This book explores the Business and Technology route into higher education and how students with these qualifications are often at a disadvantage compared to their peers at University. Strategies of intervention such as individual facing and system facing changes at universities are outlined to ensure more supportive learning.

Learners with a VET background experience much higher rates of attrition compared to learners entering HE with academic qualifications. Degrees of Success explores the transition from vocational to higher education, and outlines what more can be done to support and provide improved access to HE for these learners.

This volume focuses on the different passages and transitions in Vocational Education and professional work life. Exploring the personal experiences of coping with the transition from school to vocational education, vocational education to work, and – finally – within work life, the book takes account of the rapidly changing conditions under which these processes take place.

This book contains empirical studies of school-to-work transitions from several Western countries.

This book explores student education transition and employability negotiation experiences in various contexts. It explores determinants of student transitions at three levels including macro, meso and micro but focuses on exploring affordances, constraints and strategies at the micro level. The framework underpinning the explorations at the micro level covers a range of different forms of capital including human, culture, social, identity, psychological and agentic. The book is unique in three ways. First, it consists of chapters about critical discussion, empirical research and practical guidance about student transition experiences. The critical discussion and empirical research chapters explore and obtain insights about the complexity of student transitions and develop conceptual frameworks that guide the development of applicable practices. The book is, therefore, a useful resource for policy makers, institutions, academics, professionals and students. Second, it provides insights about how student transitions are determined by a range of factors at different levels. These insights extend discussions about student transitions in the current literature which have mainly explored impacts of policies, institutional programmes and human capital. Finally, it is international in focus because it draws on research with different cohorts of students and graduates in different contexts. Insights provided in the book are, therefore, rich, diverse and comparative.

Across the globe, vocational education and training is characterised by a number of over-arching trends, including the increasing use of technology, the growing importance of information and communications systems, and changes to national demographics. At the interface between the education and training system and the world of work, VET faces the challenge of tackling these changes, of making a constructive contribution to solving the problems posed by the transition from education to employment, and of ensuring that the next generation has the skills it – and the economy – needs. This volume comprises thirty individual contributions that together add up to a comprehensive overview of the current situation in vocational education and training, its strengths and weaknesses, and its prospects. VET experts from Canada, the USA, India, China, Japan and Korea, as well as from a number of European countries, focus on their national context and how it fits in to the bigger picture. The contributions combine theoretical discussions from various strands of VET research with evidence from country case studies and examples from current practice.

Taking a broader view of transition outcomes than many previous comparative studies, this study reveals the complex and many-faceted national institutional arrangements that can result in successful transitions to working life.