Challenges of Skill Training and Education of Entrepreneurial Students in Technical and Vocational High Schools: A Phenomenological Study

One of the most important sign of accelerated motion of a country in achieving balanced and sustainable development is amount and quality of investment for skills training. It is obvious that the need for investment in technical and vocational high schools is doubled, since every year a large number of students are concerned. It takes note of the fact that today in developed countries, technical high schools, as the main breeding centers for enterprises and citizens having the ability to produce entrepreneurs (not job seeker students), are seriously considered by educational authorities. Using a qualitative approach, this study aims to explore and investigate the main challenges of skill training and education of entrepreneurial students in technical and vocational schools for boys in Torbat Heydarieh city, Iran. Their understanding of the nature and diversity of these challenges was represented by using the interpretative approach. The causes and formative factors of challenges was recognized and represented. The participants were selected by purposeful sampling, and interviewed a total of forty-five (15 trainees and 30 students) after data saturation was achieved. In order to analyze the data, the Colaizzi’s strategy was used according to narrative data obtained from semi-structured interviews with participants and tried to study the phenomenon to understand their perspective and improve the credibility of the substantial results. The results showed that there are 10 major challenges in the process of skill training and education of entrepreneurial students  including; "workshop equipment and textbooks are not up to date", "insufficient funds", "not up to date teaching methods", "failure to attract talented and interested students", " insufficient time for skill training", "negative attitude of parents towards skill training and technical high schools", "mismatch of acquired skills and labor market needs", "problems to continue education after skill training" and "inadequate support and covering of skill training in medias", that each of them could cause many serious problems and barriers for education process in order to provide a dynamic skill training system for students of technical and vocational high schools as entrepreneurial students not only job seekers.