Selected quotes
"Permeability is being applied to education and training systems. The idea is for learners to be able to move easily between different types of education, (such as academic and vocational) and between different levels (such as upper secondary, or apprenticeship, up to higher education), as they decide.

Enabling and encouraging formal access to education or training, at any level, is important, but it is only a first step. Real permeability must enable learners to transfer and build on all types of their prior learning – formal, non-formal or informal – wherever that learning took place, at school, work or during leisure. …

The blurring borderline between VET and higher education is increasing permeability. To enable individuals to move vertically and horizontally through education and training systems entails providing relevant training at all levels. This requires strengthening vocational and professional elements of tertiary education and taking full account of the role played by general knowledge and transversal skills and competences at all levels of VET. Reducing initial VET to narrow technical skills would seriously limit individuals’ ability to pursue lifelong and lifewide learning and so make permeability impossible. …

Permeability is not only about institutional and bureaucratic barriers. Family background is a major factor influencing education and training choices and careers. Cedefop’s recent study on labour market outcomes (5), shows that learners’ education and training preferences are still strongly influenced by their parents’ educational backgrounds. This includes choosing between general education and VET and deciding whether or not to go on to tertiary education. …

An education and training system’s permeability should be judged by its ability to encourage individual learning and offer various learning pathways. Learners need opportunities to continue learning throughout their lives to avoid being caught between a rock and a hard place." Extracts from pp.1-4

Bibliographic indications
“Permeable education and training systems: reducing barriers and increasing opportunity”, Briefing note – 9072 EN, CEDEFOP, 2012 – ISBN: ISBN 978-92-896-1027-8

Selected quotes
"In the past it was widely accepted that secondary schooling and higher education were for a relatively small number and proportion of students who were mainly concerned with receiving an academic-type education and (in the case of universities) obtaining entry to the higher-status professions. … There is now more emphasis on economic productivity, with secondary schools and many universities increasingly stressing skills development for employability, and so preparing graduates more directly to meet labour force requirements. …

Historically, vocational education and higher education emerged from opposing traditions, with universities producing systematic scientific knowledge, and vocational education providing training for specific occupations. As a result, university outputs were evaluated on the basis of their contributions to scientific disciplines (Klüver, 1995) while vocational education outputs were concerned with the ability to undertake useful work. Those relationships have been established over time, with socio-economic development influencing the process. Mass higher education, elite higher education, polytechnics and different levels of vocational institutions, including higher vocational education establishments to train doctors, teachers and lawyers, have been developing complex relationships in countries around the globe. Even countries in the European Union, such as Germany and the United Kingdom, with market economies, have different approaches to higher and vocational education.

Due to the changing nature of the state, the role of the university in the current economic situation is the topic of wide-ranging discussions, particularly in terms of the usefulness of the model that can be characterized as ‘humanitarian university education’. The major point of criticism of this model is that it does not serve the demand for instrumental knowledge and specialization, formulated by the so-called ‘knowledge society’. …

Some of the dichotomies presented in this discourse, such as the universal versus the particular, formal versus experience-based, the search for truth versus utilitarianism, context-free versus context-dependent, position university knowledge much closer to the individual than the discipline, depending on a person’s subjectivity, needs and experiences. Additionally, TVET is seen as ‘a knowledge-based industry, where knowledge is its core business’ (Staron et al., 2006, p. 24). Recent research on TVET (Staron et al., 2006, p. 24) argues that life-based learning is required for vocational education focusing on capability development and considering the learner as a whole person. ‘The emphasis is on personal responsibility for learning through the provision of rich learning environments with the learning benefits both the individual and the organisation’ (Staron et al., 2006, p. 49). This model suggests using methods that are diverse, adaptive, self-facilitated, and based on reflexive practice strategies to achieve the goals and aspirations of the individual. This broad interpretation of TVET training positions it closer to higher education. Thus, on the epistemological level there is the basis for developing close relationships between higher and vocational education." Extracts from p. 43 (Part 2. Vocationalization of secondary schooling and higher education) and from pp.69-72 (Part 5. Vocationalization of higher education)

Bibliographic indications
"Vocationalization of secondary and higher education: pathways to the world of work", Rupert Maclean and Margarita Pavlova, Chapter 2 in “Revisiting global trends in TVET: Reflections on theory and practice”, UNESCO-UNEVOC, 2013 – ISBN ISBN 978-92-95071-57-5

