The only thing which comes close is sports, but not everyone can do that - some people are simply uncoordinated - so the vocational route gives them something meaningful to do if they start an early family.
Hell, if it were up to me, they'd shut down most of the liberal arts programs at colleges, too - leaving business, math, hard science, engineering, medicine and law - all as undergraduate courses. It'll never happen that way, but it would make a ton of sense.
A big mistake. If you look at our founding fathers, most of them got a classical liberal arts program. They learned a couple of foreign languages, usually from either Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, and then read numerous philosophers and the Scriptures in their original languages. They also studied math, science, etc.
While technical and professional studies are important to learn how to earn a living in the world, the liberal arts teach you how to ethically apply what you've learned. The first without the second creates amoral monsters.