Benchmarking Danish Vocational Education and Training Programmes

This study paper discusses methods whereby Danish vocational education and training colleges can be benchmarked, and presents results from a number of models.
It is conceptually complicated to benchmark vocational colleges, as the various colleges in Denmark offer a wide range of course programmes. This makes it difficult to compare the resources used, since some programmes by their nature require more classroom time and equipment than others. It is also far from straightforward to compare college effects with respect to grades, since the various programmes apply very different forms of assessment.
In addition to these conceptual challenges, analyses of vocational colleges present problems with respect to data. It is difficult in many cases to be certain of the correspondences between resources used and student-related factors, since students are registered at a college level, while resources used are recorded at a higher level, i.e. that of umbrella institutions administering programmes at several colleges.
In this study paper, analyses are restricted to around 40 vocational colleges where it was possible to be certain of the correspondence between resource use and student-related achievement. We attempt to summarise the various effects that the colleges have in two relevant figures, namely retention rates of
students and employment rates among students who have completed training programmes.