School and university, and the well-trod path between them, play a dominant role in thinking about education policy. But separately from these two institutions there exists a less well understood world of colleges, diplomas, certificates and professional examinations – the world of post-secondary vocational education and training – which in this report will also be called “professional education and training”. Many professional, technical and managerial jobs require no more than one or two years of career preparation beyond upper secondary level, and some countries have as much as one-quarter of the adult workforce with this type of short-cycle qualification. This chapter describes the role of programmes of this type and underlines their importance in country skills systems.