This chapter draws on political economy and comparative educationalist literatures to further an understanding of dual systems of vocational education and training (VET) as essentially shaped by the particular socioeconomic relations of their countries of origin. In the case of German-speaking countries, this points to a complex web of negotiation processes between government, employers and employees – commonly referred to as tripartite social dialogue. Approaches from policy transfer analysis in comparative education are used to reflect on educational transfer as an essentially political process, framed by political and economic interests of actors in both sending and receiving countries. This is helpful in sustaining the chapter’s hypothesis that tripartite social dialogue tends to be neglected in transfer processes. The final section addresses the case of Serbia, where a dual VET track was introduced into the national VET system in 2017. An institutionalist view is applied to explore how the specific socioeconomic context has shaped the dual VET reform in Serbia with a focus on the role (or lack thereof) of tripartite social dialogue. © 2026 selection and editorial matter, Oscar Valiente, Srabani Maitra, Philipp Gonon and Matthias Pilz; individual chapters, the contributors.
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