Technical and vocational education and training, commonly referred to as TVET, is defined by UNEVOC as,  “Education that provides individuals with relevant skills to the world of work, contributes to their social well-being and that of their families, communities and their societies”.

The main policy impetus in KSA for developing TVET programs is driven by an objective to directly align skills with labour market needs, with the assumption that investing in skills (in “human capital”) promotes work opportunities and therefore, more economic growth. Hmm…

Saudi’s National Transformation Program, the executive plan of the newly launched Vision 2030 dedicates a strategic objective and several key performance indicators to TVET (p. 57). “Raising Saudis’ skill levels to match labour market needs” is a strategic objective that stems from the vision to Provide citizens with knowledge and skills to meet the future needs of the labour market”(p. 56), with aims to increase the number of Saudi students enrolled in TVET from 104,432 students to 950,000 by the year 2020, and raise the percentage of high school graduates continuing education in TVET from 7% to 12.5% by 2020, and aiming for 90% of graduates to enter the workforce within six months of graduation (pp. 56-57).

However, despite many efforts, statistics indicate that TVET remains relatively unpopular amongst young people, as less than 10% of both job seekers as well as employed Saudis hold intermediate technical or vocational certificates (p. 43), and drop-out rates have been estimated in the past at as high as 65%.

Quite the dilemma then: as Saudi continues to invest in and expand TVET as a means to increase economic performance, diversity and autonomy, young people’s participation levels in these training programs has not met the government’s expectations.

The concepts of ‘human capital’ drives economic policies globally, but the approach assumes that potential students are rationally responding to labour market supply and demand. While economics may provide a partial explanation for young people’s behaviour to some extent, a wider set of factors including social and cultural pressures have rarely been considered empirically in the Saudi context.  A deeper understanding of the Saudi career decision-making and TVET context could offer explanations for youth dispositions that deviate from the intended policy outcomes.