Cedefop newsletter

As we navigate the evolving landscape of VET, these policy briefs take stock of the actions taken by individual countries to upgrade their VET policies and assess their impact on advancing the priorities outlined in the Council Recommendation on VET and the Osnabrück Declaration, and defined in the national implementation plans developed in 2022.

Key trends in the 2023 Policy Briefs 

• Agility and Attractiveness: countries have implemented measures to make their VET systems agile, resilient, and attractive. However, efforts to make VET flexible, inclusive, and quality assured are lagging. 
• Curriculum Adaptation: VET curricula and programmes are being revisited to align with industry and labour market changes. 
• Modular Approaches: many EU-27+ countries are adopting modular frameworks and learning outcomes approaches to new and existing VET programs.
• Flexible Pathways: countries are introducing flexible pathways and approaches to quickly respond and adapt to change.
• Teachers and trainers’ Professional Development: national policies are increasingly focused on ensuring systematic professional development opportunities for school leaders, teachers, and trainers.
• Work-Based Learning: countries have increased VET learners’ participation in work-based learning (WBL), with expanded apprenticeship programs reaching higher education levels and adult learners.
• Green Transition: addressing the green transition in VET has been challenging, with few concrete actions implemented in national plans.

26 national VET policy briefs - 400 policy developments

The 2023 briefs highlight 400 measures or policy developments from 26 countries, reflecting diverse national needs, ambitions, and stages of progress.

Green Transition and Sustainability

Austria, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Hungary, Slovenia reported specific measures on green transition and sustainability. France and Latvia refer to the green transition in the context of skills for the future. Bulgaria, Estonia, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, integrated green skills into the development of VET qualifications and training programmes. Germany focused on green transition training for trainers in VET. 

Validation of Prior Learning

France reformed its validation of prior learning (Validation des Acquis de l’Expérience, VAE).  Law No 2022-1598 (2022) on emergency measures related to the functioning of the labour market set three directions for VAE reform: simplification, enhance the security of  validation paths by providing  individualised support; and creating a national digital platform with information for users at various stages of the process.

Apprenticeship Programmes

Portugal’s Apprenticeship + (Aprendizagem +), targets young people and adults up to 29 years of age, including the most vulnerable, and allows learners to obtain an EQF level 5 qualification. The programme consists of general and scientific training, technological training, and work-based learning. 

Higher VET 

In 2022, in Austria, the Council of Ministers in Austria  formally decided to establish higher VET as a separate education segment and initiated the process to create a higher VET Act. The main objective is to consolidate the heterogeneous field of higher VET by defining common elements and establishing a legal basis for a common understanding.

Skilled Workforce Development

In 2021, the employers' initiative for partial qualification (AGi TQ) developed the quality seal “One TQ better”, ensuring a nationwide standardised offer of partial qualifications (Teilqualifizierung, TQ) by the participating German employers' associations and business-related education institutions. The seal of approval guarantees quality for the graduates and their (potential) employers.

While progress varies across countries, these latest VET policy briefs underscore the need to accelerate policy developments to make national VET systems attractive, agile, innovative, flexible, inclusive, and quality assured. This acceleration is necessary to implement EU ambitions and equip Europe with the training and skills needed to address current and future challenges.

To access the briefs, visit Cedefop's VET policy developments page. The Timeline of VET policies in Europe, online tool also provides extensive information on national policies and practices in VET and lifelong learning.

Front and center of the discussion were the pressing issues of skills mismatch and job quality, the rise and role of artificial intelligence competency, and the multifaceted approach needed to address adult learning in today’s dynamic job market.

With 90 million EU citizens needing training for digital skills over the next decade, Jürgen Siebel, Executive Director of Cedefop, emphasized the urgent need for a system-wide approach to skills development, building on the momentum generated by the European Year of Skills. 

'To make the digital and green transition an opportunity and a reality for all Europeans, we need to move from the skills policy drawing boards to massive implementation,' Siebel remarked. 'The real action needs to take place in sectors, regions, and cities all over Europe.'

