development technical and vocational education (TVE) in Iran: a response to industrial demand for labor and job creation for high school graduates

In recent years, the debate on the knowledge based economy has drawn more attention to vocational education. Education is decisive for the development of the personality and the participation of the individual in the society. It is an indispensable condition for the ability of a modern and democratic society to face the future. Furthermore, education decides on the innovation and competition ability of the economy. Only those national economies investing in the knowledge of individuals will be able to overcome the transition to the information and media society. In the last decades the need for skilled labor has increased significantly; simultaneously a drop in the demand for unqualified employees could be noticed. The cost pressure on companies has grown and this caused endeavors to reduce the costs without paying the price of quality loss were made. The tendency from a strictly vocational-oriented and functional division of labor to one that is orientated towards processes is unmistakable. The process-oriented work routines stand out due to co-operative activities varying again in type and duration. The changes culminate in new demands on future employees and also find expression in conceptions of vocational education; the vocational school has the responsibility to develop vocational flexibility for coping with the changing demands of the world of work and society. In this aspect, the consequences on the work organization are logical. The context not only the content of learning is important, but also the way it is learnt. Therefore, the vocational school has not only the responsibility to teach vocational and general learning contents, but also to enable the learner to think and act independently and responsibly considering the demands of the vocational education. The insight that the modern world of work requires the entire personality already found expression in the pedagogy decades ago. the skilled worker who in the future only has to offer his physical strength will not meet the requirements of a modern world of work, because the machine has taken over a lot of his performance. This article is part of a research titled: ((Recognition effective factors on employing skill learned persons in technical and vocational educations in South-Khorasan Province-Iran, for introducing appropriate approaches)) that by author has been done from 2011 in Organization of technical and vocational educations of South-Khorasan Province- Iran.