Costa Rica is recognized as one of the Latin American countries that invests the most in education. According to the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report 2016-2017, Costa Rica's education system ranks 35th in the world, one of the highest in Latin America. However, most students in Costa Rica leave school with a weak foundation for work, amid concerns about low productivity and skills shortages (OECD, 2016), compounded by the fact that Costa Rica is the OECD country with the highest unemployment rate (34.2%) among 15-24 year-olds (ILO, 2022). To resume economic growth, Costa Rica needs a labour force with the competencies and skills demanded by the labour market and a TVET system that meets this need. One of the main institutions active in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in Costa Rica is the Ministry of Public Education (Ministerio de Educación Pública - MEP) and the National Institute for Apprenticeships (Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje – INA) (Rommel & Vargas Méndez, 2022). However, employers argue that there are insufficient graduates in technical specialties of increasing labour market demand. Furthermore, there is a lack in the supply of skilled TVET teachers in order to strength the quality of TVET. For example, not all teachers of TVET have vocational pedagogical and subject didactic competencies (Álvarez-Galván, 2015). This has brought the demand for more research on TVET to the center in Costa Rica. At the same time, it can be observed that, despite the growing attention from the political and economic side, a development of theoretical and methodological approaches on TVET and its scientifical knowledge does not take place. Although TVET is considered as an important and valuable alternative for the insertion of the young population in the labor market with a growing importance for the society, the relevance of TVET research is not yet that present so that research efforts have remained in the background (Alvarado Calderón & Mora Hernández, 2020). Lascarez & Baumann (2018) state that TVET research in Costa Rica is still in its infancy and that there is still no university chair conducting TVET research.
In Germany, for example, TVET is supported by the academic sub-discipline of TVET research and is characterized by chairs, courses of study in TVET teacher qualification, its own research community, academic journals and appropriate support for young researchers. Thus, although the Costa Rican discourse on TVET has typical elements such as the currently formulated need for TVET research and existing courses of study in TVET teacher education, as well as some academic scientific research efforts, this has not yet led to the promotion or institutionalization of a specific TVET-related scientific focus. This paper deals with the status and needs of TVET research in Costa Rica within the framework of the CoRiVET - Costa Rican Vocational Education and Training Project, funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research. The project aims to actualize the current curriculum on teacher qualification for TVET at the National Technical University (UTN) and to further institutionalized TVET research. In order to fulfil this last objective, a diagnosis of the current state of research on TVET will be carried out, which will provide updated information to detect in which sub-themes of TVET it is necessary to make greater research efforts in the future. In this context CoRiVET deals with the question: What is the status of TVET research in Costa Rica and which are the associated research needs for TVET?