Vocational Education Practices for Empowerment of Vulnerable Students in Lithuania and Latvia: The Pedagogical and Institutional Factors

Funding text 1: This research was supported by the project \u201CVocational education and workplace training enhancing social inclusion of at-risk young people (EmpowerVET) benefits from a \u20AC (819000) grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants. The aim of the project is to investigate, how can vocational education and training (VET) enhance social inclusion of young people at-risk, both in terms of combating school drop-out and promoting transitions between various (social) learning contexts, such as school-work transition. Project contract with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT) No is S-BMT-21-2 (LT08-2-LMT-K-01-010).; Funding text 2: This research was supported by the project \u201CVocational education and workplace training enhancing social inclusion of at-risk young people (EmpowerVET) benefits from a \u4000 ( ? \u7303\u7B03\u7203\u7203\u7202? grant from ?celand, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants. The aim of the project is to investigate, how can vocational education and training (VET) enhance social inclusion of young people at-risk, both in terms of combating school drop-out and promoting transitions between various (social) learning contexts, such as school-work transition. Project contract with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT) No is S-BMT-21-2 (LT08-2-LMT-K-01-010).; Funding text 3: Although, in general, the empowerment of vulnerable young people to learn and be employed is (to a different degree) present as an object of VET policies and strategies in the two Baltic countries, the level of priority of this issue slightly differs. VET policies of these countries share the priority of making VET provision to better respond to changing skills needs in the labour market, which overall enhances the improvement of the quality and accessibility of VET provision. Since VET policies of the Baltic countries stronger follow the neoliberal pathway of reforming VET and skill formation, this makes empowering of vulnerable students one of the objects of employment-oriented policies and practices in VET. As a result, governments, using the financial support from the EU, invest in the infrastructure of the VET provision, and implement competence-based VERT reforms and WBL approaches. One of the key problems with this approach is a lack of attention to the systemic pedagogical-psychological and social aspects of empowerment of vulnerable VET students, such as capacity building of teaching staff in this field, or insufficiency of available socio-economic support to learner and their families. Shortage of pedagogical and psychological support specialists also remains a serious problem in the VET schools. These problems are partially tackled by the EU supported programmes and measures, like Youth Guarantees programmes for supporting labour market integration of unemployed youth. Such institutional context significantly narrows the possibilities for the VET schools\u2019 practices and actions directed at empowerment of vulnerable students to rely on systemic support of state by relying more on the local capacities and (often rather fragmented) local networks of social partners.

Funding text 1: This research was supported by the project \u201CVocational education and workplace training enhancing social inclusion of at-risk young people (EmpowerVET) benefits from a \u20AC (819000) grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants. The aim of the project is to investigate, how can vocational education and training (VET) enhance social inclusion of young people at-risk, both in terms of combating school drop-out and promoting transitions between various (social) learning contexts, such as school-work transition. Project contract with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT) No is S-BMT-21-2 (LT08-2-LMT-K-01-010).; Funding text 2: This research was supported by the project \u201CVocational education and workplace training enhancing social inclusion of at-risk young people (EmpowerVET) benefits from a \u4000 ( ? \u7303\u7B03\u7203\u7203\u7202? grant from ?celand, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants. The aim of the project is to investigate, how can vocational education and training (VET) enhance social inclusion of young people at-risk, both in terms of combating school drop-out and promoting transitions between various (social) learning contexts, such as school-work transition. Project contract with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT) No is S-BMT-21-2 (LT08-2-LMT-K-01-010).; Funding text 3: Although, in general, the empowerment of vulnerable young people to learn and be employed is (to a different degree) present as an object of VET policies and strategies in the two Baltic countries, the level of priority of this issue slightly differs. VET policies of these countries share the priority of making VET provision to better respond to changing skills needs in the labour market, which overall enhances the improvement of the quality and accessibility of VET provision. Since VET policies of the Baltic countries stronger follow the neoliberal pathway of reforming VET and skill formation, this makes empowering of vulnerable students one of the objects of employment-oriented policies and practices in VET. As a result, governments, using the financial support from the EU, invest in the infrastructure of the VET provision, and implement competence-based VERT reforms and WBL approaches. One of the key problems with this approach is a lack of attention to the systemic pedagogical-psychological and social aspects of empowerment of vulnerable VET students, such as capacity building of teaching staff in this field, or insufficiency of available socio-economic support to learner and their families. Shortage of pedagogical and psychological support specialists also remains a serious problem in the VET schools. These problems are partially tackled by the EU supported programmes and measures, like Youth Guarantees programmes for supporting labour market integration of unemployed youth. Such institutional context significantly narrows the possibilities for the VET schools\u2019 practices and actions directed at empowerment of vulnerable students to rely on systemic support of state by relying more on the local capacities and (often rather fragmented) local networks of social partners.

