Vocational education is the basis of contemporary educational movement that aims at satisfying human needs. Societies can develop their human resources via setting programs for the working class as an aspect of the comprehensive national development. Vocational education is the main source of technical cadres the Iraqi labor market requires of the vocational preparatory schools to provide after three years of schooling.
The vocational schools of the governorate of Basra have a number of problems that lead to the lack of proficiency of their graduates. This study is an attempt to identify these problems or obstacles on the way of having qualified graduates as their output and to trace the social and economic impact of this failure on both the graduate and the society.
The sample of this study includes the students of the morning and night vocational preparatory schools in Basra for the academic years (2004/2005-2010/2011). To them the research worker has added the school leavers or drop-outs that attended the final ministerial exams during those academic years as part of her representative sample.
Among the conclusions arrived at in this study are as follows: the industrial schools are at the top of the other vocational schools for their graduates form more that 50% of the population of this study. It has been found out that these schools need to be developed by starting new specialization sections that are of more practical and technical nature. Next to the industrial schools come the commercial ones. These schools need to improve their curricula so as to cope with requirements of the local labor market.
The vocational schools under investigation are all in need more and better machines and equipment to pave the way for giving better training. These schools have more than 300 students each. Such a large number of students is greater than what is agreed upon internationally. The school building is not suitable for vocational training. Finally, it can be noticed that sex is a variable that plays an important role in population distribution: Girls prefer commercial classes to the industrial ones whereas the boys would rather join the industrial , commercial and agricultural classes.
