Talk:Vocational university

[Untitled]
There is overlap with the article on Institute of Technology or Polytechnics. Paul foord 14:51, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Högskola redirects here. Högskola in Sweden, nor Korkeakoulu in Finland are vocational universities, but real universities that do not use the university name for purely historical reasons.

Kungliga Tekniska högskolan and Teknillinen korkeakoulu are examples of this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.100.124.218 (talk) 12:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Both this page and University college claim to be the proper translation of the swedish word Högskola, which is it? They can't both claim it anyway i think... Mikachu42 (talk) 05:02, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that for Sweden, the term University college is the correct translation of Högskola, whereas Vocational university should be translated to Yrkeshögskola ('Yrke-' meaning profession). There is a separate agency within the Ministry of Education and Research overseeing Yrkeshögskolor, and their offical translation is "Swedish National Agency for Higher Vocational Education". I am completely new to wiki, creating my account with the intention to clarify this. I have no clue how to adjust the redirections. Not sure if there are some practice I should adhere to conserning this, so I will read a bit before I make any changes. IamLuminai (talk) 10:09, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Some things about the Dutch and German education systems
The Dutch name "Hoger beroepsonderwijs" (abbrev. as HBO, though HBO (disambiguation) links to the misspelled redirect Hoger Beroeps Onderwijs) links here, but this seems to be in error, as they are not the same. For example, according to this article, a vocational university can give away master, and sometimes doctorate degrees, but a HBO in The Netherlands can do neither of them. An example of such an organisation is the Hanzehogeschool Groningen. They are not allowed to use the Dutch word for "university" in their Dutch name but -- but rather are what we call a Hogeschool, and what German call Fachhochschule, to confuse the world, they often call themselves "university of applied sciences" in the English language. I would propose to link "Hoger beroepsonderwijs" and HBO to a new article called something like "University of Applied sciences in Europe" and redirect HBO, Hogeschool and Fachhochschule there. The contents of this new page can largely be taken from Fachhochschule. anoko_moonlight (talk) 15:34, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Very much agree, I'm currently doing a bachelor's at a dutch university (universiteit) and have a friend who came here after completing his bachelor at a "university of applied sciences" (what we call a hogeschool) and has to start all over again because a university bachelor is not the same as a hbo bachelor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.195.251.194 (talk) 14:28, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Abbreviated levels in lower case
At the talk page of the article on education in the Netherlands, I started a discussion entitled Abbreviated levels in lower case, to reach a consensus on whether abbreviated Dutch school levels should be written in upper case or lower case. If you are an editor of this page, the discussion may be of relevance to you as well, because its outcome will affect this article in either of the following ways:
 * If all lower case is agreed upon, the "HBO" mention in this article is changed to "hbo".
 * If all upper case is agreed upon, nothing will change in this article.

Please wait with making either of the above changes until a consensus is reached. You are invited to reply to this message here. Thanks! -- Eddyspeeder (talk) 12:12, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Due to an absence of responses, I have made the change in good faith conform WP:Discussion. Consistency in lower case is applied to all pages. Naturally, these changes may still be disputed and discussed. -- Eddyspeeder (talk) 19:44, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Categorisation of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University
User:Muhandes undid my categorisation of the University from a professional university to a general one, I am changing the reversing the same... because the University was formed under the Indraprastha Vishwavidyalaya Adhiniyam, 1998 (THE INDRAPRASTHA VISHWAVIDYALAYA ACT, 1998)
 * The relevant portion of the Act reads:
 * AN ACT to establish and incorporate an affiliating and teaching University at Delhi to facilitate and promote studies, research and extension work in emerging areas of higher education with focus on professional education, for example engineering, technology, management studies, medicine, pharmacy, nursing, education, law, etc., and also to achieve excellence in these and connected fields and other matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. BE it enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the National Capital Territory of Delhi in the fortyninth year of the Republic of India as follows... [IPU Act]

