Introduction. Over the past three decades, there has been a significant decline in the involvement of enterprises in the secondary vocational education system. This has led to the need for new management tools as traditional command-and-control methods have proven ineffective. To address this issue, comparative analysis of successful and unsuccessful interactions between foreign vocational education systems and enterprises is needed.
The aim of the article is to test the comparative analysis methodology on the example of three different countries, to identify successful and unsuccessful managerial solutions, implementation practices, and set of conditions and prerequisites.
Methods. The study was conducted in four stages using theoretical and methodological analysis, comparative analysis, hypotheses, evaluation, and generalisation methods. Management systems of countries sharing a number of characteristics with Russia were selected as objects of analysis: US, UK, and South Korea.
Results. Through comparative analysis of interaction process between vocational education systems and enterprises, a system of measures that creates favourable conditions for businesses, educational organisations, and students has been identified. This system includes a comprehensive set of managerial decisions: pedagogical (creating a set of practice-oriented educational standards and methodological support for their implementation), normative (detailed algorithm of behaviour for all parties involved, delineation of rights and responsibilities, description of dispute resolution methods to eliminate ambiguity in relationships), organisational (infrastructure of responsible government bodies, electronic platform solutions and consulting resources that provide supportive functions), and economic (developed economic model of interaction between parties, targeted funds, and subsidies for enterprise expenses).
Scientific novelty. The study has developed a theoretical and methodological management model for the interaction between pre-university vocational education systems and enterprises to train apprentices. It includes a set of pedagogical, regulatory, legal, organisational, and economic conditions.
Practical significance. The methodology for conducting international comparative analysis of state systems regulating the relations between vocational education and business has been developed and tested. Information on the key policy components to involve an enterprise into the personnel training process and into decision-making process within vocational education system has been obtained.