Tracks and pathways in vocational training: the persistent association between low achievement and vocational choice

The aim of this paper is to analyse the profile of young people who enter and progress through vocational training after compulsory schooling. We have used data from the student records of the Department of Education of the Generalitat de Catalunya for the cohort born in 2001, between the academic years 2016-17 and 2019-20. We reconstructed the pathways of CFGM students using an adaptation of the Lexis diagram, and compared the profile of these students with that of those who enter the academic track using a binomial logarithmic regression. The main finding is that there is still a very strong association between low performance or dropout and orientation towards vocational training.