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A major theme of the first Research Centre for Vocational Education and Training (RCVET) National Issues Forum held at the University of Technology, Sydney in December 1997, was the extent to which vocational education and training (VET) assists young people aged between 15 and 19 years of age to make a successful transition from compulsory schooling to employment. The Forum was also concerned with how lessons could be drawn from VET reform initiatives in other countries and applied within the Australian context. This overview paper discusses evidence that the school-to-work transition is a problem for an increasing number of young Australians and identifies the underlying reasons for this. The authors then outline various government responses to address these difficulties, such as an increase in public funding for VET. Despite these efforts, there has been a decline in young people's participation in VET and the reasons for this decline are discussed with particular attention to labour market outcomes for VET graduates. The authors then examine the capacity of VET with its institutional base and vocational focus, to respond to workplace change and present evidence that countries with similar training arrangements are making significant changes to their structured school-to-work pathways. The paper concludes with a discussion of the type of changes that need to be made to VET in Australia to ensure that the needs of students are being met, particularly in relation to incorporating workplace learning into VET programs.