How Europe’s Former Communist States Have Added More Variety without Extending the Range of Variation in the Continent’s Education-to-Work Transitions

Europe’s family of diverse education-to-work transition regimes has been able to enlarge eastwards without adding to the range of variation. Former communist states have been able to restart their pre-communist educational histories without difficulty. This is largely on account of the pivotal position of academic secondary schools throughout the continent. This position was established prior to, and continued under communism. The schools were able to preserve their country-specific titles and qualifications, and also ages of entry for pupils which always depended on a test of academic ability. The schools had already become and remained their countries’ principal routes towards careers in the professions and management, and also in the public services and administration that were enlarged everywhere as countries industrialised and modernised, and as access to academic schools was opened to all the talents, not just children whose families were able to pay. Since the collapse of communism, the proportions of children receiving an academic secondary education then enrolling in their countries’ universities, have expanded across the continent, east and west, north and south. The extent of this expansion has depended on the career prospects associated with alternative routes forward in secondary education and training. These alternatives are sometimes, but always misleadingly, all called “vocational”. However, their attractions and repulsions always depend on the severity of any “sideling”, and the strength of the “safety-nets” that the alternatives offer. In these respects, the new EU member states exhibit the same range of variation as found among older EU members, but with one importance difference. All types of employment within their own countries towards which youth in the new member states can head are much lower-paid, and the gap is not closing.