Vocation

A vocation (from Latin vocātiō, meaning "a call, summons") is an occupation to which a person is specially drawn or for which she/he is suited, trained, or qualified. Though now often used in non-religious contexts, the meanings of the term originated in Christianity.

Senses

Use of the word "vocation" before the sixteenth century referred firstly to the "call" by God to an individual, or calling of all humankind to salvation, particularly in the Vulgate, and more specifically to the "vocation" to the priesthood, or to the religious life, which is still the usual sense in Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism recognizes marriage, single life, religious, and ordained life as the four vocations.Martin Luther, followed by John Calvin, placed a particular emphasis on vocations, or divine callings, as potentially including most secular occupations, though this idea was by no means new.

Calvinism developed complex ideas about different types of vocations of the first type, connected with the concepts of Predestination, Irresistible grace, and the elect. There are the vocatio universalis, the vocatio specialis, only extended to some. There were also complex distinctions between internal and external, and the "vocatio efficax" and "inefficax" types of callings.Hyper-Calvinism, unusually, rejects the idea of a "universal call", a vocation, to repent and believe, held by virtually all other Christian groups.

Vocational education

Vocational education is education within vocational schools that prepares people for a specific trade. It directly develops expertise in techniques related to technology, skill and scientific technique to span all aspects of the trade. Vocational education is classified as using procedural knowledge.

Generally known as career and technical education (CTE) or technical and vocational education and training (TVET), it prepares people for specific trades, crafts and careers at various levels in a trade, in a craft, as a technician, or in a high professional practitioner position in careers such as engineering, accountancy, nursing, medicine, architecture, law etc. Craft vocations are usually based on manual or practical activities and are traditionally non-academic but related to a specific trade or occupation. Vocational education is sometimes referred to as technical education as the trainee directly develops expertise in a particular group of techniques.

Vocational education can take place at the secondary, post-secondary, further education, and higher education level; and can interact with the apprenticeship system. Increasingly, vocational education can be recognized in terms of recognition of prior learning and partial academic credit towards tertiary education (e.g., at a university) as credit.