Widening participation Madlen S,erban in technical and ... · TVET school management (a new vision on partnership, ... The three main steps they identified are: destructuring

VOCATIONAL TRAINING NO 36 EUROPEAN JOURNAL

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Madlen S,erbanDirector, NationalCentre forDevelopment ofVocational andTechnical Education(Ministry ofEducation andResearch), Romania.

Lucian CiolanLecturer, Faculty ofEducational Sciences(BucharestUniversity) andTraining programmescoordinator, NationalCentre for Developmentof Vocational andTechnical Education,Romania

The discussion about partic-ipation and partnership toensure the quality of TVET isnot new, but the capacity ofthe educational actors to es-tablish effective and sustain-able cooperation with thestakeholders, especially intransition economies char-acterised by instability andunpredictability, is still a chal-lenge. We have tried to pres-ent here a participatory plan-ning model for TVET whichstarted to be used in Roma-nia, and which, accompaniedby appropriate support meas-ures, should lead to bridgingthe TVET schools, the com-munity and the social part-ners. The model is based ona regional approach and issupported by measures fo-cused on cultural changes inTVET school management (anew vision on partnership,quality assurance, social ac-countability, etc.), changes atthe level of teaching and learn-ing practices (integration ofwork and learning, student-centred methodologies, in-clusion of students with spe-cial needs, etc.) and creationof an institutional network topilot this integrated approach(the so-called resource cen-tres).

Widening participationin technical and vocational educationand training: experiences from RomaniaAmong the numerous challenges that educa-tion in Romania has faced in recent, so-calledtransition, years is the effort to turn from acentralised, command-driven system, to a flex-ible and demand driven one, having as itsmain principle the attempt to widen the par-ticipation of different actors in all stages ofvocational education and training. This paperinvestigates some successful examples of prac-tice which contributed to bridging the gap be-tween TVET schools and the beneficiariesof its services. Diversification of functions, in-volvement of stakeholders and creation of in-stitutional capacities and structures in TVETinstitutions are realised to different levels atthe moment, with a significant contributionfrom the EU funded Phare programmes.

General context of educationalreform

There are already different approaches andperspectives in literature on the key mo-ments or milestones of educational reformin Romania. In order to depict the evolu-tions and transformations in recent years,we will offer a perspective which could helpin understanding the general context of re-form and transformation of governance ineducation. Birzea and Badescu (1998) triedto depict different stages of reform, but theseshould be also updated. The three main stepsthey identified are:

❑ destructuring (1990); the main instru-ments of communist education (e.g. politi-cal indoctrination, over-centralisation andabusive control of individuals and institu-tions) were removed. General objectives ofeducation and the structure of the educa-tion system were reconsidered;

❑ stabilisation (1991-92); priority was giv-en to defining a legal framework that wouldre-establish a coherent educational system,according to the new social, political andcultural values. The new Constitution stip-ulates the right to education for all, free ac-cess, diversification of education supply,equality of opportunities, additional privateeducation provision and emergence of al-ternative schools;

❑ restructuring (1993-95); in this period im-portant reform programmes are launched indifferent sectors of education, with the fi-nancial and technical support of interna-tional organisations (World Bank, EuropeanCommission). In 1995 the Law on Educationwas adopted.

At least two stages could be added, accordingto the evolutions after 1995:

❑ comprehensive reform (1996-2000); ma-jor changes are planned, coherent at com-ponent level (curriculum, management, eval-uation, teacher training, etc.); the main in-tention was to pass from sector/domain ori-ented reform to systemic reform;

❑ ‘reform of the reform’ (2001- ...); thereare two components or directions of educa-tional policy after the government change in2000. One is to strengthen the achievementsof the previous team and to build on theirexperience. The second trend is to rethinksome of the important measures already un-der implementation. Some of these changescould be considered logical, even normal,but others are just changes of changes, pre-dominantly justified by political reasons andnot by evaluations of the policies in force.

Fortunately, this last situation is not so char-acteristic of vocational education and train-ing, where the significant transformations af-ter year 2000 have augmented, and are con-sistent with, previous reforms. A systemic ap-proach to TVET reform is envisaged lately,trying to harmonise initial and continuousvocational training, to rationalise the systemand to make it more flexible and responsiveto the demands of the labour market.

One of the most important changes of thislast period, impacting also on vocational ed-ucation, was the extension of compulsoryeducation from 8 to 10 years. This begins atthe age of 6/7 years and comprises primaryeducation (grades 1-4, according to ISCED1) and lower secondary education (grades5-10 according to ISCED 2) organised in twosuccessive cycles: gymnasium (grades 5-8)and the 9th and 10th grades. The last twogrades are organised in educational paths:a vocational path, the School of arts andtrades, leading to level I of qualification andthe lower cycle of high school (see also An-nex 1).

From command/supply-driven todemand-driven TVET.

The command-driven TVET system in placebefore 1990 is a fact and needs no furtherargumentation and description. The realityis that the governing principles of organisa-tion and functioning of vocational educationdid not change as quickly as expected andsuggested by the new developments towarda free, market economy. Even the centralisedcommand system progressively dissolved af-ter the collapse of communism, vocationaleducation remained - and this is still partlythe case - a supply-driven (sub-)system, fromthe point of view of educational offer. Thisproblem exists across the whole education-al system, but the consequences are moredirect and visible in the case of TVET be-cause of expected immediate integrationof its graduates into the labour market.

The change of perspective from mass to flex-ible production requires broader skills andknowledge than those offered by previousspecialisation. Some countries from ECA (1)eliminated early specialisation after basic ed-ucation, others did not, while others intro-duced it even earlier. (Hidden challenges toeducation systems in transition economies,2001).

The characteristics of the TVET system inRomania at the beginning of the 1990s aremainly:

❑ early specialisation and fragmentation ofqualification structure in a very large andnarrow number of specialisations, which cre-ated a rigid and inadaptable TVET educa-tional offer;

❑ a centralised decision-making system ofpolicy development and, as a consequence,low participation of stakeholders;

❑ a prescriptive and outdated curricu-lum, based on the frequent direct relationsbetween TVET schools and a major employerin the area;

❑ a poor partnership structure with em-ployers and low capacity in schools todiversify the educational offer and to re-spond to the new challenges of the labourmarket.

A first Phare project to reform vocational ed-ucation and training was initiated in Ro-mania in 1995. Like all Phare funded proj-ects, this one was meant to support nation-al reform and offer two important contri-butions:

❑ finance for modern equipment and train-ing materials for schools, plus their rehabil-itation;

❑ technical assistance from the EU to con-tribute to the conceptual and methodolog-ical developments needed for a modernTVET system.

The transfer of TVET development know-how was, and still is, important for transi-tion countries like Romania. The commit-ment to a market economy, and a new typeof relationship between vocational school‘products’ and employment, needs the lengthyexperience of western countries to ensureconsistency and sustainability. The quickpassage from post-communism to post-mod-ernism, from centralised economies to aninformation/knowledge based economywould be even more difficult if not assistedand advised by the more advanced.

A comprehensive TVET reform project start-ed in 1995 (through the project Phare RO9405), including the main aims of:


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(1) ECA = Europe and Central Asia.

