Ammattien muutos digiajassa - miten ammatillinen koulutus vastaa?

The article asks, how the Finnish vocational education system responds to the restructuring of jobs in new technologically mediated environments. Job descriptions change with the introduction of digital technology, which is interrelated with new ways of organizing work. Some jobs are totally replaced with technology, but the most common change is restructuring of job description, in other words, reorganizing tasks in a new way in interrelation with digital environment. The changes in occupations are profound or gradual, but the design of them is due to the HR-policy of the employer organizations. The article investigates changes in middle-waged and middle-qualified jobs and studies the vocational system as the qualifying institution.
The vocational education system is flexible and provides a variety of possibilities to organize the training for young and adult students. It guarantees also eligibility for higher educational studies, which provides routes to career advancement. However, the adult education provision is not systematic and the new reform of vocational education cut resources, which may decrease the quality of vocational education. Individually tailored training makes possible to react changes in jobs, but the tailoring requires resources. The responsibility of teaching both practical and theoretical knowledge is moved to a larger extent to the firms, which are the sites of on-the-job-learning. As the companies vary a lot as regards to their possibility to provide practical and theoretical learning, this decision raises concern on the quality and eligibility of vocational education.