The Spanish VET system at the turn of the century: modernization and reform

Places the reform of the Spanish vocational education and training (VET) system in context, identifying the salient events and deficiencies in this modernization process. The most significant reaction to the need for improving, rationalizing and modernizing the former vocational training system was the development of the National Programme for Vocational Training in 1993. After several years’ negotiations, in 1992 the employers’ associations and trade unions signed the National Agreement on Continuing Training, which has given a notable impulse to this type of training in the last four years. It has been the first opportunity to set up a regulatory framework for the allocation of public funds to promote open access to continuing training for the employed populations. In 1996 the second plan was agreed, shoring up a sectoral model organized through collective agreements which aims to enrich the Spanish industrial relations model. Finally, analyses the new problems and deficiencies which could neutralize the reform’s innovative effects, as happened in the last reform under different historical conditions (1970). The success of a new Spanish VET system depends on actors’ capability to shore up a professionalized model for management and provision.