European Vocational Educational Systems

Helen Collins, Collins, Helen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780749409845
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135351618
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This detailed reference work describes the vocational training systems available in EC member states. It deals with the vocational qualification systems within each country and outlines EC programmes that promote the recognition of training schemes.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Vocational Training for the 1990s

Economic uncertainty, turbulence and restructuring are the European Commission’s forecasts for the future. The response: continuing change by industry and the EC’s institutions through a reinforced education and training programme. Current demographic trends are expected to continue. As fewer young workers are coming onto the labour market, the skills training of the adult population will become increasingly important. Over 80 per cent of the year 2000’s workforce is already on the labour market. While the skill-base needs to be renewed by between 10 and 15 per cent per year, the annual entry of young people into the labour market accounts for only 2 per cent of the active workforce.

Multiple qualifications are increasingly being demanded by industry; with this in mind the organization of work must also change. The rigid division between technical skills and management skills, for example, is becoming outdated. It is clear that training bodies have to adjust and combine their technical training with management and social training while companies have to examine how they organize work. In light of these new demands on vocational education and the labour market, in 1990 the Commission proposed a three-pronged action plan to meet the potential challenges of the 1990s:

• Investment in training must be increased, and access to and participation in appropriate vocational training should be made easier. All young people should have broadly-based and recognized qualifications and there should be access to training throughout working life.
• The quality of training needs to improve to meet the growth in training needs. The Commission forecast that this could be done through exchange of information and experience through, for example, the transnational mobility of trainers and trainees and the development of distance learning.
• Equal access to vocational training needs to be guaranteed by removing all discrimination on the grounds of nationality. This means that diplomas, certificates and other qualifications have to be mutually recognized and acknowledged.

To enforce this three-pronged plan, the Commission has built on its many training action programmes. EC training programmes are concentrated around five key areas: initial training, higher education, continuing training, language training and training done in conjunction with non-EC countries like Eastern Europe, EFTA countries (Austria, Finland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland) and developing countries.

In most industrialized countries, the education and training market resembles a giant orange, most of which is consumed by compulsory basic education. Higher education and universities then account for quite a few segments, rendered attractive by the official recognition of the certificates awarded and the access they provide to professional jobs. Until recently, the number of segments awarded to vocational training or anything involving the training of workers on or off the job has been very small. However, the consumers of vocational education are, in effect, the entire working population, or to put it another way, the lifeblood of the European Community’s economy. Today, the trend in education seems to be one of continuing education and training, and increasingly it is becoming regarded as a life-long process that benefits both employers and individuals alike.

The important role of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which account for over 80 per cent of Community business, is also acknowledged by the European Commission as a priority training area for the European Community.

Training Provisions in the Maastricht Treaty

The important role of vocational training to meet the challenges brought about by industrial change and to facilitate labour market integration was clearly recognized in the Treaty on European Political Union agreed at Maastricht in December 1991.

Developing exchanges and expertise, promoting trainer and trainee mobility, enhancing cooperation between training organizations and the business and industrial worlds and cooperation between specialized organizations in non-EC countries were seen as key action areas of EC policy.

The text on vocational training agreed in the Treaty includes:

1. The Community shall implement a vocational training policy which shall support and supplement the action of Member States, while fully respecting the responsibility of Member States for the content and organization of vocational training.

2. Community action shall aim to:

– facilitate adaptation to industrial changes in particular through vocational training and retraining;

– improve initial and continuing vocational training in order to facilitate vocational integration and reintegration into the labour market;

– facilitate access to vocational training and encourage mobility of instructors and trainees, particularly young people;

– stimulate cooperation on training between educational/training establishments and business/commerce;

– develop exchanges of information and experience on issues common to the training systems of the Member States.

3. The Community and the Member States shall foster cooperation between the competent international organizations in the sphere of vocational training.

4. The Council shall adopt measures to contribute to the achievement of the objectives.

In examining European vocational educational systems it is important to pay attention to the five principal objectives which the European Community has identified as its policy for vocational education and training over the period 1990–1995. These are:

1. A multi-cultural and multi-lingual Europe.
2. A mobile workforce.
3. A Europe of training for all.
4. A Europe of skills.
5. A Europe open to the world.

The Treaty of Rome enshrines the freedom to work anywhere in the Community, and early on the Community determined to remove the obstacle of new professional qualifications having to be gained in a country where the person wished to practise. This used to mean that professional people needed to obtain appropriate professional qualifications before they had the right to work or practise in another country. The first phase of tackling this was through agreements on common standards of qualification, either through an agreed minimum (harmonization) or through mutual recognition. In this way Sectoral Directives were adopted for nurses, doctors, veterinary surgeons, architects, dentists, general practitioners, and to some extent, the legal profession.