❑ adapting the structure of TVET delivery tothe needs of the emerging market economy;

❑ switching from command to demand-driven educational planning;

❑ designing a new curriculum, in accor-dance with the needs of new qualifica-tions required in the labour market;

❑ strengthening social partnership in VET,especially through setting up tripartite con-sultative bodies at county level (Local Devel-opment Committees).

This first reform project was implementedin 75 pilot schools across the country, rep-resenting all main vocational domains. Thenew institutional and qualification structure,and the curriculum produced in the frame-work of the project, were considered suc-cessful and extended from the pilot schoolsto the whole vocational education system.

Plotting the transition path from command-driven to demand-driven TVET was not aneasy process; the work still continues in thisrespect, having in mind directing principlessuch as:

❑ preference to functional policies (de-velopment and improvement) and to sys-temic approach;

❑ learning as the centre of pedagogy, learn-ers at the centre of educational policies;

❑ policy development and chance processare driven by analysis and consultation;

❑ priority to individual and community de-mands, articulated at regional level (see al-so Rado, 2000).

The visible steps forward made through thisprogramme, which was completed in 1998,are continued now under the new multi-an-nual Phare project. In order to reach socialand economic cohesion, a new Phare proj-ect was launched in Romania, with multiplecomponents; one of those (Phare RO 0108TVET) is focused on modernisation of vo-cational and technical education and train-ing and started effectively in 2003. In thesame year, the structure of TVET was mod-ified again, according to new policy devel-opments and decisions, and particularly con-cerned extending compulsory educationfrom 8 to 10 years.

Recent decisions from the Ministry of Edu-cation and Research aimed at creating fa-cilities to improve access to initial educationand training, by making vocational educa-tion and training more attractive and alsooffering equal opportunities to access forthose from disadvantaged regions, such asrural areas. The main difficulty in organis-ing TVET in rural areas comes from the eco-nomic gap between rural and urban areasand the restricted ability to produce prog-noses regarding the economic developmentstrategies for these areas.

The limited partnership between schoolsand enterprises and insufficient didacticequipment in schools (especially those inrural areas and small and medium size towns)are the main obstacles in the developmentof TVET.

A further issue is including students withspecial educational needs into mainstreameducation. Specific actions initiated in thePhare 2001 project aimed to strengthenthe institutional capacity of vocational schoolsto offer the best opportunities to these stu-dents.

The Phare 2001-02 programme is due to beimplemented in 100 schools, distributed over11 areas of economic restructuring with po-tential for economic growth and 22 resourcecentres (schools involved in the previousproject and with potential for assistance andnetworking according to regional andfield/qualification structure).

The overall objectives of the new project en-visage:

❑ consolidating the achievements of thereform acquired through the Phare VET RO9405 programme and supporting the ratio-nalisation and modernisation of the presentTVET system;

❑ reviewing responsibilities, governanceand accountability mechanisms in the pro-vision of initial TVET in line with the so-cial and economic development, in a re-gional perspective;

❑ ensuring equal opportunity for all youngpeople to obtain a good professional qual-ification at a level equal to European stan-dards by providing vocational educationwhich responds flexibly to the needs of eachindividual.


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After one year of implementation, very in-tense and rich in activities targeted towardthe broad objectives mentioned before, thefirst results/achievements are already visi-ble.

A new curriculum was developed for level1 qualification. The important aspect here isthat a new methodology for curriculum de-velopment is now in place, based on vo-cational training standards, modular ap-proach, competences and a credit system.This new approach tries to ensure the flex-ibility of vocational training, mobility/trans-fer of competences between qualificationsand coherence between initial vocationaltraining (IVET) and continuous vocationaltraining (CVT).

A system of TVET quality assurance was de-veloped, based on the European Frameworkof Quality Assurance (2) and the main toolsof this system were piloted in the 22 resourcecentres. The necessary revisions will be madeafter this year and the system will be ex-tended to other TVET schools.

A comprehensive human resource devel-opment programme was launched, basedon specific methodologies, according to thetraining needs identified in different areas:student-centred learning, inclusion of stu-dents with special needs, partnership de-velopment and working with enterprises,vocational counselling and guidance, edu-cational planning on demand, etc. Teachers,school directors, inspectors and representa-tives of social partners participated in train-ing stages during this first year.

Development and initial implementation ofa new model for educational planning, withthree tiers, situated at regional, local (coun-ty) and school level. If a rationalisation ofthe TVET offer is envisaged, this has to bebased on careful evaluation of needs in thelabour market, the individual needs of stu-dents, and the capacity of schools to meetall these needs.

Areas in which further intervention for im-provement is strongly needed, the projectas yet unable to produce satisfactory results,include:

❑ the yet limited participation of social part-ners (especially employers and employer or-ganisations, trade unions) in planning anddeveloping vocational qualifications. The

difficult situation of small and medium en-terprises, engaged in a ‘survival economy’,unstable, sometime chaotic, with high lev-els of taxation makes it difficult to motivateinvolvement in education and training. Thedebates about setting up a system of in-centives for employers, at least for partici-pating in organising learning at the work-place for students in TVET, have producedno results for the time being;

❑ the level of coherence between initialvocational education and training (IVET) andcontinuing vocational training (CVT). Thenew curriculum, based on standards, com-petences and credits is expected to bring asignificant contribution in this respect, butmainly the creation of an agency for quali-fications, which will be in charge of a na-tional framework of vocational qualification,to be the reference both for IVET and CVT;

❑ the limited number of TVET schools as-sisted by the project (122) (3). This createsexamples of good practice, but dissemina-tion and generalisation of results across ofthe whole TVET system is difficult to ensure,both in terms of human resources and fi-nancing. Careful consideration of this is-sue is needed to avoid creation of potentialgaps between assisted and non-assistedschools. The broad aim of the project is tocontribute to social and economic cohesion,not to deepen the differences.

Widening the participation ofdifferent actors

Transparency, accountability and partici-pation in TVET are governing principles ofthe reform efforts. The following could bementioned in relation to participation:

Participation of social partners

This is especially for enterprises developingsound and relevant work experience for stu-dents, but also for curriculum developmentand validation and planning the education-al offer. Improving the quality of vocation-al education is not a goal to be achieved bythe sole efforts of schools and the educationsector, even supported by the know-howand financing of Phare projects. The partic-ipation of social partners in planning anddelivery of TVET was a priority from the firstvocational education reform project. Themain social partners considered crucial tothe sustainable development of TVET are:


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(2) See the work of Technical Work-ing Group for quality assurance inTVET, European Commission.

(3) i. e. the 100 supplementary TVETschools integrated in the new pro-gramme Phare 2001-02, and the 22TVET schools involved in the firstPhare reform project and function-ing as resource centres because oftheir potential for assistance and net-working due to their previous ex-perience [editor’s note].


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❑ representatives of employers and em-ployer organisations,

❑ trade unions,

❑ governmental organisations/agencies,

❑ parents.

It is a high priority to break the vicious cir-cle in which employers claim that schoolsare not providing high quality professionalsand schools complain about the lack of in-terest and low participation in education byenterprises. More structured cooperation,with clear roles and responsibilities, with aneffective system of incentives and disincen-tives in place, could prevent this mutualblame and create a platform for working to-wards common goals. School managers andteachers were involved in training activitiesin which they learned how to work with en-terprises and how to develop together part-nership plans. The needs of the employers,both in terms of qualifications and compe-tences are the main tools in planning edu-cation on demand.

