BRAZIL: Vocational education expands to meet boom

In one corner at this Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology, four teenagers are learning how to use lathes, writes Andrew Downie for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Next door, a group of young adults is crowded around a desk testing electronic circuits.

A decade ago, technical institutes like this one, on the outskirts of São Paulo, were filled with students learning trades such as plumbing, carpentry, and electronics. But today, their classrooms are as likely to attract students training to be high-school math teachers or studying for a degree in systems analysis. The number of Brazil's technical institutes has nearly tripled over the last eight years, and the institutes have broadened their scope.
Full report on The Chronicle of Higher Education site