The role of pre-vocational education in general compulsory education has become increasingly relevant over recent years, with the international debate focussing particularly on its importance in school-to-work transitions. This study considers curriculum design and the implementation of pre-vocational education in four countries with radically different cultures: India, China, Germany and the USA. Using a theoretically framed concept of relevance to inform curriculum analysis, it compares the widely divergent content of curricula. In addition to this, interviews with teachers in all four countries flesh out how the curriculum is implemented in practice. The study, which is based on the "prescribed curriculum" and "enacted curriculum" approach, demonstrates that a range of factors means implementation varies widely from country to country but that teachers in all four countries focus in pre-vocational education on equipping students with life-skills.