Vocational education trains students non-academic skills. As the rule vocational jobs include manual work. And it doesn’t require much education and additional trainings. To work as a carpenter or electrician means to do vocational job. Usually to get vocational education you need to enroll for the two-year community college.
In the United States you may gain vocational experience at junior high schools or at high schools which offer classes in vocational education including home economics, shop classes, auto repair, typing. So in fact getting vocational education you learn and improve technical skills.
Nowadays for economic reasons there are fewer vocational classes in high schools. In fact it turns out that vocational education is not as popular as it was some 20 years ago. In many states authorities are more interested in students who get academic education. Partly this policy is explained by the standards based education reform that emphasizes more on academic education. At the same time two-year community colleges (also known as technical colleges) still offer lots of vocational courses.
Despite the fact vocational education hasn’t been taken too seriously in the United States it seems that the situation is changing year by year. In 2008 New York City authorities put more emphasize on vocational education. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg underlined in his speech that, “Three years ago, we launched new vocational programs to engage young people who had either already left school, were on the verge of dropping out. Thousands of them have now gotten their lives on track. This year, we’re going to begin dramatically transforming how high school students prepare for technical careers in a number of growing fields”. The most popular vocational Career and Technical education schools of New York City are High School of Art and Design and Aviation High school.
Lillian Morris 