For the first time in Romania, vocational train-ing standards for each domain, developedmainly by educationalists, were validatedthrough panels by representatives of theworld of work. This created a platform fordebate regarding the competences requiredby employers and the structure of each qual-ification.

‘The link between school and workplaceis the milestone for any vocational educa-tion system. If the links are weak, there is arisk that system will produce graduatesdifficult to place on the labour market, theresults being youth unemployment and ex-pensive vocational conversion programmes;if the links are too much centred on indi-vidual needs of employers, the system be-comes difficult to modernise and the mo-bility on the labour market (...) becomes dif-ficult’ (Deij and Badescu, 2003, p. 48).

Participation of support services providers

This particularly includes guidance and coun-selling services and in-service teacher train-ing institutions. Career guidance is crucialfor further development and improvementin Romanian TVET. The inappropriate so-cial perception of TVET among parents, cou-pled sometimes with unclear policy meas-

ures, creates problems in effective distri-bution of students in the system and theirfuture employability in the labour market.There is in place a national network of coun-selling and vocational guidance centres, onefor each county delivering services to all ed-ucational customers in their area (teachers,students, parents). As well as these centres,almost every vocational school has its owncounselling and guidance specialist(s) anda counselling and guidance office in school,at the service of students and teachers. Thecounty centres network is coordinated andfinanced by the Ministry of Education andResearch and aims to deliver services to pre-university public schools. Another impor-tant network of support service providers isrepresented by the so called Teacher’s Hous-es: these are county in-service teacher train-ing centres also financed by the Ministryof Education. In addition, in recent years, afree market of training providers, both forteachers and for CVT, has started to appear.Different types of providers, such as NGOs,private companies, universities, VET schools,etc. have become more involved in this area.

Participation of regional bodies

This refers mainly to a newly created con-sultative structure, as an outcome of the newPhare project: the Regional Consortia. Thisis established at the level of each region andcomprises representatives of local public au-thorities in the region, representatives of re-gional development agencies, representa-tives of school inspectorates and universi-ties, employers and trade unions. It is chairedby the Regional Development Agency andtheir main task is to produce the regionalaction plans for TVET, based on analysisof trends and evolution of the social andeconomic environment in their region. Anal-ysis of the social and economic environmentin the respective region should allow theRegional Consortia to produce a long-termaction plan for development of vocationaleducation and training.

A general description of the regions and theirdevelopment role would clarify the aboveideas. Since 1998, Romania has been splitinto eight development regions, with socialand economic development goals and with-out administrative functions. In each regionthere is a Council for Regional Development,with a deliberative role regarding the co-ordination of regional development poli-cy. This body is composed, for each region,

of county council presidents and represen-tatives of different types of administrativestructures: cities, medium/small towns andvillages; it coordinates the activity of the Re-gional Development Agency (RDA). TheRDA is in charge of elaboration and imple-mentation of policy documents for the re-spective region. The projects proposed byRDAs are financed, after approval, from theNational Fund for Regional Developmentand other sources, identified by each RDA.

One of the most evident features of eco-nomic development in Romania in recentyears was the growing importance of theBucharest Region. The trend in all transitioncountries is more visible in Romania becauseof the dimensions of the country, both interms of territory and population. Having5.4 % of the whole population of the coun-try, Bucharest brings 21 % of the GDP;20 % of the small and medium size enter-prises are registered here and 51.1 % of thetotal foreign investments are made in the re-gion.

In contrast, the North-East Region is highlydependent on agriculture, with a high per-centage of rural population, situated in prox-imity with Moldova and the Ukraine.

The planning and development of voca-tional education and training in a region-al perspective is seen as one of the toolsto diminish the regional disparities and tocontribute to social and economic cohe-sion.

Participation of students

This is envisaged in at least two directions:participation in creating their own learningand participation in building career path-ways according to their competences andthe needs of the local/regional labour mar-ket. In order to strengthen the feeling ofownership of students in relation to theirlearning experiences, teachers were trainedin modern teaching/learning methodologies,based on the principle of student-centredlearning. Individual learning materials arenow being developed, with a special fo-cus on adapting learning to students withspecial needs. Specific measures have beendesigned to create an inclusive learning en-vironment in and out of school, to supportthe integration of students with special needs.More than 2 500 teachers and managers fromvocational schools in the Phare 2001 proj-

ect were trained in the first year of the proj-ect on different topics, including those men-tioned above. More than 60 training stageswere organised at regional level, to facilitatenetworking and cooperation between schools,and delivery was ensured in teams by theexperts of the technical assistance and localteacher and management trainers, trained inthe programme.

‘Finally, new management techniques andcontemporary forms of work organisationare taking the individualisation processinto the workplace where, in the wake of aserious quest for value added, traditional hi-erarchies and the formalised work proce-dures which traditionally brought order tothe operations are being softened or evenabandoned.’ (Brater, 2000, p. 46).

Participation of parents

This is largely still to be achieved, thoughthere are domains of school activity in whichparents can definitely play a greater role:

❑ micro-policy making at school level;

❑ career guidance;

❑ participatory school development plan-ning;

❑ organisation and delivery of work ex-perience.

General aims

Widening participation in different process-es and domains of vocational education andtraining is seen as a key tool in bridging sup-ply and demand, and in creating strong linksand effective cooperation between all stake-holders. In addition, the actual social per-ception of TVET should be challenged.

TVET in Romania faces an image deficit,caused by several factors:

❑ memories of the old communist system,such as:

❑ the social experience of parents as TVETgraduates: even if the communist ideologyclaimed that ‘working people’ (oameniimuncii) are the owners of all goods, theyhad quite low social status and not very re-warding financial benefits,


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❑ the structure of the previous system (nar-row specialisation at an early age, outdatedskills, etc.), which created a high risk typeof qualified young people in the contextof the new market economy.

❑ the unstable economy of transition, wherethe extreme dynamic of the economic sec-tors and reduced long-term perspective cre-ates fear of unemployment. (Fear of chang-ing workplace and fear of unemploymentare widespread especially among adults whoqualified during the previous system, whenit was quite common to have only one ortwo work locations during the whole activelife).

❑ The embedded idea that TVET is forthose students not able to attend gener-al/academic high schools. A paradoxicalprocess happened, between two interest-ing evolutions. On the one side, in recentyears, the formal educational expectationsof parents and their ambitions for their chil-dren increased. It was taken for granted thata higher level of education means a greaterchance of a better social-economic status.At the same time, a kind of elitist trendspread among parents and students and ori-ented their options after the end of com-pulsory education towards academic highschools, considered ‘better’ and having asuperior image. Since the number of placesin this type of education is limited, thoseremaining ‘out’ had to go to TVET schools,against their initial will and first option.

Even though unemployment figures show thatgraduates from general high schools are in thelargest unemployed group, the majority of par-ents are still willing to orient their children to-wards this educational path and, in many cas-es, to impose it. This option may be a reac-tion to the negative factors but it also re-flects the conviction that this type of ‘elite’ highschool may provide more opportunity for en-trance to further/higher education (4).

