Vocational schools give preliminary training and practical knowledge in skilled jobs such as machine-handling, carpentry, plumbing, electronics, and paralegal jobs. Vocational schools may be better considered as imparting training and not education.

Major advances in the techniques of vocational education were made by the armed services during the Second World War. There was a growing need for technicians, which could not be supplied by the civilian population. Thus, special training methods that placed emphasis on graphic presentation and practical work were employed to meet the demand. Further stress on vocational training came about thanks to the Servicemens Readjustment Act of 1944, which allowed the Second World War experts to receive tuition during extended vocational training.

Vocational schools concentrate on training students for a wide variety of skilled jobs, including those of an automotive technician, medical assistant, hair stylist, interior designer, electronics technician, paralegal personnel, and truck driver. Vocational schools constantly upgrade their skills and knowledge and inform students about prospective employers and the job market.

The most important duty of vocational schools is to focus on the particular performance skills that are required for a particular job. They are meant to provide an understanding of the functional technical knowledge, as well as to prepare the students to deal with personal and group-relation problems efficiently. This helps to improve the desirable work habits, ideas, and attitudes of the students so that they are better able to do the job. This also enables them to develop the required critical-thinking and problem-solving abilities, which in turn helps in their safety judgments and enables them to be creative in their trades. Vocational schools also provide great opportunities for networking.

Attendance at a vocational school is basically a kind of on-job training. In vocational schools, classroom reading on subjects is not required; however, proper experience is acquired through practical training. Vocational schools provide the students an initiation into a working environment faster, whereby hands-on training is made possible. This, in turn, enables the student to earn a successful living. Thus, vocational schools are institutions that are equipped with new and innovative techniques required to make an individual skilled in his vocation.