Carlos Trindade noted, 'Cedefop’s research on AI, looking at job design and AI skills in the workplace, shows the importance of bringing an AI lens in our tripartite ecosystem, because AI impacts workers, employers, and the job market. Digital skills and AI competency are opportunities for workers and businesses to stay innovative and competitive'

As AI deployment continues to grow across industries, the EESC's Section for Employment, Social Affairs and Citizenship is preparing two opinions on artificial intelligence, one of which is looking at the rights of workers. 

'AI is becoming a prominent feature in many people's jobs. Artificial intelligence transforms jobs and functions. The tasks of all workers, at all levels of skills, are changing', added Lech Pilawski, LMO Vice-President.

Voicing the concerns of the EESC's Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure, and the Information Society, Baiba Miltoviča emphasized the need to find stronger synergies between Vocational Education and Training (VET) and industries, ensuring convergence in the skills being developed and market needs and expectations. The gap in gender balance, with women less represented in technical jobs, is also an obstacle to Europe’s growth, and requires immediate action from all parties shaping tomorrow’s jobs. 

The meeting was an opportunity for the LMO and Cedefop to take the pulse on progress on the skills and learning agenda in Europe, showcasing the multifaceted reality of moving from policy to implementation.

These were some of the questions stemming from the online workshop organised by Cedefop on 24th May: The shift to learning outcomes; Rhetoric or reality?

Over 200 experts and practitioners from more than 50 countries joined the workshop to share and discuss their experiences and expertise in implementing learning outcomes in school programmes as well in companies’ apprenticeships programmes. 

The workshop highlighted the evolving educational landscape, emphasizing the necessity for vocational training and education systems to prioritize what learners know and can demonstrate from their learning experiences. This shift aims to better align education with labour market needs, enhancing employability and mobility within the European Union, and beyond. 
The event was also an opportunity for policy-makers, stakeholders, experts and researchers to discuss the interim findings of the study The shift to learning outcomes; Rhetoric or reality, whose aim is to analyse the transformation of intended learning outcomes into achieved learning outcomes. The study looks at initial vocational education and training (IVET), in schools and apprenticeships, to understand the factors influencing the transformation of intentions into actual teaching, learning and assessment processes.

Learning outcomes: multi-purpose and user-driven

The learning outcomes principle - the definition of what a learner is expected to know, be able to do and understand at the end of a learning process – underpins most European education and training systems, and often influences the way teaching and learning is organised and carried out.  
Research carried out by Cedefop demonstrates that while the learning outcomes approach is rapidly gaining ground across Europe, the diversity of interpretations and applications calls for further dialogue and sharing of experiences. This is particularly true when it comes to the awareness and engagement of teachers, trainers and learners, which is crucial to understand whether the main principle of the approach is known and seen as relevant to their daily work, also in consideration of the variety of factors influencing the take-up and successful application of the approach.

Learning outcomes: putting learning front and centre

The workshop provided participants with a platform for comparing approaches and exchange experiences, as part of the continuous European effort to connect practitioners and improve practices in this area. Countries shared their approaches towards shifting to learning outcomes to support broad policy aspirations and: 

• make their education and training systems more relevant to the needs of the labour market, society and individuals,
• facilitate access to more flexible learning and mobility opportunities, and
• bring transparency to qualifications and credentials and facilitate their international recognition.

With a fast-evolving market landscape of learning opportunities which is not only increasing but also getting more complicated, both employers and learners can benefit from the learning outcomes approach, which by nature requires the collaboration between different stakeholders, and an in-depth understanding of the different users and their needs. 

By spelling out skills in a clear, transparent and visible way, learning outcomes represent an opportunity for bridging vocational education, and training in schools and apprenticeships, and can empower both the employer and the learner, as “achieved learning outcomes” need to be demonstrable at the completion of a learning process.