In fact, the existing realities of existing TVETschools sometimes contributed to this im-age deficit, through outdated equipment andendowments for practical training, lowlyqualified staff, and inability to address thenew type of qualifications required by em-ployers in a free market.

Participatory planning TVETdevelopment: a regional approach

One of the significant achievements and in-novations in educational planning is the moveto an articulated approach in a regional per-spective. As shown by Davey (2003, p. 151),

‘In the run-up to accession to the EU the de-bate over reform and development in thecandidate countries has had a strong but of-ten confused regional dimension. This hasbeen encouraged by the EU and has hadthree interlocking strands:

❑ regional government: the possible cre-ation or reform of an upper tier of self gov-ernment, both to complete the reforms ofpublic administration begun in 1990 andto stimulate socio-economic development;

❑ regional policy: the desirability of di-recting public investment and encouragingprivate investment to reduce the growingterritorial disparities in income and em-ployment;

❑ regional development planning: basingincreasing proportions of public investmenton regionally conceived and focused strate-gies and priorities rather than nation-widesectoral programmes and targets.’

In each of the seven development regionswith schools involved in the new Phare proj-ect (Phare RO 0108 TVET) for modernisa-tion of vocational education and training,Regional Consortia were created.

The activities of these Regional Consortiaare related to:

❑ supporting vocational schools and vo-cational training providers in developing andoffering qualifications relevant at nationaland regional level;

❑ monitoring the system of TVET qualityassurance in cooperation with local schoolinspectorates;

❑ ensuring communication and interfacebetween regions and national responsiblebodies for early identification of qualifica-tions needed in the labour market and oc-cupational profiles emerging in the respec-tive regions;


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(4) For a comparative perspective,see tables 1 to 3 in Annex 2.

❑ guidance for rationalising and optimis-ing allocation of resources for vocational ed-ucation and training in the regions.

Nevertheless, one of the main roles of thesebodies was to develop the regional educa-tion action plans (REAPs) for TVET thatshould address the key development areasfor the period 2003 to 2010. REAPs shouldbe demand-led and should be underpinnedby a sound labour market and supply-sidecapacity analysis.

‘A standard planning approach has beenproposed for the REAPs. This includes a state-ment of the policy context, an analysis of thecurrent and future forecast position in re-lation to employment, skills, and training inthe region and a plan for the developmentand improvement in TVET to address themarket and individual needs in perspec-tive of 2010.’ (Swainger, 2003).

The main contribution of REAPs is expect-ed to be in identifying regional priorities anddesigning specific actions to be taken to re-spond to these priorities. These action planscontain objectives and priorities coveringa large spectrum of issues related to voca-tional education and training, according tothe specifics of the region, but all the plans,in all regions, are expected to provide ac-tions related to:

❑ the types and levels of qualification need-ed in the region, to respond to envisagedchanges in the labour market in the per-spective of the year 2010;

❑ the structure and distribution of thevocational schools network in the region toensure a more efficient and adaptable TVETsystem, securing equal access for everybody;

❑ the measures needed for strengtheningthe partnership between schools, studentsand companies.

Starting from the regional level, with theREAPs, a system of planning is in placewhich continues with development of lo-cal action plans for TVET (at county level)and school action plans (at TVET institu-tion level).

The local education action plans for TVET(LEAPs) represent the second tier of educa-tional planning.

The local committees for development ofsocial partnership in TVET are consultativestructures of the county school inspectoratescreated initially under the first Phare RO 9405project. They are tripartite bodies that sup-port TVET schools in implementing nation-al strategies, also providing assistance to in-spectorates in designing scholarship plansand structuring the educational offer ac-cording to local needs.

In the new paradigm, they are responsiblefor developing local education action plansfor TVET on the basis of the REAPs, com-pleted and adapted in accordance with lo-cal conditions and needs. This ensures a co-herent link between regional and local ed-ucational planning in TVET.

Further on in this approach we have SchoolAction Plans (SAPs). Each individual schoolis trained and then expected to develop ac-tion plans at the school level on the basisof regional and local priorities. Networkingbetween schools is encouraged by addressingtogether the local and regional needs for vo-cational education and training; cooperationbetween schools and companies takes amore structured form. The local partnershipin TVET aims to create effective learningcommunities, capable of planning and im-plementing self-development and continu-ous improvement actions.

This comprehensive planning process isbased on previous training of those involvedand on common guidelines, jointly devel-oped and agreed by regions. We are nowin a piloting phase, in which 122 schoolswill start the process, learn from it andimprove the tools and conditions for im-plementing the system generally. The ex-pected results of this are a significant con-tribution in addressing the key challengesnow confronting TVET:

❑ building the ‘real image’ of TVET insocial perception and derived social be-haviour: not promising more than is possi-ble, but also not accepting the role of sec-ond-hand education;

❑ adapting TVET to the challenges of eco-nomic transition and to global challenge;

❑ building a new identity for TVET schools,more open and close to enterprises, moreflexible and adaptable to internal and ex-ternal changes. This aims to create com-


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munity resource centres, with a wide spec-trum of services and activities directed to di-verse beneficiaries;

❑ reshaping the professional identity ofTVET teachers, according to the new cur-riculum, the new role of TVET schools andthe requirements of a learning-centred ed-ucational process;

❑ implementing the principles of regionaldevelopment in educational planning;

❑ creating sustainable and effective part-nerships with the world of work, to the ben-efit of both sides;

❑ impacting on initial training of teachersin TVET in all the directions mentioned above.

Creation or consolidation of regional and lo-cal bodies representing the interest of stake-holders in TVET aims to help institutionalisethe participation of different actors. ‘Manycountries have realised the advantages of lo-cal institutionalisation of stakeholder inter-ests. (...) Local government, union andemployer representatives negotiate localtraining arrangements and regulate inter-actions between publicly-financed educa-tional institutions and company-based ini-tial training’ (Drake, 1994, p. 159).

TVET schools as communityresource centres

The intended new image of TVET cannotbe created out of the global trends in or-ganisational development. The new condi-tions created by the evolution toward aknowledge-based economy, conducted andregulated by the flexible specialisation andpost-Fordist working relationships, is basedon trust, competences and added value. Theinner dynamic of the global economic andsocial environment take particular forms intransition countries, creating mobile and flex-ible labour markets, characterised most ofthe time by instability and unpredictability.

Learning organisations and neo-institution-alism - new trends in organisational theo-ry - still make their impact on schools.The organisational behaviour of schools hassignificantly changed in two directions: struc-turally and functionally. We are talking intransition countries about the new type ofmanagement and a new internal organisa-tion, more flexible and responsive to the de-

mands and challenges of the environmentand a broad diversification of functions andservices.

A learning organisation can come into beingonly where the decision-making and deci-sion-taking structures in all organisational ar-eas - including educational theory, person-nel, finance and school organisation - com-ply with the principle of self-organisation. Itmust be possible for those involved to de-velop forms of organisation which reflect theprevailing social and economic requirementsand independently established key priorities.(Teacher and trainer training. 3rd workshopon curriculum innovation, 1999, p. 3).

