The Institute provides services in the field of secondary education and training for 245 secondary vocational schools, 126 secondary integrated schools and 210 secondary apprentice schools (altogether 581 vocational schools) at which more than 200 thousand students are taught and trained for their occupation; this constitutes about 70.0% of youth at secondary schools.

The secondary vocational education is characterized by broad complexity and diversity of study and learning branches and professional directions (which number 580 today) on secondary level (ISCED 3A, 3C, 4A, 4B) and due to various forms of education and training for labor market, civilian life and further education at universities. The above mentioned matters are significant and important for citizens and the public administration because they provide for a variety of learning and training choices and possibilities in the field of secondary vocational education concerning a majority of citizens of the Slovak Republic.

Several stakeholders participate in the secondary vocational education and training organization, in the development of educational programs and pedagogical documentation (more than 1.200 basic pedagogical texts for trade and study branches and professional directions with more than 15 thousand curricula for the due learning subjects).

These are regional school authorities, local governments, technical schools, several ministries and their educational institutions, labor market institutions and agencies, founders of church and private schools and others. Their deputies are members of the Institute's expert commissions for particular clusters of trade and study branches.
The Institute provides the organizational, coordination, pedagogical-methodical and expert-advisory activities, in relation to the design and innovation of relevant pedagogical documentation and educational programs in particular. The Institute's activity in the field of vocational education is concern not only of school authorities and agencies, but also of the regions and employment sector as the consumers of technical schools graduates.

A major part of graduates of secondary vocational education is being prepared directly for the labor market and enters the workforce. Therefore, the Institute has to maintain contacts with the employment sector, to monitor the graduates' assertion and employment on labor market, to analyze its needs and demands on graduates' current training in accordance with the economic and social changes in progress by establishing new industrial branches. The Institute closely cooperates with universities receiving part of the graduates for further studies. It analyses the development and trends of secondary vocational education abroad, especially those of European Union countries, it prepares educational prognoses together with new and more effective educational paths with the aim to increase our vocational school graduates’ employment and mobility abroad. Therefore, it closely cooperates with 15 foreign partnership education institutions on the basis of concluded partnership agreements on cooperation.

The Institute, being a budgetary organization controlled by the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic with its own legal personality, operates as coordinating, pedagogical-advisory, educational, research-development, information and expert-methodical authority for the entire network of secondary apprentice and vocational schools in the Slovak Republic.