Cedefop info

Cedefop — European Centre For The Development Of Vocational Training

Description

Vocational training in Europe2/06
Vocational training
Target audience: Specialised/Technical

Sujets

• Vocational education
• Information
• Periodical publication

Informations

• Publié par: CEDEFOP-EUROPEAN-CENTRE-FOR-THE-DEVELOPMENT-OF-VOCATIONAL-TRAINING
• Nombre de lectures: 39
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 9 Mo

Extrait

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Vo c catio e nal tr d aining e in f Euro o pe 2 p /06 info

30 years with Cedefop - in good times and bad Interview with Burkart Sellin, senior Cedefop VET expert CEDEFOP INFO: Cedefop was founded 31 this purpose at Cedefop, thanks to which forcluding employment of higher value in par- years ago. For almost 30 years of the Cen- texts on occupational and ac- complicatedticular, has been opened wide. Although tre’s history, you have played an active tivity profiles were adopted by consensus inwomen remain under-represented, in par- role in its work. Your working areas all nine official languages with the close co-ticular in the field of mathematics and sci- changed over the years along with the operation of the participating experts andences and in management positions, they changing priorities and competences of linguists in the course of two-day meetings.have nevertheless clearly managed to es- the EU. Now that you are about to retire  Thetablish themselves in most occupations, in-first serious use of computers and lap- at the end of this year, looking back, what topscluding typically ‘men’s jobs’. The conditions made our work a lot easier during would you say were the most importantfor equal opportunities and access to train- the meetings. concerns of the European countries, theing and employment have improved sub-CEDEFOP INFO: What effect did this sys- European Community (later the Euro-stantially. Although this is certainly partlytem actually have in practice? pean Union) and Cedefop in the course BURKART SELLIN: The EC Member Statesthanks to the relevant European directives, of these last 30 years? had committed themselves to implementingit is of course also due to the general readi- BURKART SELLIN: When Cedefop started ness throughout the whole of Europe to ef- the information system on the comparabil- off in the 1970s, its political basis - along- fectively implement these directives. Cede- ity of vocational qualifications and certifi- side the Treaties of Rome and the founding fop too has made its contribution to this de- cates, based on these occupational profiles, Regulation - was the first social action pro- velopment in the field of vocational training. and making them available to both sides gramme of 1974 ( 1  as far as the third target group However,  of), adopted by the EEC inindustry in the form of information ma- the troubled times of the oil crisis. It was is concerned, the integration of ethnic mi- terial. In Germany, for example, Cedefop against this background that Cedefop was norities or persons from a migrant back- Continued on page 2 established in 1975 and opened its doors in ground in the field of education and train-   Berlin (West) in 1976. The main areas tar- ing, we have so far largely failed to achieve geted by this action programme were equal our objectives. Both the Member States and opportunities for women, measures to com- the EU failed to bring this issue into the fore- CEDEFOP bat the sharp rise in youth unemployment front of their social and education and train- TheEuropean journal of vocational training and the integration of the second genera- ing policy with sufficient force and in a time- tion of what were then known as migrant ly manner. A great deal still remains to be workers, primarily of Spanish, Portuguese, done in this respect! has acquired a new image Italian and Greek origin at the time. Along-CEDEFOP INFO: Let’s get back to the his- In many ways theEuropean journal of vo-practice, policy and innovation in this field, side its general information and documen-tory of Cedefop.... cational training which means that the Editorial Committeeis out of place in the Eu- tation activities, these were Cedefop’s three BURKART SELLIN: At the beginning of the  ropean vocational training landscape. particularly appreciates examples of com- main fields of activity up to more or less the 1980s, the Centre was confronted with a  It is aimed at a very large target group, parative analysis. mid-1980s. One of my first tasks when I start- second major issue which was expressly re-  and particularly at all those who play a part With issue No 37, January-April 2006/1, ed at the Centre in October 1976 was to or- ferred to in our founding Regulation: the  in the development of vocational training, the first issue of 2006, the Journal acquired ganise a large-scale conference on the link Centre’s activity was to ‘deal in particular  at decision-makers, the social partners, train- a new image. This change of format com- between youth unemployment and voca- with the problem of the approximation of  ers, researchers, at players in both the pub- pletes the long journey made by the Euro- tional training in the Netherlands that very standards of vocational training with a view  lic and private sectors. It publishes articles pean journal since the 1977 publication of December. This