Last weekend I attended the 12th JVET Conference at Worcester College in Oxford. As the Journal For Vocational Education and Training (JVET) is celebrating 70 years next year, I felt honoured to present alongside the great minds of past and present TVET thinking. Being at the conference highlighted many things for me; how many people in the world are researching vocational education, how multifaceted it is, and the importance of viewing it through many lenses and on many levels.

I believe I came away with two things that are invaluable. The first lesson I learned was that the TVET goals in Saudi Arabia look very similar to TVET in other parts of the world, however, TVET implementation in Saudi looks very different than most.  The challenges that face Saudi Arabia are incredibly similar to those that face other developing countries, but the context heavily influences the way these play out. Two presentations in particular stood out to me; one about over skilling and TVET in Chile and one presentation about a to-be-launched study on aspirations and young people’s voice in South Africa. In both cases, the often overlooked tensions between persisting social structures and the implementation of neo-liberal policies led to a variety of policy ‘fails’.  The key take-away from this lesson: challenges in the global south look very similar, but the way these challenges manifest varies heavily depending on history and context, and how they are addressed must also follow suit. Moving away from a neo-liberal and human capital theory lens is essential, but that alone is not enough. Understanding the ‘local’ and tailoring policy has never been more important.

My second lesson was this: If you are stuck in the PhD inertia phase, where your thoughts continue to make laps around the same track for months, a good conference, surrounded by like-minded people with a variety of important and critical viewpoints and arguments can really get the juices flowing again. Other people’s research approaches and findings resonated with me so much that I felt a sense of validation in my approach and my analysis.  There is nothing like delivering a good presentation to alleviate some of the imposter syndrome.