Selected quotes
"It is quite common for foreign observers to praise these three countries {Austria, Germany, Swiss} for the quality of their VET systems.All three countries are part of the “collective skill system cluster” (Busemeyer and Trampusch, 2012) and are renowned for their extensive dual apprenticeship training systems at upper-secondary level. … However in recent years Austria, Germany, and Switzerland have also faced increasing criticism regarding the lack of permeability they provide between VET and HE. That is, as well as having an extensive system of dual apprenticeship training, there is also a historically evolved strong institutional divide between the fields of VET and HE in all three countries. In analysing the case of Germany, Baethge (2006a: 7) has referred to this institutional divide as an “educational schism.” That is, as well as having an extensive system of dual apprenticeship training, there is also a historically evolved strong institutional divide between the fields of VET and HE in all three countries. In analysing the case of Germany, Baethge (2006a: 7) has referred to this institutional divide as an “educational schism.” " …

"I describe in more detail possible accounts of a power, a legitimation, and a functional explanation of the institutional divide between VET and HE linked to lines of argument (A),(B), and (C), respectively. The three accounts do not reflect the only possible interpretations of these three broad explanations for institutional dynamics, but more generally serve to better illustrate the embeddedness of the institutional divide between VET and HE in the DACH countries. ...

Status Groups and Stratification (Power explanation)…

“vocational principle” refers, for example, to the high degree to which curricula prepare people for specific occupations and predetermine career paths. In the DACH countries the vocational principle plays a pivotal role in structuring the transitions within the education system and labor market (see, e.g., Deißinger, 1994, 2001b; Kraus, 2007). That is, in these countries the existence of a great number of well-defined occupations and occupational fields accounts for a highly segmented labor market. …

The German education system is an example of a qualificational space, as young people usually leave the system with specific skills and a well-defined occupational identity. In other words, the German space is segmented by vocational qualifications. France, on the other hand, is presented as an example of an organizational space, as education in France is rather academic or general, whereby specific skills are usually developed on the job

A key message from the studies presented in this section is that the education systems in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland provide individuals with a well-defined occupational identity and are stratified along status group lines.

Education as a Legitimation System (Legitimation Explanation)

…Following neo-institutional terminology, the divide between VET and HE can be regarded as highly institutionalized in the sense that most actors in the DACH countries take it for granted (see, e.g., Walgenbach, 1995: 271 on the concept of institutionalization). …

Varieties of Capitalism and Institutional Complementarities (Functional Explanation)

The US and the UK are discussed as ideal types of a liberal market economy (LME), largely based on coordination through competitive markets. In contrast, Germany is considered to be an ideal type of a coordinated market economy (CME), relying more on strategic interactions. In both cases, the mode of coordination is expected to stretch across all of the institutional spheres of the economy, including the VET system.

LMEs, actors primarily coordinate through demand and supply conditions in competitive markets (Gingerich and Hall, 2001: 3; Hall and Soskice, 2001: 8). Furthermore, in LMEs equilibrium outcomes are primarily determined by relative prices, market signals, and familiar marginal considerations (Gingerich and Hall, 2001: 3–4).

In CMEs, on the other hand, there is more institutional support for nonmarket forms of coordination. Such support is, for example, provided through business or employer associations, trade unions, networks of crossshareholding, and legal or regulatory systems facilitating information sharing and collaboration.

Thus, Hall and Soskice (2001) and colleagues lay out a framework for analyzing the institutional variations underlying skill systems based on the distinction it draws between (1) LMEs with institutions that discourage firms from investing in skill formation and in which workers tend to acquire general skills that are portable across industries and firms, and (2) CMEs with institutions that provide incentives for employers to collaborate in providing training and for workers to acquire industry- and firm-specific skills. Moreover, CMEs often “share a strong emphasis on initial vocational training” (Gallie, 2007: 93)." Extracts from p.13 (Introduction) and pp. 33-40 (Part 3.2 Exploring the Rigidity of the Institutional Divide between Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Higher Education (HE)

Bibliographic indications
“The Hybridization of Vocational Training and Higher Education in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland”, Lukas Graf, Budrich UniPress Ltd. Opladen, Berlin & Toronto 2013 –ISBN 978-3-86388-043-9