Contemporary Pedagogical "Global Epidemic Maladies" Disrupting and Distorting VET: Survey on the Pedagogical Diseases of the 21st Century

Abstract : The article explores the contemporary pedagogical maladies affecting vocational education and training (VET) processes in the 21st century. It identifies a range of systemic issues that hinder immensely effective learning and teaching, including a focus on short-term outcomes, administrative constraints, market-driven approaches, cultural irrelevance, outdated curricula, and a lack of evidence-based practices. The author summarizes and categorizes the educational “diseases” with the most intense effects in VET. In addition to the broadly discussed educational issues, such as pedagogical myopia, the overemphasis on credentialism, and the commodification of education (and others)—which treats learning as a product and prioritizes profit over quality—the author provides definitions for several other negative educational phenomena that are increasingly prevalent in contemporary discourse. In operational terms are given proposals and author’ definitions of new maladies, such as “educational Lisenkovism,” “educational Bufosynchronism,” “pluralism of educational Ersatz-Models,” “pedagogical Pharisaism,” “pedagogical solipsism,” and “factoid-like Jactitation”. The core reason for all the identified pedagogical maladies can be attributed to a systemic often deliberate misalignment between educational practices, institutional policies, and the evolving needs of learners and the labour market. The survey is structured based on the origins of the phenomena and their likely future pernicious effects.