in turn led to follow-up stud- to the mutual recognition of certificates and  that present new ideas, look at research re- the first Bulletin of the European Centre for ies and research, e.g. on the motivation of other documents attesting completion of  sults, or explain national or European ex- the Development of Vocational Training, en- young people in the transition from school vocational training’. There were no doubts  periences and practices. It also titledVocational Training. to working life, measures implemented by about the EEC’s competence with reference  publishes position papers and Thus the story of the Euro- the Member States to combat youth unem- to the liberal professions, free movement  responses on questions relating pean journal is the story of the ployment and alternance training and con- and the right of establishment, but the sit-  to vocational education and gradual and successful devel- tinuing training for young people in the tran- uation was not so clear for workers in de-  training. opment of thisCedefop Bulletin sition from school to work. pendent employment. On the basis of the  The field of publishing occu- into a scholarly journal, in the The target group youth was a recurrent 1985 Council Decision on the comparabili-  pied by the Journal is, of course, interest of all the stakeholders issue on the European Union agenda - and ty of vocational qualifications in the Mem-  that of initial and continuing vo- involved in the development of therefore our agenda at Cedefop - in the ber States of the European Community ( 2 ), cational training (ICVT). How- vocational training in Europe. course of the next 30 years. And basically Cedefop was given the task of building up  ever, this field has been inter- Conceived at the outset as there has been no change in the generally the envisaged information system, initially  preted very broadly. Thus in ad- an instrument of the Centre’s recognised political concern regarding youth, at the level of skilled workers. Strictly speak-  dition to articles directly addressing voca- Information Service, in 1981 the Bulletin ac- namely to guarantee young people the right ing, this was an executive task. After some  tional training issues, naturally it publishes quired an editor and an editorial team com- to recognised training following compulso- teething problems, this task was success-  articles on lifelong training, on the relation- posed of Cedefop experts. ry education. This principle has been re- fully completed between the years 1986 and  ship between training and employment and Starting with issue No 8 of May 1982, the peatedly reaffirmed over the years, e.g. in 1992, i.e. up to the creation of the internal  labour-market access, and on the relation- Journal retained the titleVocational Train- the Luxembourg employment strategy of the market. We covered approximately 200 oc-  ship between work and training. The Jour-ing, but was no longer presented as a Bul- late 1990s, despite the fact that in recent cupations at skilled worker level in 19 sec-  nal also publishes a great many articles on letin from Cedefop but as a regular publi- years - triggered, among others, by the rise tors, including the construction industry, the  educational sciences, the philosophy of ed- cation of the European Centre for the De- in long-term unemployment among the low- catering trade, accounting, banks, insur-  ucation, history, the sociology of education, velopment of Vocational Training, which was skilled - the focus has increasingly been on ance, metalworking and electrical occupa-  economics, law and political sciences when immediately rendered in German asZeitschrift continuing training and lifelong learning for tions. Nursing and social care occupations,  they are addressing an issue directly associ- (periodical). So it is to the May 1982 issue of adults. Unfortunately, success in this field has which were partly covered by specific oc-  ated with ICVT or an issue of general inter- this publication that, to be precise, the birth been rather mediocre in many EU Member cupational directives dating back to the 1960s  est with direct consequences for ICVT. of theEuropean journal of vocational train- States where youth unemployment is well and 1970s, were excluded. Incidentally, our  It is the only vocational training journal toingreally dates back. over 10 %, or even 20 %, today. work was based on an open procedure and  be published in five languages, namely Span- Between 1982 and 1993, the periodical In contrast, considerable progress has been we always worked in close cooperation with  ish, German, English, French and Portuguese.Vocational Training, which was based on top- achieved on the second main issue, namely the experts appointed by the then 11 Mem-  With a print run of 4300 copies in total, its ics or dossiers covered by commissioned ar- equal opportunities for women and girls in ber States or nominated by the social part-  aim is to make a contribution to comment ticles, and also incorporated, as necessary, the field of vocational training. The door to ners. Moreover, we set up a successful con-  and debate on vocational training in Europe articles arising from unsolicited proposals, further education and employment, in- ference and translation service specifically  by publishing high-quality articles on research, Continued on page 3

