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The implementation within Europe of a credit system for vocational education and training known as [European credit system for vocational education and training] ECVET is a European Commission priority. The potential for permeability between the ECVET and European Credit Transfer and accumulation System (ECTS) was foreseen in the Recommendation to establish ECVET in 2009, while the Bruges Communique of 2010 called for the promotion of flexible links between vocational and higher education and increased coherence between ECVET and ECTS. To this end a significant number of EU-funded projects were undertaken to explore compatibility between ECVET and ECTS. This article reviews the findings of these projects and reflects on their success in terms of achieving this policy goal. These bridging projects identified several points of compatibility between the two credit systems and produced valuable tools and frameworks to facilitate such permeability. Achieving credit equivalency between ECVET and ECTS does not appear feasible, rather the evidence points to using a learning outcomes-based equivalency framework. However, this article calls into question the sustainability of these project results with regard to the lack of success in translating these findings into practice and the lack of co-ordinated efforts to implement these findings at a national or pan European level.

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Many empirical studies on immigrant integration document the benefits of an education acquired in the country of destination. In this article, we study how the degree of human capital transferability affects an immigrant's chances of studying in Spain. We used data from the Spanish Labour Force Survey (2008-2015) for a sample of adults aged 18-55 who had left the educational system. The main findings show that natives are the ethnic group with the highest likelihood of re-enrolling in education. Amongst immigrants, those with fewer limitations on human capital transferability also invest more. These results question the predictions of the Immigrant Human Capital Investment model which expect that immigrants whose human capital depreciates upon arrival and those who can obtain a higher return on a new investment in education are therefore more likely to study. Moreover, the effect of skill transferability differs depending on the type of obstacle and the kind of education. Immigrants with less linguistic and cultural familiarity with the host country are less likely to undertake non-formal education than formal education. However, when the transferability obstacles are related to administrative requirements and legal restrictions, the probability of investing in non-formal education is higher. We conclude that immigrants with low skill transferability are not only less well integrated in the labour market upon arrival, but are also less able to redress that disadvantage through a new investment in education.

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This article addresses the conditions provided by a second chance school to facilitate young adults' re-engagement in education. Early school leaving (ESL) today represents one of many issues faced by young adults in the transition to upper secondary education and vocational education and training (VET). Second chance education is very limited in Portugal with only one pioneering institutions, the Escola de Segunda Oportunidades de Matosinhos (ESOM) in the outskirts of Porto Municipality, which confers grade 6th and lower secondary school (grade 9th) certificates. This school was launched to offer an alternative form of education and training to very early leavers in line with the guidelines of innovative and inspiring resources to tackle ESL (European Commission, 2017).

What makes ESOM particularly interesting for our purposes is its arts-based pedagogy, staff support and small subsidies that contribute to students' basic needs. Its vocational education emphasises creative and practical skills. It has a flexible timetable and a holistic approach to the curriculum with project-based learning at its core. Its relatively less rigid environment and presence of youth mediators facilitate students' sense of belonging. This second chance school is intended to provide a pillar for young adults in transition to becoming actors of their own educational and social pathways. Although we have no statistical follow-up on students' educational transitions after leaving this school, there are several indicators of its positive impact on their lives.

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Most educational research examines school outcomes at certain stages or at the final stage of the school career. This article looks at the entire school career and the transition to the labour market. It focuses on key transitions to identify the educational institutional arrangements that either help or hinder school and labour market success among the most disadvantaged groups in the Netherlands: young people of Moroccan and Turkish descent. The Dutch educational system is one of the most complicated school systems in Europe. Consequently, parents and children have to make many 'choices' when navigating it. Many of these key 'choice' moments are selection points, either because they are not real choices but dependent upon a teacher's recommendation or because parents and pupils need a great deal of information about the school system in order to make a choice. This usually results in inequalities for the most disadvantaged groups. Because selection is disguised as 'choices', the structural inequalities of the Dutch school system are not usually perceived as blocking mechanisms for disadvantaged students.

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Educational transitions experienced within a context of wide and growing inequalities such as England result in very different transition experiences to those experienced by young people growing up in relatively equitable societies with strong communal links. Transitions of working class young people in England are beset with competition, individualism and low expectations. Employing Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, capital and field, the article argues that working class transitions to university reveal the failure of the English educational system to provide anything like a level playing field to support working class young people who are seen to be educational successes. Focusing on those working class young people who are particularly successful by gaining access to elite universities the paper argues that even this small select group face discrimination, set-backs, and a degree of social exclusion. The paper concludes that the vast majority of working class young people, including many of those who are the most academically successful have very different transitions to higher education, and experiences within it, from their middle and upper class peers.

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In this thought piece we reflect on the transitions of young adults who left school early. Based on empirical findings from qualitative research conducted in Austria and Belgium we show the diversity and complexity in the transitions of early school leavers into the labour market and education and training system. Early school leavers very often try to re-engage in education and training in order to improve their labour market situation. However, drawing on Bourdieu's capital theory, we show that early school leavers from more privileged socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to re-engage in education programmes that lead to an upper‐secondary education certificate. In contrast, those coming from socio-economic disadvantaged backgrounds frequently enroll in short-term training programmes that aim to accelerate the transition into the labour market. Therefore, we discuss the role of agents in employment services and other related institutions in social exclusion processes, since policies for activating and re-engaging early school leavers in education programmes or the labour market often fail. Policy recommendations that aim to strengthen the labour market accessibility of early school leavers conclude this piece.

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