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Abstract
This paper provides a background to vocational education and training in Aotearoa New Zealand with a focus on the legacies that continue to impact the environment and conditions for a stable and viable VET system. Despite ongoing measures to reform and organise VET through legislative shifts and changes in administration and organisation, the sector continues to be unsettled and in flux. There are several embedded attitudes associated with vocational, trade and technical education that have thwarted efforts to develop a strong vocational and technical education system in Aotearoa, New Zealand over time and these have had an impact on efforts at reform. This paper examines some of the historical conditions that have led to the environment for VET as we now find it – underdeveloped, underfunded and in a constant state of reform.