As a first step in setting up community re-source centres, the programme for mod-ernising TVET selected 22 vocational edu-cation schools and started to consolidatetheir institutional capacity. Strengthening thiscapacity will enable them to become learn-ing champions of the project and method-ological support providers for the otherschools in the system. The 22 TVET schoolshave the experience of the first Phare re-form project and they came with a certainlevel of institutional and human resourcedevelopment. They have been selected basedon representing TVET domains and on re-gional distribution.

The major roles of the resource centresare to:

❑ transfer the conceptual and method-ological knowledge as well as good prac-tices acquired from participation in the pre-vious project (Phare RO 9405) and in theiractivity as a whole;

❑ assist the changes and developments pro-posed for the participant schools in the newPhare RO 0108 TVET project;

❑ provide methodological support and con-sultancy to other schools and to become ‘re-source centres’ for peer learning;

❑ become regional centres for continuousvocational education and training, in coop-eration with enterprises;

❑ act as ‘local’ support for the Project Im-plementation Unit and to ensure a commu-nication interface between the school in theprogramme and the programme manage-ment;


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❑ organise and deliver in-service trainingactivities for TVET teaching staff and man-agers, according to their capacities and tothe needs of the vocational education andtraining system;

❑ bring together in learning networksthe local community, the regional resourcesand stakeholders for strengthening socialpartnership in vocational education and train-ing;

❑ promote a collaborative, associative man-agement, focused on participation, qualityassurance and accountability.

It is obvious that the organisational devel-opment perspective envisaged for the re-source centres implies changes in the wholelearning environment and especially in themanagement and teaching/learning practices.

‘This new learning context implies a differ-ent role for teachers and trainers. Teachersneed to learn new skills and become lifelonglearners themselves to keep up to date withnew knowledge, pedagogical ideas and tech-nology. As learning becomes more collabo-rative, so too must teachers’ professional de-velopment, which needs to promote profes-sional networks and learning organisationswithin schools and institutions.’ (Lifelonglearning in the global knowledge economy:challenges for developing countries, May2003).

The way forward

We have tried to capture in this paper themain orientations and actions directed to-wards widening the participation of differ-ent actors in planning, development and func-tioning of vocational education and training.

The experience and efforts of 13 years of ed-ucational reform of different concentrationand magnitude showed that at least two typesof change are needed at policy level:

❑ shift the focus from ‘big’ structural andsystemic changes to targeted developmentprogrammes and to regional and local ap-proaches, closer to beneficiaries of voca-tional education and training services andcloser to the intimate functioning of educa-tional process at grassroots level;

❑ the expected impact and the sustain-ability of educational change at school lev-el (basic, grassroots level) cannot be achievedif the school culture does not change. Eventhe structural-systemic measures undertak-en up to now implicitly or explicitly pro-duced some cultural changes in schools;what we are talking about here is that typeof cultural change that starts from inside theorganisation, as an intrinsic need for its owndevelopment. Cultural change as a decisionof the school staff, assumed and acceptedby the critical mass of the teachers and car-ried out in cooperation with local commu-nity, can ensure the sustainability of reformmeasures. This change should be a result ofinternal school development, started andconducted from inside the organisation.

Building a culture of associative manage-ment and partnership in vocational educa-tion and training could be the key for widen-ing participation in TVET in a joint effortat ensuring high quality services in the chal-lenging environment which characterisesRomania at the moment. Such ideas are notnew from a theoretical perspective (or evenfrom the practical one, if we look to thecountries with a long democratic tradition);they remain key challenges for TVET de-velopment in the future in transition coun-tries like Romania. The distance from whatwe know we should do to what we actu-ally do in practice is still considerable and,sometimes, well-known solutions to the prob-lems lack coherence in policy approach andpersistence in implementation.


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Structure of education system in Romania Annex 1

Age Grade ISCED Educational level

5, 6 Higher education

4 Post high school (technical education)

18 XIII Upper cycle of lyceum

17 XII3

Upper cycle Upper cycle (technical education)

16 XIof academic of technological Vocational education

high school high school completion year

15 XLower cycle of lyceum

Vocational education

14 IX (school of arts and trades)

13 VIII

12 VII2 Gymnasium

11 VI

10 V

9 IV

8 III1 Primary

7 II

6 I

5 3

4 2 0 Pre-primary

3 1

CO

MPU

LSO

RY E

DU

CAT

ION

Annex 2Participation rate in initial education and training Table 1

School year Technical and vocational education

TOTAL Vocational education High school education

High school education - High schools for General/ Total

the technological path students with specific theoretical high school education

abilities (art, sport) -

the vocational

path

Total number Total number Total number Total number Total number Total numberof students enrolled of students enrolled of students enrolled of students enrolled of students enrolled of students enrolled

(% in rural areas) (% in rural areas) (% in rural areas) (% in rural areas) (% in rural areas) (% in rural areas)

2001/2002 565 665 252 347 313 318 51 042 346 303 710 663

(11,26 %) (15,8 %) (7,6 %) (2,6 %) (5,9 %) (6,4 %)

2002/2003 596 531 270 215 326 316 53 951 360 137 740 404

(11,47 %) (15,9 %) (7,8 %) (2,3 %) (6,2 %) (6,6 %)

2003/2004 618 951 279 124 339 827 53 756 365 334 759 917

(12,09 %) (17,3 %) (7,8 %) (2,1 %) (6,7 %) (6,9 %)

Source: National Institute of Statistics, 2004.

Graduate occupation distribution between 1999-2003 Table 2

Occupational fields Type of education -qualification level 1998-99 1999-2000 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03

Vocational education- level 1 and 2 53 063 49 423 52 598 44 681 55 464

Industrial/ technical High school - level 3 52 147 47 861 45 620 39 793 46 044

Post-High school - level 3 7 570 6 109 5 987 4 102 3 887

Vocational education - level 1 and 2 3 892 3 556 3 455 2 698 4 243

Agriculture High school- level 3 10 314 7 903 7 200 5 491 3 684

Post-High school. - level 3 1 336 1 578 1 352 1 394 1 143

Vocational education - level 1 and 2 21 420 17 333 22 616 20 614 23 587

Services High school- level 3 15 286 15 277 14 070 13 733 18 228

Post-High school - level 3 26 052 31 479 26 130 22 960 20 307

Source: National Institute of Statistics


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Structure of employment, according to education/qualification level (%) Table 3

Romania

Education/qualification level 2000 2001 2002

Primary or no school graduated 14,2 13,5 8,5

Lower secondary 21,6 21,2 22,8

Vocational education (level 1 and 2) 21,6 22,3 22,1

High school (including technological, level 3) 29,1 29,1 29,3

Post-high school and foremen (level 3) 4,4 4,5 4,2

Higher education 9,1 9,4 12,9

Source: National Institute of Statistics, Eurostat Yearbook 2002

Bibliography

Birzea, C. (ed.). Modernizarea sistemului de ed-ucatie si formare profesionala in tarile aflate intranzitie. Raport National: Romania. [The mod-ernisation of vocational education and trainingsystems in transition countries. National report:Romania]. Bucharest: National Observatory, 1999.

Birzea, C. et al. National report on VET system inRomania: recent changes, challenges and reformneeds. Bucharest: National Observatory, 1998.

Birzea, C.; Badescu, M. Financing the public ed-ucation in Romania. Policy issues and data avail-ability. Bucharest: Alternative, 1998.

