Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of the Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 June 2009 on the establishment of a European quality assurance reference framework for vocational education and training

In order to exit the economic crisis Europe needs smart growth, which requires better skilled people. The Cedefop forecasts confirm that the demand for low skilled will decrease, while the demand for higher skills will increase, and the highest demand will be for medium skilled people.

In this context, vocational education and training (VET) has a crucial role to play as highlighted in a series of recent strategy papers of the Commission. Despite the strong political focus that has been put on VET, the challenges are still significant: increasing its attractiveness, embedding stronger work based learning, enhancing labour market relevance, developing stronger career and education guidance, implementing teachers and trainers professional development, and improving recognition and transparency of VET learning outcomes between countries and across different education pathways.

Quality assurance has an important role in addressing these challenges, in particular overcoming skills mismatches and improving employability of young people so that a shared understanding of VET excellence can finally emerge, facilitating mutual recognition of learning acquired in various countries and thus enabling more mobility and a better response to economic and societal challenges.

This is the first report on progress of quality assurance in VET in the European Union, following the adoption of the Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 June 2009 on the establishment of a European Quality Assurance Reference Framework for Vocational Education and Training (the EQAVET Recommendation). It summarises the experience gained and presents the Commission proposals for the way ahead.

The EQAVET recommendation establishes a reference instrument to help Member States to promote and monitor continuous improvement of VET systems. The framework should contribute to quality improvement in VET and to increased transparency of, and consistency in, VET policy developments between Member States, thereby promoting mutual trust, mobility of workers and learners, and lifelong learning.

The framework comprises a cycle of four phases (planning, implementation, evaluation and review); each supported by quality criteria and indicative descriptors, to be applied at the VET-system, provider and qualification awarding levels. It provides a systemic approach to quality and gives strong emphasis to monitoring and improving quality by combining internal and external evaluation, review and other processes for improvement, supported by measurement and qualitative analysis.

The framework should be regarded as a "toolbox", from which the various users may choose those elements that they consider most relevant to their specific systems. The indicators proposed for measuring VET quality improvement concern data such as investment in training of teachers and trainers, participation, completion and placement rate in VET programmes, utilization of acquired skills at work place, unemployment rate, prevalence of vulnerable groups, mechanisms to identify training needs in the labour market and schemes used to promote access to VET.

The Recommendation invited Member States to devise a national approach aimed at improving quality assurance systems at national level, designate a Quality Assurance National Reference Point (NRP) and participate in the European network (EQAVET network).

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2014)30: Follow the progress of this report through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2014:030:FIN

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