tracks inside general schools are defended as choice and experienced as .
Where selection happens at fourteen, the decision correlates strongly with parental education rather than with .
Countries that select later show weaker correlations and no loss in the quality of vocational training.
The design question is therefore about the age of the decision rather than the existence of the track.
matters as much as timing.
A system in which a vocational student can enter a university at twenty produces different behaviour at fourteen.
Where the door closes, families treat the choice as final and choose defensively.
Employer involvement is what distinguishes the strong systems from the weak ones.
A designed by a ministry alone describes a job that existed when the curriculum was written.
Where firms hold a formal role in setting standards, the content moves with the work.
Firms accept that role only when they hire the graduates, which requires the training to happen partly on their .
Countries with a have that arrangement embedded in law and in a century of practice.
Importing the structure without the employers has failed everywhere it has been tried.
Status is the remaining obstacle and is not addressed by any curriculum document.
A country changes the standing of vocational work when its ministers, not its brochures, describe an electrician's training as a demanding education.