Striking a balance between inclusion and efficiency is a key challenge in collective skill formation systems, and increasingly so in the knowledge economy. Taking into consideration prestige concerns allows for a better understanding and differentiation of vocational education and training (VET) actors’ preferences regarding inclusiveness. The literature highlights two strategies in maintaining or increasing the prestige of VET: limiting access or investing in high-quality training. The former clearly does not enhance inclusiveness, whereas the latter does. In analysing public and private VET actors’ prestige concerns in implementing a training programme for refugees, this chapter shows that VET actors’ support for or opposition against an inclusive training system is shaped by their concern for prestige. Depending on the extent of their concern for the prestige of the VET system, as well their position in the prestige hierarchy, public and private VET actors follow different approaches in protecting the prestige of the VET system. Empirically, the chapter illustrates how prestige shapes actors’ perspective in tracing the actions of professional training organizations (PTOs) and state institutions in the implementation of integration pre-apprenticeships (Integrationsvorlehre, INVOL). The integration pre-apprenticeship is a collective skill formation programme meant to provide access to vocational education to refugees in Switzerland. Methodologically, the chapter draws on the analysis of twenty semi-structured interviews conducted in 2018 and 2019, before and after the programme had been implemented. © Oxford University Press 2022.
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