Developing graduate tracking at European level

Summary:

Adequate skills and competencies ensure that individuals can successfully navigate today's rapidly changing employment environment. Moreover, a skilled workforce enhances innovation and business competitiveness and, ultimately, the sustainable growth and resilience of the European economy. Feedback on graduate education and career pathways can help to monitor policy-making and practice in education and training, and identify areas for transformation, thus enhancing the relevance of graduates' skills and competencies. This in turn can improve their integration into the job market and society, and the management of existing and potential skills gaps and mismatches.

The Council Recommendation of 20 November 2017 on tracking graduates invited the Member States and the European Commission to explore common approaches to collecting and analysing tracking data, and for increasing the comparability of information on graduates from higher and vocational education and training. By achieving coordinated and comprehensive data collection, tracking at European level would enrich the analysis of graduate outcomes made nationally with a comparative dimension. To achieve the objectives of the 2017 Council Recommendation, a number of steps were taken within the context of the European Commission's European Graduate Tracking Initiative, which aims to obtain data comparability and enhance the quality of national graduate tracking measures across the European Education Area.

A key milestone on the way to attaining the initiative's goals was the launch of the European Graduate Tracking Network in May 2022. In 2023, the European Commission will provide a comprehensive overview on the progress made in implementing the 2017 Council Recommendation. It expects graduate tracking to be used at European level by 2025.

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