Transitions from Initial Vocational Education and Training Qualifications to Working Life in Finland – Observations and Reflections from an International Expert Panel

The expert panel above points to two diverging initiatives to reduce IVET students’ high graduate unemployment. First, to improve the linkages of IVET to the labour market and improve work-based learning in VET. Secondly, to boost the transition of IVET graduates to further and higher education. These initiatives relate to the dual aims of IVET, which might not be easy to combine. Therefore, upper secondary education in some other European countries has to some extent reserved the aim of preparing for higher education for the general track, and the aim of preparing for employment for the vocational track, the VET system. When both tracks have more unequivocal aims, these can be pursued more easily. However, this involves stronger tracking in upper secondary education, stronger stratification and stronger social background effects on the educational attainment of students (Esser, 2016; Triventi et al., 2016). This does not align with the strong emphasis in Finland on educational equality.

In Finland, the dual aims of IVET means that it simultaneously prepares students for employment and for progression to higher education. This is reflected in key policy documents, like the Education Policy Report of the Finnish Government, 2021. It emphasises that the proportion of upper secondary students progressing to higher education should be increased, so that by 2030 at least half of all young adults in Finland complete a higher education degree. The pathway to achieving this includes initiatives like widening the access of IVET graduates to higher education by providing more flexible pathways from IVET to a UASs and recognition of the competencies of IVET graduates at UASs. At the same time, it is emphasised that the links of IVET to the world of work should be strengthened to boost the employment of IVET graduates.

The question is how the relationship between these two different aims of VET is understood and managed by the Finnish VET system. In policy documents and in the interviews, the two aims were mainly seen as easily compatible. Interviewees argued that the strengthening of the basic skills and common subjects in IVET is needed both for successful progression to UASs and for the graduates’ future employment. General and generic skills are required for employment in increasingly complex and interdisciplinary work tasks undergoing rapid technological change.

However, international VET research has demonstrated trade-offs between different aims for VET (Shavit & Müller, 2000; Saar & Martma, 2021). This can be seen in European VET systems where work-based learning placements make up a large part of the programmes (especially dual systems), and it is difficult to provide entrance qualifications for higher education for all students (Deissinger et al., 2013; Levels et al., 2014; Cedefop, 2022). Conversely, the mainly school-based VET systems that provide eligibility for higher education for all VET students find it difficult to provide direct access to the skilled labour market. This is the situation in Finland.

Another trade-off for VET is that preparing the VET students for future changes in working life, further training and lifelong education generally comes at the cost of their immediate employability (Shavit & Müller, 2000; Bol & Werfhorst, 2013). A strong emphasis on specific vocational skills and extended work-based learning in IVET supports graduates’ easy access to employment, but it may come at the cost of their long-term employability.

These trade-offs seem to be a common challenge for modern VET systems. The Finnish answer to this is to give priority to social equality and vertical permeability. Upper secondary education has clear tracking between schools (general–vocational), and very few students from IVET get access to universities. However, IVET is not an educational ‘dead end’, because all VET students are, after graduation, eligible for higher education. The price of this strong linkage to UASs is the prolonged transitions to employment of IVET graduates in Finland.

Other Nordic and European countries have managed the trade-off in different ways, from which Finnish education policy might gain inspiration. Strong linkages to higher education can be combined with strong linkages to the labour market. Apprenticeship programmes in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands have previously not offered direct access to higher education (only to various forms of post-secondary vocational education). However, innovative solutions to this weakness could provide inspiration for developing Finnish youth apprenticeships.