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30 ans au Cedefop, dans les bons to great advantage in developing their vocational trainingsummit and became a key player in preparing the Portuguese et les mauvais moments EU Presidency. I’m sure  systems.that part of Ciretoq’s research ac- It is a pity that Cedefop has not had more of an ef- Continued from Page 1  fecttivities flowed into the preparatory work for this important in this respect.  drew up corresponding occupational material with the Bun-  summit.CEDEFOP INFO: What aspect of your work over the desanstalt für Arbeit, and similar exercises were carried out And I believe that is what Cedefop is all about: it is notyears at Cedefop has been the greatest cause of satis- in most of the other Member States. This documentation  the role of the Centre to engage in policy itself, but to ad-faction - and dissatisfaction? was available to anyone wishing e.g. to assert equal rights  vise the political decision-makers. And it does so, not in the BURKART SELLIN: Looking back, I personally felt particu- to those of nationals in another Member State by relying on  short term, subject to pressure to come up with decisions lar satisfaction having the opportunity to help shape the the principle of general free movement within the EC.  or against the background of short-term economic and work of Cedefop in many respects over a period of three CEDEFOP INFO: And could you tell us why this system our projects and findings were useful, and Many of  decades.social policy configurations - as is sometimes expected of ultimately came to a standstill? our colleagues at the Commission - but more from a medi- were very much welcomed by vocational training experts BURKART SELLIN: There are essentially two reasons. A  um- and long-term perspective - on a ‘sustainable’ basis, to from many Member States and flowed into policies over the number of EC Member States wished to protect their own  coin a modern buzzword. years. One thing I found frustrating was that due to chang- occupational concepts, which meant that we were only able CEDEFOP INFO: Would you say that scenarios also meaning competences, not only as far as Cedefop is concerned, to draw up occupational activities for certain profiles in our research into the future?also at the Commission, we often had to start offbut system. Even today, there is still no uniform interpretation  BURKART SELLIN: Yes, certainly, at least to a certain de- from scratch all over again. There is evidently a tendency to of the concept ‘occupation’ throughout the EU. The reason  gree. However, scenarios should not be confused with re- re-invent the wheel again and again, and we vocational is that despite the existence of the International Standard  search into the future. When drawing up scenarios, we try training experts are no exception to this rule. What I mean Classification of Occupations (ISCO), the Europeans have  to proceed according to the Delphi method, on the basis of by this is that we often had to update our advice to policy-  not been able to agree on what an occupation actually is -  trial and error. Different scenarios, scenarios which have a makers - although the basic problems actually remained the so a European classification of occupations has not mate-  certain degree of probability, are drawn up, e.g. on the same. Medium- and long-term research and development rialised to this day. This has made it difficult, for example,  basis of an evaluation of predictable or current trends which efforts are not much use in times of short-lived policies and to make real progress in the field of recognition.  could occur within a certain time frame under various practice, if greater attention is not attached to short-term That was one factor. The other factor was the fall of the  general conditions. They are almost like case studies under advisory needs. Cedefop will perhaps have to develop new, Berlin Wall in 1989, which brought about a sudden shift  various practical preconditions, to which strategies can sub- differentiated strategies. in the focus of interest in Germany towards the voca-  sequently be assigned, depending on the desirability of theCEDEFOP INFO: Would you like to make a forecast and tional qualifications of the former GDR. With the social  corresponding scenarios. The scenarios drawn up by Cede-envisage the future of Cedefop? Whattell us how you and economic union of the two German states, other as-  fop along with the European Training Foundation (ETF) pro-advice can you give to us, the younger generation? pects faded into the background, including the deepen-  vided important comparative indicators for the different pri- BURKART SELLIN: I think that Cedefop should play a more ing of the EC. France withdrew from this process, mainly  orities in west and eastern European countries. active role at both sectoral and inter-occupational level in because its qualification system at skilled worker level is recent years, you have also been in-CEDEFOP INFO: In the future. It should develop occupational profiles along much less formal than in Germany. Previously, both coun- volved in the impact of information and communica-with experts and social partners, which in the medium term tries had been the main pioneers of this process. And, fi- tion technologies on occupations and the development nally, the Maastricht treaty played a role in this context, as of so-called e-skills. it reshaped the competence of the EU in the field of ed-  BURKART SELLIN: Indeed. The real breakthrough of the ucation and vocational training and put a stop to all har-  new media really only occurred with the mainstreaming of monisation approaches in the field. So there were both po-  the Internet, i.e. around the turn of the millennium. More litical and legal reasons why the project was not transferred  recently, Cedefop has become particularly interested in to higher levels of qualification - e.g. technician and en-  the development of occupations in the field of informa- gineer - and extended to the new EU Member States, al-  tion and communication technologies, in hardware and soft- though the Council Decision of 1985 itself is still in  ware development where we have been working along with force. But an attempt was simply never made to adapt the  industry, trade, business associations and trade unions, ex- process to the new circumstances. However, cooperation  amining possible approaches for a qualification frame- among experts has remained exemplary to this day, par-  work in the field of e-skills or e-competences. We have set ticularly in the field of occupation sectors, and in many  up a working party on ICT qualifications in conjunction with Member States has had a very positive impact on the de-  the European Organisation for Standardisation (CEN), with could provide the basis for a European register of occupa- velopment of vocational training provision.  