This paper addresses one of the two main strands of the Austrian VET system, namely the dual and the school-based VET strand. Whereas the Austrian dual VET strand is similar to the Swiss and German main way of vocational education with its on-going alternation between school and workplace, the other part of the Austrian VET system has only one dominant location, i.e. the higher vocational school. These schools usually lead to an advanced vocational qualification which can be directly used to enter the labour market: Thus, higher vocational schools are forced to make great efforts to open fields of work experiences for their students. Based on a didactical approach which is informed by current concepts of workplace learning, we will particularly concentrate our presentation on three aspects: (1) We will explain and classify different pathways of combining theory and practice in higher vocational schools; (2) In order to further ground our argumentation, we will moreover report on empirical research data concerning the quality of internships which we collected in the western part of Austria; (3) Based on these considerations, we will finally delineate future chances and risks for the school-based stream of vocational education in Austria and similar VET/PET systems.