The characteristics of the education system — and, more specifically, those of the vocational education and training (VET) system — at provincial level (supply factors) interact with the employment and socioeconomic context (demand factors) to form a broad system (Gamboa et al., 2020, 2021) in which those supply and demand factors exert a mutual influence on one another.

Previous research into the Spanish context indicates that regional VET systems are grouped both according to certain aspects of the educational offering and to certain contextual features. This results in two major groups or clusters, one characterised by higher socioeconomic performance and the other by lower socioeconomic performance and certain VET supply features.

In light of this, the question arises as to whether the VET supply factors in the regions exhibiting highest socioeconomic performance favour this outcome. The previous research referred to indicates that the Spanish regions in this high-performing cluster are characterised by, among other things, supply factors such as the percentage of the population holding a VET qualification, the percentage of VET students enrolled on STEM courses, the percentage of Higher VET students enrolled in Dual VET and the percentage of Higher VET students taking advantage of the mobility options available under the Erasmus Plus programme (Moso-Díez et al., 2021).

Among the supply indicators that characterise the high-performing regions, the percentage of VET students enrolled on STEM courses can be considered a key regional differentiator that may have implications regarding higher regional socioeconomic performance and greater interaction with demand factors. However, it also is clear that certain environmental factors may be driving this greater enrolment in courses covering STEM occupational groups, as well as influencing other elements of VET supply.

In this regard, given the developments in technology, the advance of Industry 4.0, the increase in business digitalisation, the need to servitise industry (Kamp & Gamboa, 2021) and the development of knowledge-intensive services (Albizu & Estensoro, 2020), the importance of student enrolment on STEM courses, and those programmes’ capacity to drive regional socioeconomic development by meeting a significant part of the local environment’s needs and the production base’s current demands, becomes evident. This is because the STEM occupational groups identified by STEM Euskadi (2018) are groups in which the training generates high added value and contributes to the development of advanced services, covering areas of knowledge such as Building and Civil Works; Electricity and Electronics; Energy and Water; Machine Manufacture; Image and Sound; Food Industry; IT and Communications; Equipment Installation and Maintenance; Wood, Furniture and Cork; Chemicals; and Transport and Vehicle Maintenance.

Therefore, the objective of this paper is to analyse the relationship between VET students’ enrolment on STEM courses and a series of indicators on the regional socioeconomic environment, such as regional GDP per capita, the share of regional employment in industry as a proportion of total employment, the overall unemployment rate, the unemployment rate among VET graduates and the proportion of people neither in employment nor in education and training, among others. In order to tie analysis to local context, given that demand for VET is local in nature, this study will study the situation at provincial level, analysing this causal interaction between STEM VET and its local environment may give this analysis greater depth.

This research is innovative, as although there have been some empirical studies into industrial occupational groups, these have focused more on the state and sectoral levels (Diaz-Chao et al., 2021a, 2021b). To the best of our knowledge, this paper offers a novel analysis at Spanish level.

For this study, data from the Observatorio de la Formación Profesional en España (Observatory on Vocational Education and Training in Spain) will be used. These data comprise a series of VET system indicators classified as either factors associated with supply or factors associated with demand at regional level (spanning 17 autonomous communities and 2 autonomous cities) which under Spain’s political and administrative structure translates as the autonomous community, of which there are 17. However, given that the factors affecting the socioeconomic environment and VET supply may vary significantly at local level, this study will test the relationships posited using the latest available data, disaggregated at provincial level (comprising 52 territories — NUTS 3). The relationships posited in the objective of the study will be tested through regression analysis, in which key variables such as the size of the regional population will be examined. This paper will also explore whether the relationship between VET student enrolment on STEM courses and territorial socioeconomic outcomes is moderated by other key contextual factors such as the percentage of regional GDP generated by knowledge-based activities or the number of VET students as a proportion of the region's population of young people. The latter will be tested using moderated hierarchical regression.

Some preliminary findings at autonomous community level indicate that higher enrolment in courses covering STEM occupational groups correlates positively and significantly with regional GDP per capita, with the proportion of the population employed in industry and with the employment rate among Intermediate VET and Higher VET graduates. In contrast, it correlates negatively with unemployment rates among both the general population and VET graduates. These findings give rise to an expectation that VET students’ enrolment on STEM courses is predictive of higher regional socioeconomic performance and that this relationship is moderated by key contextual features. At the present stage of research, analysis of this interaction between STEM occupational groups and Spanish provinces is still under way and it is therefore likely that more findings will be made public when the paper is submitted.

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