November 27, 2003Johan van Rens, Director11 Lisbon - Copenhagen - Maastricht Consortium March 2005 Tom Leney Initial VET: Challenges and Opportunities for Europe

2 Competitiveness The ‘Lisbon scorecard’ EU is weak on competitiveness and performance. Disappointing economic and employment development. Lisbon goals will not be reached without more action and innovation

3 Lisbon - Copenhagen - Maastricht Consortium March 2005 Competitiveness: who leads?  Higher gross domestic product per capita than USA: only Luxembourg  More productive per hour: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Different countries, different challenges - Productivity; employment; skills; investment; innovation  And social cohesion?  Successful models in Europe: the Nordic group? The case of Ireland?

4 Educational attainment General comparison

5 Lisbon - Copenhagen - Maastricht Consortium March 2005 Skills and competences to meet future needs? Which are the key competences? (Estonia reforms) –Entrepreneurship is one: active skills and/or skills for business start-up (Austria steps ahead) Developing broad occupational competencies through workplace learning is now the key factor for VET reform in Europe (the Netherlands define) Validation of informal and non-formal learning opens doors (France innovates; Slovenia reforms) Anticipating future skills and labour market needs: new risks, new approaches (Finland futures)

6 Lisbon - Copenhagen - Maastricht Consortium March 2005 Quality VET reduces the numbers of early school leavers Policies exist: benchmark of  10 % will not be reached by all. EU countries with a high proportion of young people in IVET tend to have high upper secondary completion rates and low dropout rates. The challenge is quality –Programmes attractive to learners and to enterprises –Flexibility: focus on the learner –Links to general education –Pathways to higher education Quality IVET: a robust strategy - ETF’s message

7 Lisbon - Copenhagen - Maastricht Consortium March 2005 VET: invest more and better! EU spends similar % of GDP on education as USA (5.1%). But private spending is much lower. Investing in VET brings rewards to companies and to individuals, though often seen as a cost or treated with reluctance Quality in initial VET, widening access to CVT, increasing European links all create costs as well as benefits: sources of funding? Implications for governments, employers and individuals

8 Innovation strategies  Ensuring highly skilled VET professionals.  Emphasis on concrete action at decentralised level and by the social partners  Establish synergy between VET policies and economic and employment policies. Innovation agreements and tripartite commitment to foster investment in human capital

9 Lisbon - Copenhagen - Maastricht Consortium March 2005 Innovation in VET teaching and learning ‘Competence-based VET is explicitly aimed at the key issues in professions and careers, and prepares the learner’ (the Netherlands; Slovenia) –Focus on the learner: programmes and assessment –Embrace ICT ICT skills integration into work and learning processes –Innovation through learning partnerships (GOLO project) –‘Bench learning’: tools to scale up innovation (OMC2) Overcome the fragmentation of the VET profession (roles; locations; IVET/CVT)

10 Lisbon - Copenhagen - Maastricht Consortium March 2005 ? Three questions What policies (lifelong learning) can stakeholders develop to optimise the learning opportunities for all target groups? Can we facilitate strong networks to innovate in VET, and involve wider publics? How will we best progress the agreed objectives, since countries are on different starting lines for VET and may develop differing visions of lifelong learning?

11 Contacts Cedefop Thessaloniki Greece Lisbon-Copenhagen-Maastricht Consortium QCA London