scholarly journals Does tertiary vocational education beat academic education? A matching analysis of young men’s earnings developments

Author(s):  
Veronika Lukesch ◽  
Thomas Zwick

AbstractThis paper shows that young men who completed an apprenticeship education plus a tertiary vocational education have considerably higher earnings during the first half of their career than those who obtained an academic education in addition to their apprenticeship education. We match employees with a tertiary vocational and an academic education based on their labour market experience and their individual and employer characteristics during their formative apprenticeship training years in which they presumably decided on their further education track. Then we compare the earnings developments in both groups of the matched sample during their tertiary education phase and after its completion for maximally 16 years after apprenticeship completion. We use linked employer-employee data of the IAB (LIAB9310).

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-71
Author(s):  
Simone R Haasler

In Germany, the dual system of apprenticeship training has traditionally been very strong. The dominant position of the dual system, however, is being challenged by other training routes gaining significance, particularly tertiary education. This article investigates the extent to which this is leading to a restructuring of the dual system. Developments in school-based vocational programmes, trends of academisation and challenges deriving from qualifying low achievers are discussed. The growing significance of school-based programmes is linked to the gender impact of the vocational education and training (VET) system and the gender segmentation of the German labour market, while academisation reflects labour market demands for high skills. With dual study programmes and three and a half-year dual training, the dual system seeks to provide attractive training options for highly skilled young people. This, however, has made access to fully-qualifying vocational programmes very difficult for low-achieving young people, including migrants and refugees, thereby challenging the integration function of the German VET system.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (S1) ◽  
pp. S28-S43
Author(s):  
Alison Wolf

This article will analyse the rather uniform ways in which developed countries, and notably those of Europe, have moved from systems in which tiny numbers of young people attended university to systems of mass and still expanding higher education. Although there are some surface differences between countries in organisation and levels of participation, these have actually decreased in recent decades, and convergence is continuing. This convergence reflects a general move towards a dominant model of tertiary education which gives priority and prestige to academic certification. The economic and policy drivers have been very similar. In the first instance, a changing labour market and growing middle class expanded demand for tertiary provision. Governments then became convinced that expanding higher education was an effective supply-side policy to promote growth and productivity, and an effective way to promote social mobility and equality; and so educational expansion and spending were privileged. However, in recent years, there has been a growing mismatch between the labour market and tertiary provision, which it is very hard to correct, partly because of politicians’ beliefs but also because the ‘signalling’ function of academic education has become paramount, and families quite rationally pursue high-prestige (but zero-sum) options for their children. Although there may be some degree of self-correction in the system, this is by no means assured and governments need to consider, actively, how to promote attractive alternatives to university study.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
József Palotás

A szakképzés szerkezete, a szakmastruktúra, valamint a tartalomszabályozás számos változáson ment keresztül az elmúlt negyedszázadban. Minden átalakításnak figyelembe kell vennie azonban, hogy a megelőző korszakok törekvéseinek eredményeit, értékeit integrálva – okulva azok hibáiból, hiányosságaiból – a tanulók egyéni képességeinek kibontakoztatását, a vertikális és horizontális átjárhatóságot, a hátránykompenzációt és tehetségfejlesztést, valamint a munkaerőpiacnak adekvát kimenetet, a továbbtanulás lehetőségét együttesen kell biztosítania a szakképzés rendszerének, mert ez szolgálja a tanulók, a munkáltatók, a szülők, így a társadalom érdekeit.The structure of vocational education, the structure of professions and content regulation have changed in many respects during the latest 25 years. However, each transformation must consider and integrate the results and values of the endeavours made during the previous eras and learn from their mistakes and deficiencies; thus the system of VET is to provide the conditions of the evolution of the pupils’ personal talents, vertical and horizontal accessibility, disadvantage compensation and talent development as well as outputs adequate for the labour market and the possibility of further education because these factors serve the interests of the pupils, the employers, the parents and so the society.


Author(s):  
Derick R. C. Almeida ◽  
João A. S. Andrade ◽  
Adelaide Duarte ◽  
Marta Simões

AbstractThis paper examines human capital inequality and how it relates to earnings inequality in Portugal using data from Quadros de Pessoal for the period 1986–2017. The objective is threefold: (i) show how the distribution of human capital has evolved over time; (ii) investigate the association between human capital inequality and earnings inequality; and (iii) analyse the role of returns to schooling, together with human capital inequality, in the explanation of earnings inequality. Our findings suggest that human capital inequality, computed based on the distribution of average years of schooling of employees working in the Portuguese private labour market, records a positive trend until 2007 and decreases from this year onwards, suggesting the existence of a Kuznets curve of education relating educational attainment levels and education inequality. Based on the decomposition of a Generalized Entropy index (Theil N) for earnings inequality, we observe that inequality in the distribution of human capital plays an important role in the explanation of earnings inequality, although this role has become less important over the last decade. Using Mincerian earnings regressions to estimate the returns to schooling together with the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition of real hourly earnings we confirm that there are two important forces associated with the observed decrease in earnings inequality: a reduction in education inequality and compressed returns to schooling, mainly in tertiary education.


Author(s):  
Wang Shuwei ◽  
Zhang Yong

Whether the apprentice is competent for the job and produces performance for the organization is the key index to test the quality of apprenticeship education. Based on competency theory, this paper investigates the influence of competency dimensions and work meaning on performance. Through the competency questionnaire analysis of 224 shop managers in apprentice project enterprises, it is found that: the part of the competency dimension of personality traits, motivation and values hidden in the iceberg model has a significant impact on performance through work meaning; the relationship between work values and work meaning of apprentices is stronger, and that the relationship between work motivation and work meaning of non-apprentices is stronger. Therefore, we should pay more attention to the cultivation of multiple values of apprenticeship, especially the significance of moral education. The results provide reference for upgrading the quality of talent training in Colleges, reconstructing talent training objectives and the practice of human resource management in enterprises.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Speckesser ◽  
Lei Xu

Abstract In England, half of all apprentices are now of adult age. Most of them—and many of younger age, too—worked with their training firm for some time before starting their apprenticeship. In this article, we estimate the benefit of apprenticeship completion making the distinction between groups of newly recruited and existing staff. To deal with sources of endogeneity resulting from apprenticeship completion, we exploit an exogenous change in minimum duration of training affecting apprenticeship completion. Our findings show much higher benefits for new compared with existing staff. Also, increasing apprenticeship training only creates positive effects for new entrants, but not for existing workers. Therefore, policy should aim to refocus apprenticeships to be a mechanism of labour market entry combined with education to provide access to and acquire competences required for actual occupational roles, but not as a generic mechanism to train existing staff.


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