Abstract

The goal of Vocational Education and Training (VET) in Chile is to prepare students to transition to the labour market as well as progressing to tertiary education, and some vocational secondary schools have engaged in Project-Based Learning (PBL) to achieve this goal. However, there is limited research examining the reasons for adopting PBL, the conditions associated with its implementation and how vocational secondary schools organise internally. This paper explores the experience of three vocational secondary schools that have demonstrated sustained improvement and identify PBL as instrumental for their success. Focus groups with school leaders and teachers were carried out to explore why did schools adopt PBL, what conditions facilitated or hindered its implementation, and how was this organised internally. Findings show that PBL purpose is centred around developing students' labour competences and autonomy as well as interdisciplinary articulation, while key conditions for its implementation are leadership support, collaborative culture, resources, and professional development and training opportunities. However, the three schools differed in the way they organised internally to implement PBL. The paper discusses the relevance of collaboration and collective agency for the adoption and implementation of PBL in vocational secondary schools, and implications for stimulating the adoption of PBL in similar contexts.