Brater, M. Education and training in times of glob-alisation. In Søgaard, J.; Wollschläger, N. (eds).Internationalising vocational education and train-ing in Europe. Thessaloniki: Cedefop, 2000.

Chinen, C. The use of ICTs in technical and vo-cational education and training. Moscow: UnescoInstitute for Information Technologies in Educa-tion, 2003.

Ciolan, L. Leading institutional capacity buildingin TVET. The policy and practice of resource cen-tres. In Ahonen, J. et al. (eds) Leading schools withglobal perspective. Proceedings of the internationalconference. Riga: Enirdem, 2003.

Davey, K. Investing in regional development. Poli-cies and practices in EU candidate countries. Bu-dapest: OSI/LGI, 2003.

Deij, A.; Badescu, M. (eds). Monografie privindeducatia si formarea profesionala si serviciile deocupare a fortei de munca in Romania [Mono-graph on vocational education and training andemployment services in Romania]. Bucharest: ETFand Romanian National Observatory, 2003.

Drake, K. Policy integration and cooperation: apersistent challenge. In Vocational education andtraining for youth: towards coherent policy andpractice. Paris: OECD, 1994.

Hidden challenges to education systems in tran-sition economies/The World Bank, Europe andCentral Asia Region, Human Development Sec-tor. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2001.

Lifelong learning in the global knowledge econ-omy: challenges for developing countries/ TheWorld Bank. Washington, DC: World Bank Edu-cation, May 2003.

Rado, P. Transition in education. Budapest: OpenSociety Institute, 2000.

S,erban, M.; Rogojinaru, A. (eds). Preuniversityvocational and technical education - Romania.Bucharest: Oscar Print, 1998.

Søgaard, J.; Wollschläger, N. (eds). Interna-tionalising vocational education and training inEurope. Thessaloniki: Cedefop, 2000.

Swainger, J. Guidance on the production of theregional action plans for technical and vocationaleducation and training. Bucharest: Phare TVETProject, 2003.

Teacher and trainer training. 3rd workshop oncurriculum innovation/ETF: European TrainingFoundation. Turin: ETF, 1999.

Technical assistance for institution building foreconomic and social cohesion - technical and vo-cational education and training. Inception re-port: supplementary report. Bucharest: 2004.

Vocational education and training reform pro-gramme. Policy aspects and strategy/ Ministry ofNational Education, Project Management Unit.Bucharest: Ministry of National Education, 1997.

Key words

Educational policy,Phare,regional planning,social partners,vocational school,empowerment.


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PascalineDescyProject Manager‘Research Reporting’Cedefop

Katja NestlerExpert StatisticianCedefop

ManfredTessaringHead of the Area‘Developing Research’Cedefop

Comparable statistics on edu-cation, training and skills arenot only used by research andanalysis to provide explanationand evidence of the function-ing of European labour mar-kets and of education and train-ing systems, but also to con-struct indicators comparing EUMember States, comparing theEU with competitors and as-sessing the achievement of goalsand benchmarks. Although sub-stantial progress has been made,some essential data gaps stillremain on issues such as ex-penditure on vocational edu-cation and training (VET), skillmismatches, outcomes of edu-cation and training systems,skill and competence levels ofpopulations. Additionally, avail-able data have various draw-backs that limit comparisonsacross countries and over time,existing sources are not alwaysexploited sufficiently. The ar-ticle aims to raise awareness ofmissing key data, and to in-crease transparency about avail-able data sources, their poten-tial and limits. In this respect,the annex gives a comprehen-sive overview of existing andforthcoming data sources.

Introduction

Internationally comparable data on educa-tion, training and skills have acquired par-ticular importance with the growing togetherof European countries and the implemen-tation of common EU policies and strategies.This data are also key to comparative re-search on education and training that aimsat establishing an overview of education andtraining across countries.

Political and research interest in such dataand the recognition of their key role for (Euro-pean) economic and social policies are rel-atively new. Most developments in interna-tionally comparable education and trainingstatistics started in the 1990s. Therefore, in-ternational sources do not always (yet) pro-vide the information required or long timeseries. Nevertheless, most sources are adapt-ed constantly to cover upcoming needs. Newsources and surveys are designed and thegeographical coverage of international datais widening constantly. A number of researchprojects have also led to new concepts, meth-ods, data and indicators that can be used byinternational organisations to improve avail-able data and design new surveys (1).

Despite the substantial progress made in de-veloping international statistics and indica-tors, missing or insufficient data and statis-tics still impede evidence-based policies, re-search analysis and informed decisions byindividuals (e.g. for their educational or oc-cupational choices). Indeed, comparable da-ta on education, training and skills stillsuffer some drawbacks:

❑ a considerable set of key data needed bypolicy-makers and researchers is missing;

❑ many available data have not yet beenfully exploited;

❑ many limitations exist in comparing da-ta across countries and over time.

Cedefop’s research and policy reports (2),for example, have discussed in detail sev-eral of these problems. The Maastricht Study(Leney et al., 2004) (3) has also analysed, ina differentiated way, existing data and theirlimitations for assessing progress made byMember States in achieving the Copenhagenobjectives for VET.

Data required for policycoordination at European level

New methods of policy coordination at Euro-pean level require structured and continu-ous support in the form of statistical indi-cators and benchmarks. Therefore, closingthe knowledge gap about comparable sta-tistics has become a priority for the Euro-pean Union.

The Lisbon conclusions defined the openmethod of coordination (OMC) as a meansof spreading knowledge of best practicesand achieving greater convergence towardsthe main EU goals while respecting thebreakdown of responsibilities envisaged invarious EU treaties. The OMC is a new formof cooperation for the Member States, basedon a fully decentralised approach relyingon variable forms of partnership and de-signed to help them to progressively de-velop their own policies. It is based es-sentially on:

❑ identifying and defining jointly the ob-jectives to be reached (benchmarks);

Internationallycomparable statisticson education, trainingand skills: current stateand prospects

❑ commonly-defined yardsticks (statistics,indicators) enabling Member States to knowwhere they stand and to assess progress to-wards the set objectives;

❑ cooperation tools to stimulate exchangeand dissemination of good practices. (4)

The OMC is applied in the field of educa-tion and training. It aims at stimulating mu-tual learning processes using indicators andbenchmarks, comparing best practices andorganising periodic monitoring, evaluationand peer reviews.

Following this policy need, the MaastrichtCommuniqué (2004) identified ‘the im-provement of the scope, precision and re-liability of VET statistics’ as a priority, ar-guing that ‘adequate data and indicators arethe key to understanding what is happen-ing in VET and what additional interven-tions and decision-making are required byall parties involved’. In parallel, the set-ting up of the standing group on indicatorsand benchmarks (SGIB) by the EuropeanCommission (5) was an important step notonly in extending the use of available da-ta and statistics, but also in initiating im-provements in their coverage and quality.It is also encouraging that the Commis-sion has just established, in the Joint Re-search Centre at Ispra, a research unit onlifelong learning with a focus on data andindicators.

Assessment of current comparabledata provision

The table annexed presents the differentsources at international level that providecomparable data on education, training andskills. In this section these sources are as-sessed in the light of current policy andresearch needs for comparable data andsome methodological drawbacks are iden-tified to provide directions for future researchand development.

