The TVET dividend: why employers are hiring from vocational institutes first

A welder, an electrician or a competent ICT technician can now be in paid work within weeks of graduating, often before peers who chose a general degree. Employers short of practical skills have stopped treating vocational training as a consolation prize and started recruiting from it directly.

The institutes driving this are the ones with live employer relationships: apprenticeships that convert to jobs, equipment that resembles a real workshop rather than a museum, and instructors who still practise the trade they teach. We trace where the TVET dividend is largest, and which institutions a school-leaver weighing the vocational route should actually be looking at.