The organisation and structure of vocational education vary considerably from one country to another. Approaches range from not having a differentiated vocational track in initial upper secondary education at all, to having most students in upper secondary education pursuing vocational programmes often with the option to choose between several vocational tracks.
On average, one-third of 25-34 year-olds in OECD countries have a vocational qualification as their highest level achieved, either at upper secondary, post-secondary non-tertiary or short-cycle tertiary level. These figures hide wide variation across countries, however. For instance, in Costa Rica and Mexico, less than 2% of 25-34 year-olds have attained a vocational upper secondary qualification as their highest qualification, while in Finland and Slovenia the share is almost 40%, and it reaches 44% in Romania and 48% in the Slovak Republic. Vocational attainment is relatively uncommon in nearly one-third of OECD countries. There are 8 countries where less than one in five 25-34 year-olds hold a vocational qualification (Figure 1. ).
Given the predominance of upper secondary programmes in many VET systems, the first part of this Spotlight focuses on these programmes, analysing their components and outlining the main challenges to countries aiming to improve their quality, while promoting equity and ensuring better labour-market opportunities for their graduates.
The second part focuses on progression pathways open to VET graduates and higher-level vocational programmes. These are important, as most upper secondary vocational programmes are designed to grant access to higher levels of education, and students who wish to continue their studies should be able to access suitable opportunities. Taken together, the two parts of this Spotlight demonstrate the huge diversity of VET programmes in OECD countries.