Policy and research needs forcomparable data on VET, learning andskills

Combining policy and research need analy-sis with a review of the different sourcesidentifies several information gaps and ar-eas for improvement in current comparabledata provision (6).

Data on expenditure on, and investment in,education and training needs to be refinedto distinguish between types of expenditure(in initial and continuing vocational train-ing; in VET and general education), betweenpublic and private sources of funding (in-cluding individuals), between expenditureon institutions and other kinds of expendi-ture (e.g. learning materials, accommoda-tion and commuting costs). According toLeney et al. (2004) there is very little infor-mation on expenditure on initial VET andwhat we have is not satisfactory. Some da-ta may be provided by countries’ adminis-trations and international sources but ex-penditure on initial VET is usually includedin expenditure on (all) educational institu-tions. The current indicator of public ex-penditure on education as a percentage ofGDP, provided by the Unesco-OECD-Euro-stat (UOE) questionnaire, does not distin-guish type of education (VET versus gener-al education). Expenditure on continuingvocational training (CVT) is currently re-stricted to companies: information on costsof CVT courses provided by enterprises canbe obtained from continuing vocational train-ing survey in enterprises (CVTS) but data islimited to sectors of economic activity cov-ered and do not include other forms of train-ing. Public expenditures in active labourmarket policy measures - including training- are available from the labour market pol-icy data collection (Eurostat) and the OECD(7) labour market programme database. Fi-nally, there is not much information on in-dividual or family expenditure on educationand for initial and continuing VET, in par-ticular.

Simple indicators such as VET participationand graduation rates are currently not pro-duced easily using the UOE questionnairedata although they would contribute to bet-ter understanding of factors contributingto reducing drop-out rates and supportingmore young people to complete upper sec-ondary education. Furthermore, indicatorsof completion of educational programmesduplicate each other and results are incon-sistent. The two main sources on enrolmentand educational attainment: the UOE datacollection and the EU labour force survey(LFS) lack comparability, leading to majordiscrepancies, particularly when comparingupper secondary graduation at typical age(UOE) and youth educational attainment(LFS), reaching 18 % or more in some coun-tries (Leney et al., 2004). Data on transitions


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(1) As an example, the site Researchon Lifelong Learning attempts to pro-vide a structured dissemination chan-nel between researchers/expert ed-ucational statisticians and the Euro-pean Statistical System by discussingresults of comparative research proj-ects that developed new statisticalconcepts, methods and/or data(http://www.researchonlifelon-glearning.org/).

(2) Information on the policy reportand the three research reports pub-lished so far (1998, 2001, 2005) canbe found on Cedefop’s EuropeanTraining Village (www.trainingvillage.gr) in the section Projects andnetworks: Policy report or Researchlaboratory. (3) Leney, T. et al. Achieving the Lis-bon goal: the contribution of VET:final report for the European Com-mission. 15.10.2004. Available fromwww.refernet.org.uk/documents/Achieving_the_ Lisbon_goal.pdf [cit-ed 13.9.2005]. A synthesis report hasbeen published by Cedefop: Tes-saring, M.; Wannan, J. Vocational ed-ucation and training - key to the fu-ture: Lisbon-Copenhagen-Maastricht:mobilising for 2010. Luxembourg:EUR-OP, 2004.(4) http://europa.eu.int/comm/edu-cation/policies/pol/policy_en.html#methode; detailed work programmeon the follow-up of the objectivesof education and training systemsin Europe (Council of the EuropeanUnion, 2002).

(5) The SGIB consists of experts pro-posed by the Member States and ofother experts designated by the Com-mission.

(6) The main characteristics of thedata sources mentioned below aredetailed in the table at the end ofthe article, including abbreviations.

(7) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.


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of VET graduates to the labour market, post-secondary or higher education, as comparedto graduates from other pathways, are alsonot currently available from a standard source.The data from the ad hoc module on tran-sition integrated in 2000 in the LFS are notyet fully exploited.

More detailed data on mobility - not onlygeographical but also occupational, sectoraland social/intergenerational - are necessaryto understand the dynamics of employmentand unemployment in the European labourmarket. However, the LFS does not allowthe degree of data desegregation necessaryto study these issues in detail due to sam-ple size limitations. It would also be usefulfor research if more detailed characteristicsof unemployed people (particularly long-term unemployed) and of the ‘hidden un-employed’ (8) were available from the LFS.There is also no specific comparable datasource on skill shortages and mismatches(e.g. qualification requirements of vacanciesor skill needs analysis by sectors or occu-pations).

Detailed data on VET teachers, trainers, tu-tors and other staff involved in training, theirindividual characteristics (age, gender, skills,etc.), earnings, status, roles and duties arerequired given the emphasis on the profes-sion in EU and national policies. Current-ly, only information on personnel in edu-cational programmes is available from theUOE questionnaire.

Overall data on outcomes of VET, educationand lifelong learning (9) to assess the effi-ciency and effectiveness of education andtraining systems, programmes and measuresare missing. Currently there is no adequatesource at European or international level toanalyse these issues. The OECD programmefor international student assessment (PISA)is a step in this direction as it measures stu-dents’ skills in selected domains and drawsconclusions on the factors influencing theperformance of various education and train-ing systems. However, currently there is noway to assess the specific outcomes of VET.The OECD international adult literacy sur-vey (IALS) and the adult literacy and lifeskills survey (ALL) measure adult perform-ance in selected skill domains and relate itto a number of labour market success vari-ables (10). This kind of analysis, relying onskills levels, gives a better indication ofthe benefits of education and skills than the

educational attainment level used in indi-cators derived from the LFS. Nevertheless,as is the case for PISA, the assessment ofadult performance does not specify VET inrelation to general education. Also it islimited to basic skills domains, as reliableand valid direct measurement exists currentlyonly for literacy, numeracy and analyticalreasoning.

Detailed data on lifelong learning are need-ed, covering types, subjects and duration ofcourses, training providers (including micro-enterprises, public service, etc.), character-istics of participants and non-participants,and impacts on further life, career and par-ticipation in learning activities. Data shouldalso include ‘non-traditional’ forms of learn-ing, such as self-organised, distance learn-ing, e-learning, etc. The current LFS struc-tural indicator on lifelong learning, with in-formation on participation in a period offour weeks prior to the survey, underesti-mates the extent of adult participation.The CVTS is restricted to company-provid-ed continuing training (enterprises of at least10 employees), and to employed people. Itexcludes the public sector and some indus-tries because of difficulties with data col-lection. Data on participants in CVT donot indicate individual characteristics of par-ticipants (except gender). They also excludemore informal and non-formal work-relat-ed learning such as job rotation or qualitycircles to cover only CVT courses. Never-theless, the forthcoming adult education sur-vey should resolve part of the informationgap on lifelong learning.

Education and training: inputs andoutcomes

Current sources provide mainly informationon the input to education and training (par-ticipation, expenditure, provision, time, etc.).Only a few sources - mainly LFS and OECD- provide data on outcomes (educational at-tainment of populations, drop-outs, skill lev-els, earnings, etc.). Furthermore, most sourcesdo not provide a clear and analytical pictureof the relationship between inputs and out-comes, often because one source does notcover or focus on both (11).

