ABSTRACT
Vocational education is not an alternative to civic and liberal aspects of education, but complements it. Vocational education prepares young people to take part in the economic life of their society, both in order to ‘earn a living’ and, in a broader sense, to contribute to the well-being of the community. Vocational education is often derided and thought of as little more than a preparation for mindless drudgery. The main reason why this is thought to be the case is that paid work is wrongly taken always to consist of mindless drudgery for the great majority and to be fulfilling for only a lucky few. It follows from this perception that vocational education is, in fact, training, which is then wrongly thought of as a form of
conditioning, which involves mindless responses to routine stimuli. Whether paid work can be worthwhile is a question that is too rarely asked.
