Politics of delegated governance: reforming vocational education and training

Abstract

Following decades-long inertia, many countries started reforming vocational education and training (VET). Yet, respective reform processes that entail certain traits of the German dual system face challenges linked to domestic constraints. Focusing on secondary education and drawing on the Turkish case, this article examines VET's transformation from a centralized, school-based, state-dominated system to a system based on school-industry collaboration. It suggests that effective adoption of VET reforms may be facilitated by bipartite coordination between government and employers' organizations representing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It unveils how such coordination led an institutional transformation, fostered by a broad cross-class VET coalition formed in a polarized fashion. Highlighting the role of political ownership and organizational capacity in VET reforms, it traces how the Justice and Development Party (AKP) accommodated SMEs' demands, while sidelining labor. The article undertakes a power-distributional analysis tackling political conflicts and coalitions as drivers of institutional change and continuity.