Austria introduced a similar exam (the Lehre mit Matura) in 2008 (Musset et al., In Korea, although vocational high schools are designed for direct labour market entry, in fact around three-quarters of graduates immediately enter tertiary education (Kuczera, Kis and Wurzburg, 2009). Upper secondary vocational programmes therefore need to be designed not only for labour market entry but also to prepare students for further education, building into these programmes a sufficient range of study skills, including basic skills - a point emphasised in OECD (2010).