Bridging the Skills Gap: How Text-to-Speech (TTS) Technology Can Make Vocational Education (TVET) More Engaging

Introduction: A Turning Point for Vocational Education

Across the world, industries and companies are facing a growing shortage of skilled professionals.
From manufacturing and construction to healthcare and logistics, employers are struggling to find skilled workers who can operate and maintain not only the latest technological developments, but also more traditional methods and technologies.

The OECD estimates that by 2030, nearly one-third of today’s skilled workers will have retired, while far too few new entrants are replacing them.

This pressure falls squarely on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), the system designed to prepare people for these essential roles.

Yet, while higher education has seen significant innovation through digital learning, micro-credentials, and hybrid formats, TVET has evolved far more slowly.

In many regions, vocational education still relies on traditional teaching models and theoretical content that doesn’t reflect how today’s learners acquire knowledge (Nor the real needs of the industry). Courses remain heavy on text and lecture-based explanations, while the hands-on, applied skills that define vocational training often come later, and sometimes too late to keep learners engaged.

The result is a paradox:

We need more skilled hands than ever before, but the pathways that should train them feel increasingly disconnected from both industry needs and learner expectations.

So the question becomes:

Why TVET Struggles to Attract the Next Generation

1. A System That Hasn’t Kept Pace

For many young people, vocational education doesn’t feel like a modern choice.
TVET has not undergone the same transformation as other areas of education.

Online learning, interactive simulations, microcredentials, and mobile-first content have reshaped much of general and higher education, but vocational programs often remain tied to long manuals, static PDFs, and classroom lectures.

This outdated image contributes to a perception problem: TVET is seen as less dynamic, less digital, and less connected to the modern world. This problem becomes even more apparent when we consider that TVET students are looking for purely practical and engaging experiences.

As a result, even as industries struggle to fill skilled positions, young people gravitate toward faster, more flexible educational paths that feel closer to their digital lives.

2. Engagement and Retention: A Persistent Challenge

Even among those who overcome this initial hurdle and begin TVET programs, the next challenge is even more profound:  maintaining student engagement.

These students often thrive when learning through doing, not reading,  when they can connect theory directly to a physical task or process. Yet many programs still rely on text-heavy theoretical material that feels disconnected from practical work.

When learning feels passive or overly academic, students can quickly disengage, especially those with diverse learning profiles. Vocational classrooms include many neurodivergent learners (such as students with dyslexia, ADHD, or other learning differences) who may struggle to follow long written explanations.

Students tend to begin TVET careers to overcome these difficulties in learning through theory and excel through hands-on practical learning.  If the TVET system does not adapt to these needs, it will continue to lose even those students who have already begun their vocational careers.

At the same time, a significant portion of TVET learners are immigrants or speakers of other languages, facing additional barriers when content is presented only in written form. What should be an opportunity for upward mobility can instead become a source of frustration and exclusion.

Language barriers are one of the most obvious barriers around the world, and at the same time, one of the easiest to overcome through technology.

In short, TVET’s challenge is twofold:

• It struggles to attract the next generation because it doesn’t match their digital expectations.
• It struggles to retain and engage them because its content and delivery methods don’t align with how they learn best.

How Text-to-Speech Technology Can Support the Fight Against the Skills Gap

Improving engagement and accessibility in vocational education doesn’t require completely replacing traditional methods, but it does require rethinking how information is delivered.

Text-to-speech (TTS) technology offers a simple yet powerful way to make learning more hands-on, multimodal, and inclusive.

By converting written materials into natural-sounding audio, TTS allows students to listen as they learn, bridging the gap between theory and practice and providing a more interactive learning experience.

When used in workshops, labs, or mobile learning environments, TTS enables students to:

• Follow along with complex instructions while using their hands.
• Replay theoretical explanations as many times as needed.
• Access materials in their preferred learning mode: visual, auditory, or both.

Both for neurodivergent and multilingual learners, voice support can dramatically reduce cognitive load. Listening to course materials instead of decoding text helps them focus on comprehension rather than translation or reading difficulty.

And for educators, TTS provides a scalable way to modernise existing content without recreating entire courses, making traditional materials more accessible to a broader, more diverse group of students.

This isn’t about replacing teachers or rewriting curricula. It’s about using technology to remove unnecessary friction, giving learners the freedom to absorb theory in the way that fits them best, whether that’s reading, listening, or both.

Conclusion: Closing the Skills Gap with Future-Ready Learning

The skills gap is no longer a future concern; it’s already reshaping labour markets. Industries need skilled professionals today, and the institutions preparing them must adapt to new learning realities and students’ needs.

TVET stands at a crossroads. Without modern tools to make learning engaging, inclusive, and relevant, vocational education risks losing the very audience it exists to serve. Technologies like text-to-speech won’t solve the entire challenge, but they can play a key enabling role, helping educators connect with students who learn differently, think practically, and need flexible access to information.

The evolution of TVET is not just about education. It’s about the future of work itself, it is about how societies ensure that essential skills continue to be passed on, regardless of how the world changes.

If you’d like to explore how voice technology can make your vocational programs more engaging and accessible, request a demo to see how ReadSpeaker supports inclusive, future-ready learning environments.