Cedefop (the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Education and Training) is undertaking a project entitled: “The future of vocational education and training in Europe.”
A project and series of associated reports has looked at the changing nature and role of VET in Europe since the mid 1990s. The report highlighted here is the most recent and discusses how changing skills demands influence the way VET delivered at national, regional and local levels through institutional diversification and/or expansion.
Key findings
The research used a multifaceted design which drew on information from a range of sources, including a review of key literature and statistics, a series of country reports, detailed national case studies and an online survey of VET providers from across Europe.
As here in Australia, there have been a swathe of changes in Europe that we presently see reflected in our VET system. As the report notes:
“the digital and green transitions have simultaneously created a demand for new skills, made some old ones obsolescent and led policy-makers increasingly to look to VET systems to remedy emerging skill imbalances that are common to almost all countries across Europe.”
Sound familiar?
One thing that is an apparent trend in Europe that we may be seeing, or start to see, emerge in Australia in the light of our ongoing VET reforms. That trend is the combining of “general and vocational paths, whereby students can pick and choose from each pathway as
part of strategies to tailor teaching and learning to individual needs” with an increasing role for ‘general content’ in VET curricula, including “transversal skills and competences (problem solving, teamwork, communication)” to help promote labour market mobility. However, it needs to be remembered that in Europe VET studies are often focused more heavily at the upper secondary level and as a pathway for young people than they are here.
Keeping things up to date
The cedefop paper points out that:
“Relying upon the VET system to remedy emerging skill mismatches and better meet skill needs in the future is dependent upon ensuring that it is able to meet labour market needs, notably by making sure that its curriculum is up to date and that teaching and learning facilitate the transformation from intended to actually achieved learning outcomes.”
This sounds familiar too, doesn’t it – as is the paper noting the need for effective pathways to further study as well as providing for effective workplace-based learning, especially in
the guise of apprenticeships or providing more work experience to VET learners. A final and relevant comment is that “while national stakeholders (including social partners) have a relatively large amount of influence over curriculum content, the [vocational education providers] need to have a degree of autonomy with respect to how those skills are delivered.” VET providers (and the teachers and instructors involved) need to be able to “enjoy a space for individual and local adjustment and innovation.” This is where notions of ‘compliance’ can make things difficult if it is imposed too rigidly.
Their final note in the executive summary for the paper is telling too in that the evidence from Europe largely points to VET curricula “becoming broader, in the sense that the general and vocational content encompasses a wider range of general (subject and transversal) content than hitherto.’
As it concludes:
“This broadening has not weakened the distinctiveness of VET programmes; their occupational and labour market orientation is still strong, and to some extent strengthened through the increased priority given to apprenticeships and practice-based learning. These tendencies are accompanied by efforts to attribute more autonomy at local and regional level, facilitating the targeting of VET to individual and employer needs.”