Thus one can see that no General Course are taught in the University, if the term 'professional' as in wikipedia articles does not include the nature of IPU, then that article has to be changed giving an Indian reference... and not the Indian University being classified as a General one, especially when the government deems it otherwise. DebashisM (talk) 10:56, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I really don't see how this is related at all to this article. You did not edit this article, and therefore I did not revert anything you wrote. What are you putting for discussion here? If you have suggestions on how to improve this article with reliably sourced material, go ahead. --Muhandes (talk) 09:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Professional universities in India
The current section in the article does not explain in any way how a professional university in India is defined, and by whom. It lists the Act for one specific university as a source, without explaining how, if at all, it relates to other institutes. The list provided is from an unreliable source and that source does not define the term either. Just as an example, that source lists contains Anna University, an institute for which it is the first time I hear the term "professional university" applied, and I'm pretty sure it does not apply. --Muhandes (talk) 22:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Discussion on the same matter is ongoing at Talk:List of universities in India. --Muhandes (talk) 22:57, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Anna University offers technology & architectural courses... so its either tech or professional... ~ DebashisM (talk) 08:26, 18 December 2011 (UTC)


 * From now on, I'd refrain from stating my opinion more than once. Even if I have something material to contribute, I try to disseminate the same. However, I'll waste no time and effort to fight a war (even if justified), because I have no intention of waging a war. DebashisM (talk) 09:02, 18 December 2011 (UTC)


 * As I said elsewhere, we will all be happy if an opinion is not stated more than once. Having thought about this, I'm not sure the discussion here is actually so relevant. That discussion deals with a case where we need one classification for each institute. Per your point re: Muhandes (talk) 10:16, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 25 June 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved because editor consensus says Applied science education is not the same as vocational education (non-admin closure) >>> Extorc . talk  12:42, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Vocational university → University of applied sciences – much more common term, see Ngram Viewer&#32;Espoo (talk) 12:36, 24 June 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. —usernamekiran (talk) 20:56, 1 July 2022 (UTC)


 * This is a contested technical request (permalink). Polyamorph (talk) 16:15, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Content below copied from the discussion at WP:RM/TR Polyamorph (talk) 16:16, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * I'm not sure I follow the logic here. "Vocational university" sounds like a much more broad term than "university of applied sciences", and would apply to a university training students for work in lots of different careers, not just limited to science? &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 17:12, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
 * They're synonyms and "vocational university" is rare. So despite the fancy name, universities of applied sciences specifically provide vocational education (and much less theory than "normal" universities). In other words, "vocational university" would be a better term, but it's not the one used by most of these institutions or most English speakers. You don't seem to understand that "applied sciences" doesn't mean "science" -- it means engineering, technology, business, nursing, architecture, design, industrial design, and other subjects and applied arts, not science. --Espoo (talk) 18:34, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The nominator appears to be correct, assuming that University of applied sciences is not also used for a different topic, although Polytechnic university might also be an appropriate title. BilledMammal (talk) 12:35, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The lead of Polytechnic says that's the most common name (without a source to back it up). -Kj cheetham (talk) 12:40, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose: These terms don't seem like synonyms, so it's not clear whether their relative popularity matters at all. Also, the NGram data appears to show no significant use of the proposed name earlier than 1997, but this sort of university has been around a lot longer than that. A vocational university may include programs that aren't in the sciences. And a polytechnic university is often something rather different and more STEM-oriented and often having a higher level of study than a vocational university – i.e., an Institute of technology. —&#8288;&#8202;&#8288;BarrelProof (talk) 04:25, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * oppose they can mean different things. 'Applied science' means engineering in Canada for example—blindlynx

Title issue
The title of the article is "Vocational University", but the first title in the introduction is "University of Applied Sciences". I don't think that makes any sense. There has already been a discussion as to whether these terms are synonyms and the result was: they are not.

Therefore, the introduction should definitely be changed and a separate article on the University of Applied Sciences should be created to provide clarity. Bildersindtoll (talk) 15:30, 5 December 2022 (UTC)