Vocational education and training leading to a qualification comprises vocational upper secondary qualifications and further and specialist vocational qualifications pursued as part of further education. Both young people and adults can obtain vocational upper secondary qualifications. Adults can also attain further and specialist vocational qualifications at various stages of their career path.

Vocational upper secondary qualifications can be pursued in educational institutions, through apprenticeship training or as competence-based qualifications. The scope of vocational upper secondary qualifications is 120 credits and, in an institutional setting, a qualification will usually take approximately three years to complete.

Adults can complete vocational upper secondary qualifications and further and specialist vocational qualifications as competence-based qualifications, independent of how they have acquired the necessary skills. However, most students attend preparatory training before taking a competence test. Preparatory training for competence-based qualifications can also form a part of apprenticeship training.

The statistics on vocational education and training include information on new students, students in education and completers of qualifications, covering syllabus-based education (vocational upper secondary qualifications) and preparatory training for competence-based qualifications (vocational upper secondary qualifications, further vocational qualifications and special vocational qualifications).

For information on vocational further education and training that does not lead to a qualification, see the statistics on adult education and learning. The section also provides additional statistics on competence-based qualifications.

The statistics are based on data and registers collected by Statistics Finland and the Finnish National Agency for Education.