Dual Vocational Training in Andalusian educational institutions from the teachers´ perspective

Abstract

Despite the growing presence of Dual Vocational Educational Training (Dual VET) in the Spanish educational system and the efforts made by different organizations to promote it, there are many voices that warn that the implementation process of this training modality is not being carried out as ought, hindering its success. The support of the administrations, their financing and regulations, the relevance of the offer, the role of the companies, the recognition of the teaching staff or the educational centre-company coordination are some of the aspects that are behind the controversies that from the beginning have accompanied to this training modality. The purpose of this study is to characterize this debate in the Andalusian educational scenario based on the opinion of its daily protagonists, the teachers involved, and the practices that are developed in Andalusian educational centres. It explores to what extent gender, experience in dual training and participation in management may be conditioning this opinion. 1,445 teachers were surveyed, of the 2,164 involved in FPD in the 2019-20 academic year. The questionnaire used has been designed ad hoc and the opinion collected has been structured around five dimensions related to the topics of the national debates. The analyses carried out highlight that the practices developed in Andalusian educational centres related to the administrative management of the dual training and with the teaching staff and the tutorial action are the ones that most favour the implementation of the Dual VET in Andalusia and those related to the governance model, the academic organization and the role of the company are those that present room for improvement. The female teachers, the teaching staff involved in management and those who have extensive experience in the dual system are the ones who best value this dual system.

Keywords: Dual Vocational Education and Training, teachers, evaluative research, good practices, areas to improve.