates. The South Korean government is committed to promoting and encouraging more students to access VET by increasing employer involvement in VET policy development and implemented the recent creation of sector skills councils and Meister schools; graduating from these schools largely guarantees students’ employment. Across all countries, WorldSkills offered three key benefits to supporting excellence and thus prestige in the VET systems. These were benchmarking international standards, linking key organisations and supporting innovation.

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