Due to the technological development, a higher degree of specialisation in industry and the demands on increased flexibility and an enhanced knowledge base in the work force, it has become increasingly difficult to enter the labour market and establish a decent earning of living without having a qualification at upper secondary level. However, many young people have problems completing an education programme at this level and are therefore in risk of social exclusion. The political concern in many European countries is how to motivate this group of young people, often categorised as “disadvantaged”, “marginalised” or “residual”, for completing an education programme. The strategies vary from country to country but in many countries vocational education and training has come to play a central role.

This is also the case in Denmark, where a major political goal since the 1990s has been to make 95% of a youth cohort complete a youth education programme at upper secondary level. The strategies to attain this goal have changed throughout the period. In the 1990s, the main mechanism was to create alternatives to the existing education programmes. Thus a number of individualised schemes were established in 1993/1994 . The aim was to make offers flexible and tailor-made in order to meet the needs of young people falling outside the formal education system. The main principles of the alternative programmes were mainstreamed in 2000 where the ideas of individualisation and flexibility were introduced into the VET system. Hereby, the VET system became a major key in the inclusion of young people otherwise in risk of not completing a youth education programme. In 2009,  “a duty” to education and employment was introduced in the Law on Guidance for Education and Employment. In the law, the emphasis for motivating young people for education is put on a mixture of compulsory guidance, continuous monitoring of young people’s participation in either education or employment and the right of the guidance counsellors to take away the monthly youth allowance if a young person does not follow his educational plan; a plan which has been laid down in cooperation between the youth guidance counsellor and the young person. The guidance counsellors are now to assess young people’s “readiness for education” (uddannelsesparathed) and refer them to suitable schemes if they are not ready for an ordinary programme.   

This policy, but how about practice:  A central question is how young people become motivated for vocational education and training. What are the experiences of the supervisors working with young people and the young people themselves in terms of (facilitating) motivation for education? How does the political framework promote or hinder this motivational work in practice? This is the topic of this paper which aims at exploring the issue of motivation in policy and practice and analyse the different constructions of motivation and how they fit or collide.

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