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Vocational education (or Vocational Education and Training (VET)) prepares learners for careers or professions that are traditionally non-academic and directly related to a specific trade, occupation or vocation, hence the term, in which the learner participates. It is sometimes referred to as technical education, as the learner directly specialises in a particular narrow technique of using technology.
Vocational education might be contrasted with education in a usually broader scientific field, which might concentrate on theory and abstract conceptual knowledge, characteristic of tertiary education.Vocational education is in most cases a form of secondary or post-secondary education. In some cases, vocational education can contribute towards a tertiary education at a university as academic credit however, it is rarely considered in its own form to fall under the traditional definition of a higher education.
Up until the end of the twentieth century, vocational education focused on specific trades such as for example, an automobile mechanic or welder, and was therefore associated with the activities of lower social classes. As a consequence, it attracted a level of stigma. Vocational education is related to the age-old apprenticeship system of learning.
However, as the labour market becomes more specialised and economies are demanding more skills, governments and business are increasingly investing in the future of vocational education through publicy funded training organisations and subsidised apprenticeship or traineeship initiatives for businesses. At the post-secondary level vocational education is typically provided by an institute of technology, or by a local community college.
Vocational education has diversified over the 20th century and now exists in industries such as retail, tourism, information technology, funeral services and cosmetics, as well as in the traditional crafts and cottage industries.
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The largest and the most unified system of vocational education was created in the Soviet Union with the Professional`no-tehnicheskoye uchilische and, Tehnikum. But it became less effective with the transition of the economies of post-Soviet countries to a market economy.
In Australia vocational education and training is post-secondary and provided through the Technical and Further Education system. This system encompasses both Government and private providers in a nationally accredited system based on agreed and consistant assessment standards.
In Singapore, the Institute of Technical Education provides vocational education after secondary education.
Technical is derived from the Greek word tekhnikos, meaning art. In common usage, it is an adjective relating to a specialisation or a developed use of a technique, or any precise method, or knowledge of that method of operating technology, as opposed to more abstract knowledge of scientific concepts.
It may also refer to: