Professional Education

Trends in Professional Education

Professional education is also known as vocational, career, or technical education. Internationally, professional education is usually referred to by the phrase trade and vocational education and training (TVET). Professional education encompasses family and consumer sciences as well as training for the labor market or a specific career or trade. Professional education is centered on skills application, often through hands-on training or work experience. In countries such as Germany, professional education is coupled with an apprenticeship system, and in other countries, many professional education students simultaneously hold full-or part-time jobs.

[Page 1161]Professional education programs vary internationally based on individual country educational systems and requirements. Women have access to professional education courses and programs at a variety of levels, including high schools, postsecondary trade schools, community colleges, four-year colleges and universities, and collaborative tech prep programs between secondary and postsecondary schools. Most women enroll in professional education at the high school or postsecondary trade school level. Professional training is also available through other avenues, such as the military, employers, and government or community-based workforce programs.

Common professional education fields of study include beauty, service and hospitality, bookkeeping and clerical, computer technology, nursing and health sciences, construction and related fields, art and design, media, mechanical and automotive, education, paralegal, criminal justice, real estate, travel, and interior design. According to the U.S. Department of Education's 2004 National Assessment of Vocational Education, approximately half of the nation's high school students and one-third of college students were enrolled in vocational courses or programs.

Most vocational students enroll in order to obtain the skills necessary to become employed or advance in their chosen professions. Traditionally, professional education students were not expected to obtain bachelor's or higher degrees, a trend that still hold true for many students. While many vocational students are enrolled in degree programs, most do not attend four-year institutions, instead earning either associate's degrees or vocational certificates. The number of women in professional education courses or programs has been affected by overall trends in vocational education in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

The rising demand for new information-or service-based occupational skills and global economic recession has increased the number of adult workers who return to school to enhance or broaden their skills or change careers, many attending evening and weekend classes in programs designed specifically for adult students. Single parents and displaced homemakers comprise another large segment of adult professional education students.

Overall, professional education enrollment has declined in some industrialized countries, such as

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