Vocational education and training - VET

Investing in skills, competences and knowledge and recognising and validating both „soft‟ and „hard‟ skills, competences and knowledge acquired through informal, non-formal and vocational education and training is necessary to contribute to fighting education „gaps‟ and hence contributing to increasing people´s opportunities to access the labour market and to participate in society.
http://cms.horus.be/files/99931/MediaArchive/28_SOLIDARNewSkillsCompetencesKnowledge.pdf

Prior learning assessment (PLA) is a process that involves the identification, documentation, assessment of learning acquired through formal, non-formal and informal study. This may include work and life experience, training, independent study, volunteering, travel, hobbies, and family experiences.  Recognition is the award of academic credits, trade/occupational and/or professional certification, or promotion within the workplace. http://www.nqai.ie/docs/international/LYNNLAKE.PPT

This paper describes the labour market integration of youth with regard to their level of formal education and to the type of
vocational training they received. Overall, young workers without any formal VET are the more disadvantaged in terms of working conditions, while workers who benefited from a traditional apprenticeship in a small firm occupy an intermediate position. Apprenticeship training for young workers seems to be fairly prevalent in the informal sector, but the associated working conditions are bad, and kinship ties seem to be there a crucial channel fortraining access.
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002178/217884e.pdf