Beating the drum for vocational training

Parents, society, peer pressure all push young people towards higher education while vocational education options, by comparison, are often seen as life in the slow lane.

This is not a fair or accurate perception and vocational education and training managers and professionals across Europe and its partner countries are showing why – through a range of ground-breaking promotional campaigns.

From Russia to the Czech Republic, Denmark to Jordan, advertising campaigns are demonstrating the skills that can be acquired, the career and earnings achieved through vocational education and training, a new survey by the European Training Foundation has found.

Social pressure in Russia

In Russia – where vocational education and training suffers from social pressure towards higher education and elite studies such as law, economics and business – Moscow city education officials decided to do something about it.

Skills shortages in key economic sectors, including catering, mechanics and other essential cogs in a major world capital, gave urgency to a public advertising and promotional campaign last year that championed vocational education and training at a time when the city was celebrating 70 years of professional education in Russia.

The way the Moscow campaign was packaged and managed was heavily influenced by cultural perceptions of advertising, Irina Yakovleva, deputy head of vocational education for Moscow said.

“Word of mouth is much more effective than radio or television. People get the message straight away and believe each other.”

Most of the promotion was done through events at vocational schools, newspaper, radio and television reports, a few city-wide street banners and a grand music and song finale at a concert in the Kremlin.

Promotional paper bags, books, badges and awards for veterans of vocational education all contributed to a campaign that produced a viral buzz throughout the city. See the case study for more information on the Moscow promotional campaign.

Sweeping changes in the Czech Republic

In the Czech Republic, sweeping changes to vocational education took 800 different specialisms and remoulded them into 260 clearly defined skills groups.

Dubbed Project Curriculum S, the promotional campaign was aimed at a professional audience.

The campaign slogan “We help schools with modern education” was one it was felt could be understood by all target groups.

Vocational schools and social partners played a key role in PR activities – by producing their own leaflets, writing copy for professional journals and local newspapers, promoting the curricular reforms to officials, employers, trade associations, parents and prospective students in their region.

“This was and is a multi-level PR campaign,” said Irena Palanova, head of the Department of International Cooperation at the National Institute for technical vocational education and manager of the national project on curricular reform.

Better jobs and salaries in Denmark

A more student-targeted campaign in Denmark put forward the advantages of taking the vocational route to good jobs and salaries.

Prompted by a Danish government target to increase uptake of upper secondary education, Danish organisation Danske Erhvervsskoler’s €3m campaign “Flere fagfolk, tak!” (More professionals please!) ran on radio, television and new media.

Aimed both at boosting the popularity of vocational education and training with young people and encouraging companies to offer more internships, the campaign – designed by youth-oriented communications agency JuniorPeople – was a big hit.

“The campaign used humour as a way of getting the message across,” said Mads Klostergaard Pedersen, who was communications officer at Danske Erhvervsskoler during the promotional campaign.

“Based on a rich use of humour and irony to underline the distance between skilled work and the bungle and botch that Danish people had been familiarised with through DIY shows, all television spots were rounded off with the message: You could also choose to find yourself a proper education on www.flerefagfolk.dk,” he added.

Planning a campaign in Jordan

An ambitious campaign is planned in Jordan, where a coalition chaired by the Ministry of Labour that includes the Employment-Technical Vocational Education and Training Council (representing all the relevant ministries), Al-Balqa University and chambers of commerce and industry, aims to bring more women into the labour market by reforming technical vocational education and training and changing social and gender attitudes.

Prisma Marketing and Communication, the company commissioned by the Jordanian Ministry of Labour to develop and implement the campaign.