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Vocational education or vocational education and training (VET) prepares trainees for jobs that are based on manual or practical activities, traditionally non-academic, and totally related to a specific trade, occupation, or vocation. It is sometimes referred to as technical education as the trainee directly develops expertise in a particular group of techniques or technology. Vocational education may be classified as teaching procedural knowledge. This can be contrasted with declarative knowledge, as used in education in a usually broader scientific field, which might concentrate on theory and abstract conceptual knowledge, characteristic of tertiary education. Vocational education can be at the secondary or post-secondary level and can interact with the apprenticeship system. Increasingly, vocational education can be recognised in terms of recognition of prior learning and partial academic credit towards tertiary education (e.g., at a university) as credit; however, it is rarely considered in its own form to fall under the traditional definition of higher education. Up until the end of the twentieth century, vocational education focused on specific trades such as, for example, those of automobile mechanic or welder, and it was therefore associated with the activities of lower social classes. As a consequence, it carries some social stigma. Vocational education is related to the age-old apprenticeship system of learning.Historical educational polarizations about the different natures and hierarchical values of general education vs. vocational vs. liberal education in the United states are reminiscent of the Dewey / Snedden debates in the first quarter of the 20th century. These dialogues have been the hallmark for the separation of practical and academic philosophies in the history of vocational education. The exchanges highlight the traditional philosophical differences between Dewey’s notions of democratic career realization and the social efficiency perspectives of Snedden’s vocationalism. During the decades of their debates, American society was enamored of the possibilities and potentials scientific reasoning seemed to have. The rapid rate of industrialization was intoxicating and the possibilities seemed great for all parts of society to blossom with and through the use of scientific study, experimentation, and control. Having each person in American society being properly trained for their life’s occupational tasks and the appeal of this type of social order as a proper effect of education persisted in the majority of those participants and societal leaders who began the 20th century. This zeitgeist surrounded Snedden and Dewey and buoyed their optimism for education. David Snedden was influenced by Ross Finney when Snedden was an undergraduate at Stanford University. Dr. Finney, a nationally recognized sociology professor at the University of Minnesota, generalized from his Army Alpha testing that the majority of Americans do not “rise -out-of-their-class.†Finney’s conclusions allowed him to construct his own sociological educational theory which was more hegemonious than emancipatory. Finney’s sociological theorizing help mold Snedden’s vision of school and its curriculum. After completing his doctorial work at Columbia University, David Snedden became the Commissioner of Education in Massachusetts. As commissioner, Snedden was aware of American industry’s preoccupation with Frederick Taylor’s vision for factory efficiency. In The Principles of Scientific Management, Taylor compiled ideas from his observations and thoughts during his employment as a machine shop employee at Midvale Steel. Fredrick Taylor advocated achieving production efficiency by close observation of and control of manufacturing processes in time and motion studies. Being concerned that schools should also be more efficient and effective, Taylorism provided techniques from industrial efficiencies that seemed transferable to the understanding of how education should be delivered for the majority of citizens who would eventually be employed in the American economy. Interested in institutional efficiencies and determined to promote the new emerging conceptualization of practical education, Snedden appointed Charles Prosser as the Deputy Commissioner for Vocational Education in Massachusetts. Before this, Prosser had been the superintendent of the Children’s Aid Society from 1909–1910, taught sciences and literature in the New Albany High School and served as their superintendent from 1900-1908. As the Deputy Commissioner, Prosser began to formulate the operational aspects of Snedden’s philosophies and established those progressive mechanisms in the Massachusetts secondary system. Later, in 1915, Charles Prosser became the first director of Dunwoody College of Technology in Minneapolis, Minnesota. John Dewey regarded his philosophical position on the primary objective of education as one that contrasted sharply with Snedden’s notion of education as preparation for a specific occupation or vocation. For Dewey, education’s primary function was the nurturing of a type of intelligence that would allow one to adapt to the many conditions of life. In fact, social progress was the result of society’s self management of learning rather than curriculum designed by an economy dictating the specifics of occupational tasks. Education was not to be guided by the economic demands of the day, but rather the economy was to be directed by those who worked and lived in the world it constructed. Dewey opposed the 1917 Smith Hughes Act and its brand of vocational education. He believed the Act was narrowly conceived and a passive promotion of polarized social classes which restricted one’s choice of career and life goals. Altenbaugh characterized Dewey’s position on education as one that prioritized societal change as the result of one’s education, not Snedden’s notion of contented employment. Schools were to be the sources of intellectual critiques of modern society; education was to evaluate what was happening in the economic and social structures of the day, and model new ways of shaping society for the good the individual. With this type of motivation, education would guarantee that the negative aspects of industrialization would not be blindly perpetuated. Dewey did not perceive the industrial revolution as inherently neutral or a positive dynamic. For him, there were inconsistencies and integral gaps that needed the attention of those whom it employed and provided with sustenance. Dewey’s progressive ideas in the educational philosophical debate entropied. His notion of learning as an activity that promoted autonomous rugged thinkers seemed in conflict with the other progressive view of harmonious relationships with progress, science and industrialism in an American economy - especially an economy that had the possibilities of dominating the world. Practical education, focused on work place realities, grew nationally, appealing to the industrialists, immigrants, legislators and many other segments of American society. The changes taking place in American society seemed linked to scientific method and industrialization, therefore justified their adoption. By default, practical education became what the culture perceived as worthwhile and proper for the majority of the learners. “The principal object … should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employee’.†However, as the labor market becomes more specialized and economies demand higher levels of skill, governments and businesses are increasingly investing in the future of vocational education through publicly funded training organizations and subsidized 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  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia : Secondary vocational education (combined) |
