In many countries, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) has a poorer reputation and is seen as significantly less attractive than higher education. In historical terms, in many countries the relationship between general and higher education on the one hand and TVET on the other can be seen as each side separating itself from the other. Each of the two education sectors pursues its own logic. The exclusive nature of higher education leading to a university degree for a small, privileged section of society has always contrasted with pragmatic TVET. The importance of the school leaving certificate that entitled the holder to enter university was inflated such that it became seen as a reflection of an educated person, while TVET was associated with practical skills and suffered a lower status.
Numerous approaches have been emerging in the area where TVET meets higher education. These concepts have not done away with the segmentation, but they can create new perspectives for putting the relationship between the two sectors on a new footing. The approaches represent a wide spectrum of options from creating new permeability between the two sectors and making it possible to transfer credits gained in one to the other, to the development of entire education courses that link TVET and higher education comprehensively (Wolter 2019).
The contours between the two education sectors are blurring. Vocational schools for instance are moving into the territory that was formerly the exclusive preserve of higher education institutions, while universities of applied sciences and even some universities are devising advanced TVET courses for the market, and competing with advanced TVET institutions (Dunkel/Le Mouillour 2013). In some European countries, these trends towards convergence are even more marked with universities offering advanced vocational courses, in some cases leading to well established qualifications (e.g. Executive MBAs) or even offering a vocational Ph.D. (Dunkel/Le Mouillour 2013). But also, in some countries hybrid institutions emerge. Observations in various countries indicate that new convergences and linkages are emerging between the sectors in countries with very different education structures.
The characteristics of TVET and higher education, and the borders and overlaps between the two have developed in very different ways if we compare nations. At the same time we can see a honing and differentiation of new borders being drawn and new linkages being created between TVET and higher education (see for instance Frommberger/Schmees 2021). This is the background to our question – to what extent could the status quo of this trend been analysed systematically and what objectives are pursued against the background of differing starting points? On the basis of the result this conceptual paper points out consequences for development cooperation.
We follow Euler’s approach of an area of convergence emerges between higher education and TVET (EULER 2021) to differentiate between the two education sectors outlined above, and the resulting emergence of an area of intersection or convergence. This approach shows that on the higher education side a modern version of the historic, traditional research-oriented university persists, while parallel to this, in some disciplines and faculties, higher education institutions with a stronger vocational orientation are emerging. This type of higher education tends to overlap to a significant extent in terms of goals and curriculum structure with the ‘exclusive’ end of the TVET spectrum where we find primarily training occupations in which the vast majority of trainees actually hold university entrance qualifications.