Initial Vocational Education and Training (IVET) in Portugal is constituted by several training modalities (apprenticeship courses, professional courses, education and training courses), all school-based vocational education. IVET courses are directed to young people and, except for the education and training courses (CEF) that have wide-ranging pathways, give access to an upper secondary education diploma (grade 12) and to a level 4 EQF vocational certificate.

In Portugal, as well as in other countries, IVET is considered to be a second-class education (Martins et al., 2008). The low participation of IVET graduates in Portuguese higher education (HE) contributes to the stigma of IVET and is linked to the social image that IVET curricula are very easy and that trainees are 'dummies' (Doroftei, 2020).

The main form of access to HE in Portugal is through the National Access Contest, which is open to people who have completed upper secondary education (12th grade). The application is based on national access exams, which means that the content of each access exam is the same throughout the country. The national access exams are based on the content of the general education curriculum.

There are other forms of access to HE, all of them with several constraints, like, for example, the “Access Contest for older than 23 years old”. In 2020, the Portuguese government ratified a new procedure for accessing to HE, specifically aimed at IVET graduates (PCM, 2020). However, this special contest depends on whether or not higher education institutions (HEI) are willing to open up places for it. What has happened is that the universities are refusing to take part in this special access contest, and the polytechnics are, as usual, more available to receive IVET graduates (Amorim, 2022a, 2022b; Silva, 2021). The law defines the fields of education and training of IVET courses corresponding to the fields of education and training of HE degrees for which IVET graduates can apply (CNAES, 2021). This means that an IVET graduate from another field of education and training cannot gain access to the desired degree through this special access contest. He/she will have to take the national entrance exams required for that degree (programme and IES). This situation may discourage IVET graduates from pursuing HE.

Having an HE diploma may enable upward social mobility. Access to HE is key as IVET students come mainly from families with low socioeconomic status (SES) (Alves et al., 2001; Doroftei, 2020). Furthermore, the Portuguese government aims to have at least 50% of upper secondary students attending IVET, and 60% of young people aged 20 attending HE (RP, 2019). Therefore, in order to make IVET attractive and to meet the Government’s goals, it must enable young people to pursue HE.

Access to HE is also crucial for changing the social image of IVET, for as Te Riele and Crump (2002, p. 258) state, “to bring VET in from the margins, and achieve parity of esteem with general courses, it must offer at least similar rewards, in terms of access to tertiary education (…)”.

The aim of this paper is to present the reasons that young people attending the final year of IVET evoke regarding their motivations to continue their studies, or not, in HE, and to discuss the results in the light of IVET’s social representations.

The study focuses on the transitions of IVET students to higher education. The aim of the study was to find out the reasons why students in their final year of IVET decide to continue their studies in higher education. A questionnaire was sent nationwide to students who were in the final year of upper secondary IVET (grade 12) in the school year 2021/22. A link to an online questionnaire was sent by e-mail to 475 VET providers (184 public upper secondary schools, 200 professional schools and 91 training centres) with a request to forward it to the target students. A total of 186 responses were included in the analysis. Descriptive data analysis was made using SPSS 28® The participants (N = 186; 53.2% female) were attending professional courses (92.6%); apprenticeship courses (6.1%) and artistic courses (0.6%). The average age is 19 years old. The majority are native Portuguese (71.4%), while the remainder have some migrant status. The level of formal education of the participants' parents is mainly positioned at upper secondary level or below for both mothers and fathers (84.6% equally). The research followed the relevant ethical guidelines of the research institution. An informed consent form was placed at the top of the questionnaire, and the question of consent to participate was included and mandatory. Only after a positive response was the questionnaire presented.

Data indicates that most of the participants intend to go on to higher education (54.1%), but of these, 68.8% are considering doing so one year after completing IVET. This condition may be due to the awareness that in order to pass the university entrance exams, they will have to study subjects that they did not study before, relying mainly on private tuition (Doroftei, 2020). This argument becomes relevant when considering that 68.8% of the participants plan to access HE through the National Access Contest, which implies national entrance exams, while only 23.8% plan to use the Special Access Contest for VET graduates and 13.8% the Special Contest for Older than 23 years. Among the motives for going to HE, we highlight the first three with the higher expression: 1) to study a field of interest (N = 54); 2) to deepen knowledge and skills in the professional field (N = 50); and 3) to acquire knowledge and skills in a scientific field (N = 45). It should be noted that all three of the first motives mentioned are related to the acquisition of knowledge and skills. The three main reasons for not continuing to HE were 1) the desire to enter the labour market as soon as possible (N = 19); 2) being tired of being a student (N = 16); and 3) lack of economic resources (N = 10). The first and third reasons may be closely related, as the literature indicates that IVET students tend to come from families with a low SES. Notwithstanding, the motives evoked may have an underlying internalisation of the “legitimacy of their exclusion”, that is, a perception of incapacity to participate in the HE system (Clavel, 2004). The analysis shall be deepened in the paper.

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