Funding text 1: This research was supported by the project \u201CVocational education and workplace training enhancing social inclusion of at-risk young people (EmpowerVET) benefits from a \u20AC (819000) grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants. The aim of the project is to investigate, how can vocational education and training (VET) enhance social inclusion of young people at-risk, both in terms of combating school drop-out and promoting transitions between various (social) learning contexts, such as school-work transition. Project contract with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT) No is S-BMT-21-2 (LT08-2-LMT-K-01-010).; Funding text 2: This research was supported by the project \u201CVocational education and workplace training enhancing social inclusion of at-risk young people (EmpowerVET) benefits from a \u4000 ( ? \u7303\u7B03\u7203\u7203\u7202? grant from ?celand, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants. The aim of the project is to investigate, how can vocational education and training (VET) enhance social inclusion of young people at-risk, both in terms of combating school drop-out and promoting transitions between various (social) learning contexts, such as school-work transition. Project contract with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT) No is S-BMT-21-2 (LT08-2-LMT-K-01-010).; Funding text 3: Although, in general, the empowerment of vulnerable young people to learn and be employed is (to a different degree) present as an object of VET policies and strategies in the two Baltic countries, the level of priority of this issue slightly differs. VET policies of these countries share the priority of making VET provision to better respond to changing skills needs in the labour market, which overall enhances the improvement of the quality and accessibility of VET provision. Since VET policies of the Baltic countries stronger follow the neoliberal pathway of reforming VET and skill formation, this makes empowering of vulnerable students one of the objects of employment-oriented policies and practices in VET. As a result, governments, using the financial support from the EU, invest in the infrastructure of the VET provision, and implement competence-based VERT reforms and WBL approaches. One of the key problems with this approach is a lack of attention to the systemic pedagogical-psychological and social aspects of empowerment of vulnerable VET students, such as capacity building of teaching staff in this field, or insufficiency of available socio-economic support to learner and their families. Shortage of pedagogical and psychological support specialists also remains a serious problem in the VET schools. These problems are partially tackled by the EU supported programmes and measures, like Youth Guarantees programmes for supporting labour market integration of unemployed youth. Such institutional context significantly narrows the possibilities for the VET schools\u2019 practices and actions directed at empowerment of vulnerable students to rely on systemic support of state by relying more on the local capacities and (often rather fragmented) local networks of social partners.

Funding text 1: This research was supported by the project \u201CVocational education and workplace training enhancing social inclusion of at-risk young people (EmpowerVET) benefits from a \u20AC (819000) grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants. The aim of the project is to investigate, how can vocational education and training (VET) enhance social inclusion of young people at-risk, both in terms of combating school drop-out and promoting transitions between various (social) learning contexts, such as school-work transition. Project contract with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT) No is S-BMT-21-2 (LT08-2-LMT-K-01-010).; Funding text 2: This research was supported by the project \u201CVocational education and workplace training enhancing social inclusion of at-risk young people (EmpowerVET) benefits from a \u4000 ( ? \u7303\u7B03\u7203\u7203\u7202? grant from ?celand, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants. The aim of the project is to investigate, how can vocational education and training (VET) enhance social inclusion of young people at-risk, both in terms of combating school drop-out and promoting transitions between various (social) learning contexts, such as school-work transition. Project contract with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT) No is S-BMT-21-2 (LT08-2-LMT-K-01-010).; Funding text 3: Although, in general, the empowerment of vulnerable young people to learn and be employed is (to a different degree) present as an object of VET policies and strategies in the two Baltic countries, the level of priority of this issue slightly differs. VET policies of these countries share the priority of making VET provision to better respond to changing skills needs in the labour market, which overall enhances the improvement of the quality and accessibility of VET provision. Since VET policies of the Baltic countries stronger follow the neoliberal pathway of reforming VET and skill formation, this makes empowering of vulnerable students one of the objects of employment-oriented policies and practices in VET. As a result, governments, using the financial support from the EU, invest in the infrastructure of the VET provision, and implement competence-based VERT reforms and WBL approaches. One of the key problems with this approach is a lack of attention to the systemic pedagogical-psychological and social aspects of empowerment of vulnerable VET students, such as capacity building of teaching staff in this field, or insufficiency of available socio-economic support to learner and their families. Shortage of pedagogical and psychological support specialists also remains a serious problem in the VET schools. These problems are partially tackled by the EU supported programmes and measures, like Youth Guarantees programmes for supporting labour market integration of unemployed youth. Such institutional context significantly narrows the possibilities for the VET schools\u2019 practices and actions directed at empowerment of vulnerable students to rely on systemic support of state by relying more on the local capacities and (often rather fragmented) local networks of social partners.