Education and Development: The Issues and the Evidence

Education and development the issues and the evidence - Education Research Paper
No. 06, 1993, 61 p.

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2.3 Technical and vocational
education

2.3.1 Rationales

2.3.2 Approaches

2.3.3 Purposes

2.3.4 Cost effectiveness

2.3.5 Some conclusions

2.3.1 Rationales

Educational assistance for technical and vocational education has a long history. It has
always had attractions to policy makers since it seems to offer to kill several birds with
the same stone. Thus justifications for investment are frequently couched in terms of
one or more of the following overlapping categories:
increased relevance of schooling to likely occupational futures

reductions in youth unemployment as a result: of the acquisition of employable skills

increased economic development arising from improvements in the quality and skill

levels of the working population

poverty reduction through giving access to higher income occupations to those who

do not succeed academically

transformation of attitudes amongst youth to favour occupations where there are some
employment prospects

Foster (1965) in the seminal study that produced the "vocational school fallacy" was
one of the first to point out the second best nature of vocational training as a way of
increasing the relevance of schooling to occupational futures. His study in Ghana

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