Cedefop newsletter

The thematic perspectives series of reports published by Cedefop’s ReferNet network, VET teachers and trainers in a changing world, covers 29 countries (EU Member States, Norway and Iceland), illustrate the importance of the professional development of teachers and trainers, who are at the frontline of vocational education and training (VET) delivery.

The European Year of Youth 2022 focuses on young people’s voices for co-designing a peaceful, greener, digital and more inclusive continent. Thus, it is essential that teachers have the opportunity to reskill and upskill towards future-oriented competences, which they can then pass on to students.

The thematic perspective reports address information gaps and provide systematic national approaches to, and opportunities for, initial and continuing professional development of VET teachers and trainers, both at school and work-based settings.

In addition, the country reports provide:

• national definitions of key terms such as teachers, in-company trainers and mentors;
• a clear map of teaching professionals working in initial VET (IVET), including apprenticeship schemes;
• an analysis of how their professional development is organised and supported.

They also highlight policy and practice developments from 2015 to date, focusing particularly on digital and green skills, as well as on skills promoting inclusion in IVET.

Furthermore, experts drawing up the series discuss the persisting challenges VET teachers and trainers face to perform their complex role, and how policy priorities are shaped in each country to address such challenges.

This new evidence is designed to help policy-makers, social partners, scholars and VET practitioners design policies to foster VET teaching and training staff’s access to quality lifelong learning.

ReferNet is a network of institutions created by Cedefop in 2002 bringing together national VET actors and aiming to provide information on national VET systems and policies in the EU Member States, Iceland and Norway.
 

Under the ‘Strategic resilience of the European economy’ priority, the Presidency states that the ‘green and digital transitions must be implemented in such a way as to promote convergence towards the most advanced regions.’

It points out the ‘need to support the development of the skills of Europeans to adapt to changing circumstances, which is a prerequisite for the global competitiveness of the EU.’ Support will be provided through ‘EU investment policies, in particular cohesion policy’.

The other presidency priorities are: managing the refugee crisis and Ukraine’s post-war recovery, energy security, strengthening Europe’s defence capabilities and cyberspace security, and resilience of democratic institutions.

Other education and labour market highlights

On 30 June 2022, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a Council Recommendation on Pathways to School Success. The Recommendation will be discussed and adopted during the Czech Presidency, according to its programme, and it will focus ‘on basic skills, on increasing the number of young people completing secondary education and on reducing early school leaving, which are crucial topics for the further development of the European Education Area.’

In an effort to activate all available human resources in the rapidly changing labour market, the presidency ‘will support the implementation of effective tools for the integration of persons with disabilities into the labour market, lifelong learning policies and career guidance through quality education and public employment services, the implementation of the Package of Measures for Disability and Labour Market Integration, the Action Plan to Support the Social Economy and the Commission’s Recommendations on effective active labour market measures, including increasing labour market flexibility.’

In relation to digital education, digital infrastructure, digital entrepreneurship and the digitalisation of the public sector, the presidency plans to conclude an agreement on the Digital Goals for 2030 and the establishment of a cooperation mechanism between the Member States and the European Commission for a successful digital transition process (Digital Decade Policy Programme).

Finally, as the European Year of Youth 2022 concludes in December, the presidency will organise a conference on its legacy together with the Commission and the European Parliament.

The workshop, which was organised alongside the Slovenian Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities on 4 July, formally ended Cedefop’s support to Slovenia, which started in 2020 with a request for technical assistance in developing labour market forecasts and setting up a labour market platform.

It was the third event, following two virtual workshops in 2021, was held at Brdo Congress Centre, near Ljubljana, and presented an opportunity for national stakeholders to discuss the currently available skills intelligence and to reflect on how to improve it in the future.

Cedefop's Jasper van Loo gave a presentation about how the Agency defines, operationalises and disseminates skills intelligence for the European Union and explained why skills intelligence and governance are top priorities in the EU policy agenda.

He also showed why it is important to strengthen the governance of skills anticipation and matching and to move towards skills intelligence that – apart from being relevant to policy and practice – is timely and up to date, contextualised, and more skills- and transition-focused.

The presentation also revealed some fruitful results of a pre-workshop survey, to which 32 Slovene stakeholders had responded. The survey indicates that many stakeholders:

• Are quite dissatisfied with the skills intelligence they currently have at their disposal;
• acknowledge the lack of information about specific qualifications and skills people will need in the future;
• call for timelier and up-to-date information on the green and digital transitions and for future labour market trends.

Findings from Cedefop’s European skills index

Cedefop's Ilias Livanos presented the findings of the 2022 European skills index (ESI) to showcase how one of the Agency’s key EU skills intelligence tools uses available statistical information to reflect on key aspects of a skills system, namely skills development, activation and matching.

He also discussed with the audience Slovenia’s comparative position in the index, while stakeholders present at the meeting shared their views on the reasons underlying the country's scores and were eager to learn more about the methodology and approach used to develop the index.

What stakeholders call for

The meeting also included separate group work on skills governance labs, which aimed at shaping a vision for skills intelligence and governance in Slovenia and pinpointing how that vision could be realised. These group-based brainstorm sessions led to a number of conclusions, among which:

• Close cooperation between different ministries, the public employment service and other stakeholders is crucial.
• Skills intelligence should be used more transversally to address socioeconomic trends, such as population ageing.
• Data availability and approaches to address data gaps should be made key priorities for future development.
• There is a need for sound skills intelligence, which not only can address policy needs, but also empower people and give them insight into promising career development as well as education and training options.
• Such information should offer a short-, medium- and long-term perspective to understanding labour market trends and skills needs.

Mr van Loo closed the workshop highlighting the benefits of skills intelligence and its contribution to shaping learning-oriented jobs and societies, noting that the ideas and information collected during the event will be used in shaping future policy and practice.