By 1985 it became very clear that this profession-by-profession approach would take forever. Therefore, a new approach was proposed by the European Commission, and a General Directive was adopted in late 1988 for implementation by January 1991. For all professions regulated in some way by the state and requiring at least three years’ higher education, it was agreed that a professional status (for example, chartered engineer, qualified school teacher, etc) gained in one country in the EC would be recognized in all of the others. The network of National Academic Recognition Information Centres in each Member State plays a key role in identifying the academic equivalence of qualifications gained in different Member States.

To practise in another country, a person does not have to re-qualify, though there are various safeguards built in to ensure that a Danish engineer, for example, has the appropriate knowledge and experience to be effective in other countries.

Only Ireland met the implementation deadline, but the UK and Denmark soon followed in April and May 1991 respectively. The General Directive covers many professions including engineering, law, teaching, ophthalmic optics, many of the health professions and chartered surveying. A second Council directive was introduced in 1992 for the recognition of professional education and training to supplement directive 89/48.

The first Directive was limited to professionals who had undergone a period of higher education; the second Directive increases mobility for many other individuals. It was agreed by the Commission that in order to facilitate the pursuit of all professional activities which in a host Member State are dependent on the completion of a certain level of education and training, a second general system was necessary to complement the first. The second Directive applies to regulated occupations which require for the purposes of entry either higher education of between one and three years’ duration (Diploma), or other post-secondary level education plus training (Certificate). It also takes into account recognized work experience.

Together, these Directives give every Community national certain rights to have qualifications and experience gained in one Member State recognized or taken into account in other Member States where entry to particular jobs is regulated on the basis of specific national qualifications. Such regulations may be direct or indirect, by virtue of laws, regulations or administrative provisions. In practice, the Directives aim to ensure that, where a perosn is qualified to pursue a profession in one Member State, there are no unnecessary barriers to their practising that profession in other Member States.

Comparability of Vocational Qualifications

As far as comparability of vocational qualifications in the EC is concerned, the main responsibility lies with the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, known as CEDEFOP. The end of 1992 marked the creation of a single European market. Barriers to trade between the Member States have been removed, encouraging free movement in the Community of goods, services, capital and labour. The Comparability of Vocational Qualifications initiative is contributing to making this a reality through assisting the mobility of labour by:

• encouraging individuals to make better use of the qualifications for the purposes of gaining better access to employment in another Member State
• helping employers to make more informed comparisons between vocational qualifications in use in the European Community.

The general principles for implementing a common vocational training policy were adopted in 1963. In the 1970s and early 1980s some technical comparison work was carried out by CEDEFOP. However, it was not until 1985 that a more committed and systematic approach was set in motion through a European Council Decision of 16 July. CEDEFOP is located in Berlin with a staff of some 60 people who are recruited from all Member States. It is not simply an agent for the Commission. Its general policy is laid down by quadripartite representation from:

• Member governments
• European Commission
• Trade unions
• Employers.

The centre’s three major functions are to act as:

• a pioneer and initiator of innovations;
• a forum for the exchange of information and experience among the most important players in vocational training (the social partners, governments, national and international institutions);
• a support institution assisting the Commission of the European Communities.

CEDEFOP has agencies in each Member State which act as a focus for the dissemination of information on issues of vocational education and training.

Transparency of Qualification Systems

An EC Council Resolution on the transparency of qualifications was passed in 1992, outlining the need for new forms of action by the European Community and Member States to encourage the free movement of labour. The need for new initiatives to promote the free movement of labour reflects the fact that most of the comparability work that has taken place to date does not go far enough in providing the kind of clear details about qualifications necessary to promote free movement of labour.

The aim of transparency initiatives is to enable individuals to present their education, vocational qualifications and work experience simply and effectively to potential employers throughout the EC, and for employers to have simple and straightforward access to clear descriptions of qualifications in order to establish the relevance of applicants’ skills and qualifications to the type of jobs available. This approach raises the question of making available individual records providing a summary of achievements in a common format agreed between Member States; it will also involve much greater emphasis on information exchanges between those organizations concerned with approving and awarding qualifications to uphold the objective of transparency. It may also involve some transfer of data and networking between national databases in different Member States.

The focus and debate on transparency of qualifications is particularly important in view of the significance placed within the EC on the principle of ‘subsidiarity’. To ensure that national systems are not disadvantaged by an over-centralized approach, and to allow maximum input from national institutions, it is vital that new ways be found to encourage greater understanding of national systems on their own terms.

Euroqualification

EUROQUALIFICATION is a new training course that has been developed jointly by partner organizations in the Member States and the European Community. It promotes the right to free movement of workers, partnerships between companies and social dialogue. The main aims of EUROQUALIFICATION ar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Belgium
• 3. Denmark
• 4. France
• 5. Germany
• 6. Greece
• 7. Ireland
• 8. Italy
• 9. Luxembourg
• 10. The Netherlands
• 11. Portugal
• 12. Spain
• 13. United Kingdom
• 14. EC Schemes Promoting Access to Vocational Training
• Appendices
• Index