Political reforms of the 1990s ushered in sweeping socio-economic changes in the Nordic countries, including radical changes in their vocational education and training systems. However, the reforms led to a school-based vocational education and training system with a strong orientation towards higher education in Sweden, and a hybrid system with a stronger apprenticeship component in Norway. Drawing on comparative literature about institutional change in education systems, the aim of this article is to consider why such different vocational education and training systems emerged in countries that shared numerous commonalities following political reforms with similar neoliberal agendas. Our findings, based on secondary data analyses, show that national education reforms played a key role in transforming vocational education and training systems to promote greater flexibility and lifelong learning in line with societal changes. They also show that differences in the roles played by the social partners in Sweden and Norway in the reform processes, in conjunction with differences in political priorities, have led to major differences despite the similarities of national histories and attitudes.