Glossary
Glossary of vocational training terms
Skills policy is full of abbreviations. These short definitions cover the terms used across this site, with the wording of ILO R195 where it provides one.
Terms from A to Z
Each entry is deliberately short. Follow the links to the R195 guide, the country overview or the data page for the full context.
- Apprenticeship
- A training arrangement in which a person learns an occupation by working for an employer, usually under a contract, while also receiving structured instruction.
- Competencies
- In R195, the knowledge, skills and know-how applied and mastered in a specific context.
- Dual system
- A model that combines company-based training with part-time study at a vocational school, as in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
- Employability
- The portable competencies and qualifications that help a person secure and keep decent work and move between jobs.
- Informal economy
- Economic activity outside formal regulation or protection. R195 calls for routes that turn such activity into decent work.
- Lifelong learning
- All learning activities undertaken throughout life to develop competencies and qualifications.
- Labour force
- People aged 15 and over who are employed or actively looking for work. Students not seeking work are outside it.
- NEET
- Not in employment, education or training. The NEET rate is the share of young people in that situation.
- National qualifications framework
- A national system that classifies qualifications by level so that skills can be compared and recognised.
- Pre-employment training
- Education and training before entering work, including compulsory basic education and vocational programmes.
- Recognition of prior learning
- Assessing and certifying skills a person already has, whether learned at school, at work or informally.
- School-to-work transition
- The period in which a young person moves from education into stable work.
- Social partners
- Organisations of employers and workers that take part in social dialogue on training and labour policy.
- Social dialogue
- Negotiation, consultation and exchange of information between governments, employers and workers.
- TVET and VET
- Technical and vocational education and training. The abbreviations cover programmes that prepare people for a trade or occupation.
- Work-based learning
- Learning that takes place in a real workplace, including internships, apprenticeships and on-the-job training.
- Youth unemployment rate
- Unemployed people aged 15-24 as a share of the youth labour force.