The ever-increasing pace of globalization, technological development and the need for well-educated individuals has led to recent changes in attitudes towards vocational education (Ashton & Green, 1996). At the same time, European countries have registered the need for transparency in credentialed knowledge and skills and their recognition across national boundaries (OECD, 1992). Thus, VET systems began to evolve in Europe, within the scope of Copenhagen process in order to meet a common quality assurance framework. Within this outline, the Turkish vocational education and training (VET) system, as a candidate country of EU, required significant changes to increase the changes to contribute to the thriving of the national economy and attain global standards. The outdated Turkish VET system was failing to keep up with technological advances and as a result was unable to meet neither the rapidly changing needs of industry nor those of the youth population (ETF, 1999), (Ogawa & Tansel, 2005). While graduates faced the lurking ghost of unemployment, industry suffered from a lack of qualified workforce (Şimşek & Gök, 2005), (Yildirim & Simsek, 2001). A proactive approach was adopted in an attempt to deal with some of the problems within the Turkish VET system through the adoption of a new competency based modular curriculum.

The major changes of the programs compared with the previous ones are the system structure (i.e. centralized vs. decentralized), educational methodology (i.e. teacher-centred vs. student-centred), flexibility (i.e. nation-wide fixed vs. locally variable) and effectiveness (i.e. entry job skills vs. life-long learning).Although such a shift is required due to the inadequacy of the previous, outdated VET system, the successful implementation of such a new program requires further obligations other than the long-term objectives. Mainly,the competency based modular curriculum emphasizes the institutions and individuals’ efforts in order to accomplish program objectives. In addition, it is clearly observed that, in its first implementation between 2004 and 2009, there has been several implementation-specific obstacles that prevent an efficient implementation of the intended framework (Biçer, 2009). In particular, the difficulties to assess and perform the adaptation of the curriculum, of addressing the needs of the labour market and students, by local authorities (i.e. school administrators, teachers) has become a major challenge to attain the flexibility at various levels (Ziderman, 1997).

The aforementioned phenomenon shift in the Turkish VET system requires more effort and time for a successful implementation. In this article, our discussion is based on the rationale for a change motivated by the encountered problems of the previous Turkish VET system. These problems and the need to solve them lead the way to the new competency-based, modular framework and an implementation process in which a more flexible, learner-centered program is aimed. We also present the results of an assessment of the new framework based on a research conducted in the vocational schools of a specific region considering a particular, namely information technologies (IT), curriculum. The specific research question is:

     To what extent is the flexibility (labour market flexibility, individual flexibility, and transfer and mobility) actualized in the implementation of Vocational high schools’ new IT curriculum?

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