Colleagues within the Robert Owen Centre [1] at the University of Glasgow have recently been awarded a major grant by Research Councils UK within the Newton Fund to fund collaborative research and innovation between the UK and Chile on the topic of educational and labour market trajectories of secondary Technical and Vocational Education graduates in Chile.
The research team is led by Oscar Valiente and also includes Andy Furlong (University of Glasgow) Daniel Leyton (University of Sussex), and Leandro Sepulveda and Maria Jose Valdebenito, both from Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Chile. Congratulations to them all.
The project aims to understand the orientations and objectives of TVET policies in Chile, their compatibility and contradictions with the aspirations of secondary TVET graduates, and their intended and unintended effects on the educational and labour market trajectories of these young adults. By doing this, the project aims to contribute to the design of TVET policies that better accommodate the demands and needs of vulnerable young populations in changing labour markets and societies, which emphasize the relevance of this kind of research in this particular moment in transitional economies like Chile. In order to achieve these aims, the study is designed as a multilevel qualitative research at national, local and individual level.
At the national level, we will map TVET policies and programs, will review policy regulations, and will interview national policy makers and stakeholders. At the local level, we will conduct case studies that will involve interviews with local authorities, TVET schools, and others. Finally, at the individual level, we will carry out interviews with a typological sample of secondary TVET graduates with different educational and labour market trajectories. This project expects to expand the research evidence on TVET policies in Chile and their implications for the trajectories of TVET graduates after school. The evidence produced for the case of Chile will contribute to the debates on how TVET can improve the living conditions and labour market opportunities of disadvantaged youth in middle-income and low-income countries, what is a priority for many development agencies today.