Throughout the 1980s and 90s there was international interest in the UK’s extensive experience (which began in the 1970s) with measures to alleviate youth unemployment. Today the UK attracts international attention on account of its low rates of youth unemployment and NEET, its (still) relatively rapid education-to-work transitions, and (according to the OECD) its sustainable system for funding mass higher education. This paper uses a transitions regime paradigm to overview the outcomes of 40 years of change in England’s lower and upper secondary education, government-supported training, welfare provisions, economy and labour markets. We see how government policies polarise schools and young people into those who are achieving and those who are failing. Then, as employers become more influential, young people are re-sorted into the employment classes that have been formed during 30 years of change in the economy and labour market. Most from the former achieving group are pulled into the centre, between the smaller numbers on the one side who are embarking on elite careers, and on the other those who become part of a precariat class.

According to many studies teachers’ reception has been associated with the smooth operation of the school, the professional development of the teaching staff and the provision of optimal teaching work. Despite its significance and its attention from scholars, though, its implementation at schools has been facing challenges and hardships. The present study focuses on the role played by principals and teachers’ associations upon the reception and acclimatization of all newly appointed teachers in their schools. The findings indicate that the favorable disposition and actions of both principals and the teachers’ association in terms of receiving/acclimatizing any newly appointed teachers should be further enhanced.

This article approaches secondary Vocational Education & Training (VET) in Portugal from a historical-educational perspective, namely the professional courses introduced in 2004 in public secondary schools. Its implementation aimed to obtain a qualified technical workforce and to fight against the high failure rate and school dropouts registered in technological courses. It was also proposed, to complete 12-year compulsory education, qualifying students for the exercise of a profession as level IV technicians of the national qualifications framework (NQF). As a result, the number of students enrolled in this modality has progressed from a residual value of 10% in 2004 to 39.7% in 2018. On average, its attendance in the European Union (EU) was 54.6%, with special emphasis on Finland and the Czech Republic, whose indicators were, 71.6% and 71.3%. With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic came the unplanned closure of schools in the spring of 2020, imposed to protect the well-being of society, but which caused discontinuities. This research concludes by taking into account professional education in Portugal and the EU in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, also considering the opinion of educational actors (course directors, teachers, and students) on the functioning of VET in Portugal.