Source :  Good Practice in Technical and Vocational Education Training, Asian Development Bank 2009.

Mountain Province General Comprehensive High School, Bontoc, Mountain Province

Vocational subjects are desirable on general education grounds, as part of a well-rounded education intended for everyone if they can be afforded and provided without detracting from efforts to improve quality in core subjects in the curriculum. But research has not borne out the labor market justification for such subjects. So far no study has shown that adding practical courses as a minor part of a student’s total curriculum (as much as one-third of the time) gives an advantage in finding work under severely depressed labor market conditions. Objections to the vocationalization of secondary education are as follows:

• Vocationalization is costly. Most vocationalization variants are more costly per student class period than mainstream general education subjects, primarily because of smaller classes and greater expense for facilities, equipment, and consumables. Unless a course can be taught to a full class of students (few can), operating costs will be more than twice those of non-laboratory academic subjects.

• Enrollment in some types of vocational courses is often strongly gender biased. The skills concerned are culturally identified with one gender only, for example domestic science and secretarial skills with girls, and industrial arts skills with boys.

• Vocationalization is hard to implement well. It requires specially trained instructors, preferably with actual work experience in the types of skills being taught. Teachers who have those qualifications are hard to recruit and retain. Vocationalization requires administratively complicated coordination of inputs.

• Finally, time spent on vocational skills training can detract from the teaching of basic academic skills, which are badly in need of improvement—also for labor market purposes.

For vocational skills development it is better to look to training centers that are specialized for such purposes, set up to respond to the labor market. Minor portions of a predominantly academic curriculum will not suffice.