General Education vs. Vocational Education

Vocational education for specific jobs in the developed method should be finished by commerce itself and on the job, not by the schools or in classrooms. The curriculum of rudimentary schooling, from the first degree through school, should be wholly liberal and vitally the identical for all (Meyer 307-344). In outlook of the broad variety of natural forces and aptitudes with which the schools have to deal, that curriculum should be acclimatized to distinct young children in distinct ways (Meghir 414-42).

In other phrases, we should explain the difficulty of how to give all the young children the smallest gifted as well as the most gifted the identical kind of liberal learning that was granted in the past only to the few. Upon our achievement in explaining that difficulty the future of democracy depends.

Vocational training was an integral part of the educational system in the planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe.1 However, with the fall of Communism and subsequent transition to market economies, (Malamud 11-58) many of the centralized sectors which relied heavily on vocational and technical training su¤ered a major decline (Lee 655-674).

Like other countries undergoing this transition, Romania experienced substantial technological and institutional change as economic activities gradually reoriented towards new sectors. The success of such a profound economic transformation depended on having people adjust to new circumstances. (Lee 45-58) Were individuals with vocational training less able to adapt to these changes? An OECD (2000a) report on Romania argues that some of the blame for its disappointing economic performance during the transition period rests with the inflexibility of vocational training: “Under an emerging democratic and competitive market system, the state enterprises have had to adapt to changing demand and new competition. This adaptation has been hindered by a workforce trained in narrow specializations with little ability to adjust to changing skill demand.” (Meyer 307-344)

Using a regression discontinuity design, this paper examines whether individuals with general education had more success in Romania's transitory labor market than their counterparts who received vocational training. Most of the empirical evidence on the benefits of vocational and general education during transition is based on cross-sectional studies. (Meghir 414-42) Individuals with a general education were more likely to find jobs in the service sector and less likely to end up in agriculture or out of the labor force than those with vocational training. Similar findings emerge from other countries during their transition from Communism to a market- based economy. (Malamud 11-58)

However, interpreting these results is difficult because selection into different types of educational tracks is not random. Admission into general and vocational schools is usually determined by a competitive examination so less able students are more likely to enroll in vocational programs. (Lee 655-674) This is certainly the case for Romania. Even in countries such as England and the United States which do not administer competitive examinations, there is a large degree of self-selection out of vocational courses. We address the problem of selection bias by analyzing a unique ...