the Council of European Professional Informatics Societies tions, to be updated on an ongoing basis. Although it is not However, in actual fact, EU vocational training policy since  (CEPIS) and in close collaboration with the European Com- the task of Cedefop to develop such a system itself, it is cer- Lisbon has re-incorporated a number of the old elements,  mission. The initial results have already been published. At tainly entitled to make it clear that such a system is absolutely although they now re-appear in a new guise, e.g. in the  the moment, work is being carried out on specific occupa- necessary and to indicate what elements it could contain. form of the European Qualification Framework and the  tional and qualification profiles in this field, with reference In fact, if the policymakers want to establish closer coop- Bruges/Copenhagen process for enhanced cooperation in  to the five-level model and the proposed European Quali- eration in the field of employment policy and make a vocational training. Moreover, the latest recognition direc-  fication Framework. The aim of this work is not to establish more effective contribution to the mobility of skilled work- tive ( 3  and exchange and more intensive cooperation in the ers standards, but to create a voluntary reference frame- common ), adopted last year, refers to five levels of qualifica- tion, which are essentially compatible with the reference  work for EU Member States, enterprises and workers - in- field of vocational training, then there is no alternative. framework for training levels developed by Cedefop and  cluding those from other countries worldwide - e.g. to up- In order to achieve the much-advocated European Social recommended by the Council in the mid-1980s.  grade their training provision, cooperate more effectively or Area, the EU Member States and the bodies and institutions CEDEFOP INFO: One of the main focuses of your work  ofanalyse and, as appropriate, steer the supply and demand the European Union will have to specify the aims along has been analysing qualifications and qualification re-  theof skilled workers.these aims are to be achieved. The design way and how quirements. For several years you were head of a  CEDEFOP INFO: Now a few questions of a personal na-of this social area includes the dovetailing of employment network for research on trends in the development of  ture: how do you feel about Cedefop’s transfer fromand educational and training policy. In many countries, e.g. occupations and qualifications (Ciretoq). Later on  Berlin to Thessaloniki? Was it enriching, did it provideDenmark, France and Germany, there is still not enough you worked on the development of scenarios, and  a new impetus? Or is Cedefop perhaps more isolatedreadiness to accept the development of a comprehensive towards the end of your career you have been active-  in its new host country than it was in its old home?European reference framework of occupations and occu- ly involved in shaping the design of the European Qual- BURKART SELLIN: The transfer initially came as an enor- pational profiles. This is largely the case for graduate pro- ification Framework and the development of the Eu- mous surprise. The staff had at most expected a transfer toother specialised workers at all the oth- fessions, but not for ropean Credit Point System in the field of vocational levels. Both efforts, the Bologna process for the devel-  erBonn as a number of institutions were being transferred training. Could you tell us a bit more about this?  of higher education and the Bruges/Copenhagen opmentthere following the German reunification. But no one ex- BURKART SELLIN: The Ciretoq network was set up when  pected that we would be transferred all the way to Thessa- process for the development of vocational training, will have Cedefop was still in Berlin. It brought together research in-  loniki. However, after the initial difficulties that the transfer to be more closely integrated and brought within a com- stitutes from the Member States involved in research into  entailed for both the management and most of our col- mon frame of reference. Perhaps this will succeed with trends in occupations and qualifications. They largely de-  leagues, I do after all think that as Cedefop, we took ad- the current efforts in the field of the qualification frame- fined their main working areas themselves in conjunction  vantage of the opportunity of a new beginning and - as a work and the credit point system and in view of 2010. In with Cedefop. This concept proved to be pretty successful  member of the Management Board once put it - rose like a any case, I wish all those involved - in particular the younger in practice, and the network addressed a number of fields  phoenix out of the ashes. generation of practitioners and policymakers - every success of research in particular detail, e.g. new technologies, small-  As for the extent to which Cedefop has ‘fertilised’ the vo- in these endeavours. and medium-sized enterprises and the link between the em-  cational training system of our current host country, I real- ployment and education and training systems. The network’s  ly think more could have been expected over the last ten(1 4-74, p. 1ruary 19 ,21F be nrla  C31 ou JalcifiOf. memargorp noitca locia a sningncer 4oc1 79auyrJ nacil Coun)  f12noo uliteRos activities were documented in detail in the form of an overview  years. Greece has done a lot to develop its education sys- ( 2  1ofJu6 isecn iocnuoD li . C )nslauq gnioitacifionticavoinra talaribmoapo  filyt985 ly 1he con t of social and economic components of occupational and  tem, especially its universities. However vocational training, tinuO .yciff lai Eheopurn eammCobmreS atet sfot between the Me 6  3 ,991 L lanruoJ  5p. 5,98 1lyJu1  qualification trends, methods of qualification research,  particularly adult continuing training, unfortunately remains (3of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 September 2005 ) Dir.ective 2005/36/EC etc. The network’s research work also flowed into practi-  extremely marginalised, even more so than in other coun- on the recognition of professional qualifications. Official Journal L 255, 30 September 2005, cal policy. For example, one of the network’s most active  tries. And this despite the support of the structural and p. 22-142. members, Professor Maria Joao Rodriguez, was appointed  Mediterranean funds and in contrast to e.g. Portugal or Ire- The interview was conducted by Cedefop Info editor Corinna Frey, Portuguese Minister for Labour in the run-up to the Lisbon  land, which have used the support from the European funds on 10 May 2006

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