The Peripheralisation of the Danish Vocational Education System

In the past decade, the Vocational Education Training System (VET) in Denmark has undergone a downturn in which fewer and fewer students apply for and complete a vocational education. Choosing a vocational education has become synonymous with choosing the losing team. The result is a drastic drop in the supply of vocationally trained labour. This is especially problematic for labour markets in non-metropolitan areas, where a number of production- and service- firms are still located. At the same time more and more youth are choosing and completing academic education programs, which target work places in metropolitan areas and support a migration flow of young educated people from rural municipalities toward metropolitan areas.