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The Impact of School Tracking on Secondary Vocational Education and Training in Turkey

School tracking has been a structural characteristic of education systems for many years. School tracking is generally implemented at the high school level, where students are divided into academic and vocational education groups. It is important to examine the effects of school tracking because the effect of tracking may vary between education types. The present study examines the effects of tracking on VET in Turkey over the past decade. For this purpose, the socioeconomic characteristics of all students tracked into VET high schools over the past ten years were compared with those placed in other types of high schools. This method aimed to determine the effects of tracking on the academic achievement of the VET students. Student population data at 12th grade between 2010 and 2019 is analyzed in study. The predictive power of secondary school achievement and socioeconomic status is examined with multiple regression analysis. The results indicated that VET high school students from all socioeconomic backgrounds have been in a disadvantaged position for the past decade. The research identified that the education level of fathers caused the greatest disadvantage for VET high school students, compared with their peers studying in other high schools. As the percentage of students placed in different schools increased by tracking, the prediction power of students’ early academic performance and socioeconomic levels on academic achievement also increased. Considering the socioeconomic disadvantage of VET students, this result indicates that when the level of tracking increases, inequality also increases. The results show that the disadvantage caused by tracking in VET has continued at a similar level over the last decade, and that this disadvantage has grown in the years when the scale of tracking increases.

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