Providing an overview of the current situation of vocational training in Latin America and the Caribbean endeavouring to single out the main transformation and innovation aspects occurring therein, necessarily implies approaching the matter from different angles.

In itself, vocational training may be analysed from the point of view of its objectives, its methods, the organisational forms it adopts or the management and financing models it takes on.

But additionally, vocational training is also what has been described as a "crossroads". It is so because it has the peculiarity of pertaining to the field of social science, by virtue of its potential contribution to integration and social cohesion, as well as to the realm of productive and labour policies, due to its functionality in attaining the goals of increased productivity and improved competitiveness. Furthermore, although it does not by itself generate employment, it is nevertheless of strategic importance for any active, labour market policy.

As opposed to what happened decades back, when vocational training was seen as a specific area reserved for specialists, it is at present included in the most diverse forums and in the considerations of various agents, and is a matter of interest to many disciplines. Its links with labour relations systems are studied, as well as its role in innovation, development and transfer of technology processes. Ways and means are sought to co-ordinate it efficiently with regular education schemes, under a concept of life-long or ongoing education.

It is for that reason that in this document we have opted for describing its current status from three fundamental angles:

• The institutional or organisational forms that vocational training has adopted throughout the region.
• An analysis of its links with labour, technological and educational structures.
• The processes of decentralisation and increasingly greater participation of many actors, with consequent innovations of different kinds in the new areas or spaces where vocational training is designed, negotiated and implemented.

Along these lines, each one of the three main sections of the document focuses on these three angles to describe and interpret the present reality of vocational training in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Finally, in the conclusions we try to draw the overall assumptions that can be made in this field that is as varied as it is dynamic.

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