This case study analyses three different VET approaches, which have been promoted in North Macedonia in cooperation with the European Union: firstly, the national qualifications framework approach; secondly, the dual VET model; and thirdly, vocationally-oriented post-secondary education. The study shows that progress in these three areas has been very limited so far, despite extensive efforts from both domestic and international actors. Rather than attributing this limited progress to an absence of factors considered to be critical in the comparative literature on VET (such as cooperation between social partners), this study suggests that the challenges result from academic drift, as well as from the fact that, since the end of Yugoslavia's state-controlled economy, formal VET qualifications have lost value in most parts of the labour market.