Half of all European students are enrolled in Vocational Education and Training of some sort, making it one of the biggest educational sectors in Europe. But when only 27% says they would recommend this form of education to other people (according to a Eurobarometer published by the European Commission), something is not right.
Looking closer into the findings of the survey there are some very good results suggesting that VET is an education based on real needs of our society and it is very relevant for future employment.
More than half of the respondents thinks that they have more job possibilities than young people from academic secondary education and as many as 82% thinks that the skills they learn are relevant to the labour market.
Yet, one big problem identified is counselling: more than half says they get insufficient guidance and they still look to their family for advice. This means that in Europe today parents still play a very big role when it comes to choose education.
Read the entire survey or find a summary in your own language here.