Vocational - what does it mean?

[Pas de Quatre]

The word "vocational" comes from the Latin and means a "calling". It used to be a term reserved for serious life choices such as Religion - priests, nuns, missionaries; Medicine - doctors, nurse; Law & Teaching, to give a few examples, as well as careers in the Arts. These all involved years of training, some of which could be highly academic and nearly always involved self sacrifice and dedication to a higher ideal.

 

When did vocational come to mean non-academic and practical as the word is generally used today?  I can't help feeling that it undermines the respect for the Artistic training our DKs are receiving and the teachers are providing!

[Anjuli_Bai]

I think it means both.

 

From the World English Dictionary:  

 

. of or relating to applied educational courses concerned with skills needed for an occupation, trade, or profession: vocational training  

[mimi66]

Given that nearly every occupation is now described as `profession`, I would have thought the term 'vocation' might regain its original meaning very soon...

Edited April 27, 2014 by mimi66

[Yaffa]

Thanks, Pas de Quatre, for bringing up this subject. I've often wondered whether the British ballet world might have lost some great dancers because of the very different connotations of the term 'vocational,' and the reluctance of some parents to even consider sending their child to a 'vocational' school.

 

When I was attending an 'academic' school in the 60s and 70s,our Headmistress was always quick to warn us that if we didn't master our Latin verbs or show proper respect for teachers, we might end up - heaven forbid - in a vocational school. I also vividly recall a lady being shocked when her daughter at the local grammar school announced that she wanted to go to a vocational school. ('Why would she do this to me? Where did I go wrong?')

 

More recently, I spoke with a lady whose granddaughter was auditioning for WL. She said she had been told "that the school is a vocational school, but actually it isn't - The academic standard is very high."

 

Yaffa

[Melody]

To answer the OP, I think the notion of vocational as meaning non-academic and therefore somewhat second-rate has been around for a while. I'd assumed that after this many years of comprehensive schools, the attitude toward vocational schools would have improved since I thought the only vocational schools left in the UK nowadays were specialist arts schools, but apparently that isn't the case.

 

I remember Kenneth Branagh complaining, back in the days of student grants, that anyone accepted to a university automatically qualified for an LEA grant regardless of how useful or useless their subject might be to their ability to get a job at the end of it, whereas people trying to get into post-secondary educational schools like RADA had to depend on the whim of bureaucrats at the education authority to decide if they got any sort of financial help. This sort of divide between an academic education, which was considered good, and a job-oriented education, which was considered less good, seems to have seeped down to the secondary-school level. Like you, Yaffa, I remember people being very snobby about technical or vocational schools as opposed to grammar schools, to the point where some friends of our family sent their son to a really poor independent school rather than have him go to a local state school that specialized in giving a technical education. People always seemed to give lip service to the advantages of the German system of apprenticeships combined with a technical education while still looking down their nose at anything other than grammar school followed by university.

 

But in terms of the number of talented children who don't go to vocational arts schools because of parental reluctance - I think that's probably much smaller than the number of children who can't go because there isn't enough financial help. 

[Fonty]

I thought "Vocational" meant you must really love and want to do the job, as the pay is so poor. 

 

I am the daughter of two nurses, a profession always described as vocational.  When I asked them why they chose nursing as a career, they said that, having come from very poor, large families they had to leave school early and start work.  After stints in factories, they both took and passed a test showing them to be academically very bright, and they were offered posts as trainee nurses. 

 

They realised that not only would they learn something that would keep them in a job for life, they would also get accommodation and food while they did so.  So they grabbed the opportunity with both hands.    Vocation, as in "calling", had absolutely nothing to do with it! 

[Anjuli_Bai]

I think the social distinction between vocational school and university is not quite so tightly made in the US.  Certainly in some social circles it is - but mostly not.   We admire the necessity of a gifted carperter who turns a crude plank of wood into a useable object.  We are grateful for the plumber who comes to fix the leaky water pipes - and he/she is usually quite well paid, too.  A good plumber is never without work.  And, I would never assume that the plumber is uneducated.    

 

There was a time when any kind of work was innimical to one's membership in "higher" social circles.  But the tax code changed a lot of that.  

 

There are probably far too many people graduating universities with fine educations whose chances of finding placement within their field to secure their living are next to nil.  While a good education is never amiss - it is also no guarantee of paying one's rent.  And it  is no guarantee of one's ability to negotiate the hills and valleys of life.

 

On the other hand, graduating from a vocational school may very well make for a better chance to pay that rent and at the same time does not mean that a good education has not been had.

 

I've always regarded school as the first step to an education.  The kind of education that gives a wider view, a wider view of history, the people and cultures of the world -  that kind of education is found on the shelves of a library, in travel and in engaging in wide circles of people.  Sure - school taught me to read, write, basic math, etc., - but the most important thing I learned was how to navigate the city library.

 

From my view - a good honest means of making a living and contributing to the community is the standard I draw.