Navigating the school-to-work gap: vocational teachers’ responsibilities in students’ transitions to apprenticeships

Responsibility is a fundamental aspect of teacher professionalism; however, research on teacher responsibility in vocational contexts is scarce. Drawing on both focus groups and individual interviews with vocational teachers from three vocational programmes, this study examines how vocational teachers perceive and navigate their responsibilities for students’ transitions to apprenticeships. The study is situated in Norway, where vocational education and training is characterised by an institutional gap between school-based learning and apprenticeships. Findings show how teachers negotiate and enact responsibility amid systemic constraints, ambiguous expectations and competing interests, and why support can be necessary yet not sufficient when control over allocation lies outside schools. While teachers’ work in supporting students’ transitions to apprenticeships often involves substantial but largely invisible efforts, the study also highlights that personalised student support carries the risks of over-reliance on individual teachers and variations in the level of support provided. The study contributes to ongoing scholarly debates on teachers’ roles in VET transitions by clarifying how responsibility is negotiated and enacted at the school – apprenticeship boundary, particularly in contexts where expectations are unclear and formal guidelines are absent or ambiguous.