Cedefop will continue building on these discussions to map and analyse the use of learning outcomes for different purposes, and support policy developments at EU, national and sectoral level. This includes the use of learning outcomes to promote lifelong learning and reduce barriers to progression and mobility.   

As the data indicate, in the EU, IVET takes place principally at upper secondary level. In 2021, there were 8.8 million IVET students, almost half (48.7%) of the total number of upper secondary students in the EU. Cedefop estimates that, in 2021, some 71% of upper secondary VET students were enrolled in programmes that gave direct access to tertiary education.

Almost 40% of young VET graduates in the EU continue in formal or non-formal education and training. While this is less than half of the 81% of upper secondary general education graduates who continue in further and higher learning, it reflects structural differences between VET, which mainly prepares people for the labour market, and general education, which focuses on preparing people for further studies.

That a significant proportion of VET graduates in the EU go on to further learning shows that there is both demand and opportunities.

Both demand and opportunities

VET has a strong presence in post-secondary non-university-level education. Some 94.7% of all students at this level, around 1.3 million students, in the EU, are enrolled in vocational programmes. Short-cycle tertiary level education in the EU is also dominated by VET, which accounted for 99.7% of all students, enrolled in this type of learning in the EU in 2021.

However, the 1.4 million students in short cycle tertiary VET account for only 7.6% of the 18.5 million students enrolled in university-level education or above, in the EU in 2021.

The presence of VET at higher levels of education may be understated. At Bachelor level and above, international statistics fail to capture the general or vocational orientation of programmes and qualifications. An international definition of academic and professional programmes and qualifications that would enable the collection of such data is under discussion.

For more information on VET and opportunities for further and higher learning, see Cedefop’s data insight. For a comprehensive comparative statistical snapshot of EU and Member State progress towards their education and training and related targets for 2025/30, check out Cedefop’s Key indicators on VET and European VET policy dashboard.

This is one of the main conclusions of an online workshop organised by Cedefop on 22 May to present and discuss the interim findings of Cedefop study on ‘Training funds in the EU’.

The event brought together around 60 participants: representatives from the European Commission, social partners, national administration and institutions, persons involved in the implementation of training funds, researchers as well as national stakeholders - including policy-makers and social partners from countries potentially interested in establishing training funds.

Cedefop’s Patrycja Lipinska and Günter Hefler of 3s (the representative of the research consortium commissioned by Cedefop) presented the main interim results of the study, explaining the nature and basic characteristics of training funds, the patterns of their implementation across the EU and their key functions.

It was highlighted that training funds are very heterogenous institutions, usually set up at national level or sectoral level. In several countries, training funds play a key, systemic role in the provision of continuing vocational education and training (CVET), while in some others, they are established only for some selected sectors or only on a voluntary basis and therefore play a rather complementary, specialised role in the CVET system.

Benefits are not restricted to training systems

Cedefop Executive Director Jürgen Siebel drew some emerging conclusions:

• By pooling together compulsory employers’ contributions and attracting additional public funding, training funds can mobilise substantial financial resources for training and ensure stable funding flows
• Apart for their financial function, they bring various other benefits for the training systems: aggregating training needs of employers and supporting the development of tailored, high-quality training offers; becoming centres of expertise on labour-market and training related issues; strengthening cooperation and dialogue between social partners on training related issues.
• Training funds benefits are not restricted to training systems. They may also stimulate broader business performance by supporting innovation adoption, helping to enhance job quality, management practices and HR planning, especially for the SMEs. They may help employees manage their career progression and job transitions and provide support to groups disadvantaged in the labour market.

During country sessions, the workshop participants had the opportunity to learn about the functioning of training funds in three selected EU Member States: Spain, Cyprus and The Netherlands.

The discussions offered a better understanding of the strengths and challenges of training funds and of the potential actions to be taken to improve their operation and performance. The aim was also to provide insights and policy lessons which might be helpful for countries wishing to strengthen their existing training funds or establish the new ones.