Developing better data sources and indi-cators on the outcomes of various formsof education, training and skills would con-tribute to providing crucial data on vulner-able and disadvantaged groups and to giv-

(8) People who would like to workunder certain conditions but are notregistered unemployed (Descy andTessaring, 2001, p. 240).

(9) Including non-economic bene-fits and externalities.

(10) A programme for internationalassessment of adult competences(PIAAC) is also under discussion be-tween the OECD secretariat andmember countries.

(11) The Eurobarometer surveys com-plete the current picture with someinformation on citizens’ opinions re-garding lifelong learning and voca-tional training.

ing indications on priority areas for policyintervention and learning provision. Currenteffort in this respect should be extended andmore systematically supported by the EUand other international institutions; exten-sive research programmes on the issue shouldbe financed.

A fragmented picture of education, train-ing and skills

Such international sources as exist providea fragmented rather than a comprehensiveview of education and training. They onlyallow analysis of single aspects becauseinformation across sources is difficult to com-bine. Moreover, in many instances resultsfrom different sources provide different pic-tures of the same issue. This is due to sev-eral reasons:

❑ sources focus on different subjects (e.g.labour force characteristics in the case of LFSversus provision of training to employeesfor the CVTS);

❑ sources use different definitions of edu-cation, training or skills (depending on theunit, the subject, etc.)

❑ sources refer to different statistical units(e.g. education programme as in the UOEquestionnaires, enterprises in CVTS, house-holds in LFS, individuals in IALS);

❑ sources have a different periodicity (somedata are available annually, others over alonger cycle);

❑ sources have different country coverage;

❑ in most sources, education, training orskills are not the main subject but just oneaspect covered, which leads to limited cov-erage of education and training issues;

❑ finally, reliability cannot always be en-sured if data refer to a small number of unitsor if various characteristics are combined(e.g. gender + skills + age + country + ...).

There are also limitations in obtaining or in-terpreting time series resulting from changesin concepts and definitions. For instance,the benchmarks ‘early school leavers’ and‘lifelong learning’ were strongly influencedby major methodological modifications madeby Member States over the past years toachieve harmonisation. For example, in 2003,

France adjusted the reference period for par-ticipation in lifelong learning from one tofour weeks. This doubled the participationrate compared with previous years. Com-parisons are further hampered by the factthat countries have implemented changes atdifferent times, thus making comparisonsfor a given year difficult (Leney et al., 2004).

Expected developments in futurecomparable data provision

Up to 2010, several new sources and/or sur-vey cycles will be launched and will pro-vide new data:

❑ the third CVTS (2006) will allow com-parisons with data gathered in 1994 and 2000and the identification of trends regardingtraining in enterprises;

❑ the adult education survey (AES, 2005-07) will provide comparable European da-ta on participation in various forms of learn-ing as well as obstacles to and attitudes to-wards learning;

❑ the EU-survey on income and living con-ditions (EU-SILC, 2004 onwards), is a lon-gitudinal survey including variables relatedto income, poverty, social exclusion, livingconditions, employment, health and educa-tion and training;

❑ the household budget survey (HBS, 2006),including education consumption expendi-ture, should provide further insights intohouseholds and individual spending on ed-ucation;

❑ the third round of PISA (2006), will cov-er 58 countries and therefore provide a bet-ter understanding of the factors influencingthe performance of education and trainingsystems;

❑ the new OECD programme for interna-tional assessment of adult competences(PIAAC 2008-09), will pursue the efforts tomeasure the level of the adult population inselected skill domains while also assessingthe use of selected skills in the workplace;

❑ the fourth trends in international math-ematics and science study (TIMSS 2007), willpursue this cycle of internationally compar-ative assessments and provide data abouttrends in mathematics and science achieve-ment over time;


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❑ the second information technology ineducation study (SITES 2006) will focus onthe impact of investments in ICT in educa-tion.

Waiting for these new data, a few sourcesavailable at European or international lev-el could be exploited or exploited better astheir full potential for analysis has not beeninvestigated yet. This is, for instance, thecase for the second continuing vocationaltraining survey in enterprises, the ad hocmodules on transition and on lifelong learn-ing included in the LFS in 2000 and 2003 re-spectively, the labour cost survey, the timeuse surveys, the labour market policy datacollection and the OECD ALL survey. Althoughthis will not provide the complete pictureneeded, nor directly address the gaps iden-tified above, this may still provide new in-sights and understandings.

Conclusions

Despite significant progress in the provisionand use of comparable data on education,training and skills, further developments atEU and international level are hampered bya lack of strong guidance and cooperation.The concrete roles and responsibilities ofthe various actors - Member States, sever-al Directorates General of the European Com-mission, Eurostat, Cedefop, the EuropeanTraining Foundation and other agencies -are not always clear and distinct. Thus, pos-sible double work and deficits in coopera-tion, including with other international bod-ies such as OECD, Unesco or the Interna-tional Labour Office, reduce the effective-ness and coherence of the process of dataimprovement.

The process of adapting current data sourcesand of developing new ones at Europeanand international level should not only aimat filling gaps and covering upcoming needs.

It should also have as an objective to im-prove methods and definitions across sourcesto form a congruent picture of lifelong learn-ing in the EU and beyond.

One should also be aware that the provisionof data specific for VET is not always an ef-ficient option given the high survey andanalysis costs and the relatively limiteduse of this information. Gathering data onVET should be embedded in the wholeprocess of getting more reliable informationon lifelong learning rather than a separateexercise.

Finally, the use of comparable European andinternational data by the research commu-nity is not as widespread as it could be. Thisis partly because comparable data may loseprecision in the process of harmonisation;developing common concepts and defini-tions sometimes leads to deciding on low-est common denominators. However, thetwo main reasons may well be the difficul-ty in accessing the data and the lack of knowl-edge of existing data sources and their po-tential. In this respect, it is useful to notethat Eurostat has recently provided freeaccess to the New Cronos database wherea number of predefined statistical tables andindicators are available, including structur-al indicators used in the framework of theLisbon agenda (12) (13). Additionally, researchersmay request from Eurostat access to sub-set microdata (14). The OECD also providesaccess to some datasets to the research com-munity.

We hope that this paper will not also onlyincrease transparency of various data sourcesand promote their usage, but also encour-age researchers to have a share in their fur-ther improvements and in new develop-ments.

(12) http://epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/por-tal/page?_pageid=1996,45323734&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&screen=welcomeref&open=/&product=EU_MAIN_TREE&depth=1

(13) The availability of (explanatory)metadata eases the use and inter-pretation of the statistics.

(14) http://epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/portal/page?_pageid=1913,32879116,1913_32879144&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL.


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Main European and international data sources on VET, education and skills Annex 1

Data source General subject Statistical unit Key subjects related to VET Additional remarksPeriodicity and lifelong learningCoverage

UOE questionnaire(UIS [Unesco Institute ofStatistics]/OECD/ Eurostat)

Initial education and training

Educational programme

Annual (since 1992)

All countries covered bythe three organisations(EU 25, EEA, OECDcountries, candidatecountries, south-eastEuropean countries).

Enrolment, entrants, graduates, educational per-sonnel, public expenditure in educational pro-grammes (taking place at least partly in schools),class size.Structural indicator ‘Spending on human resources’:Public expenditure on education as a percentageof GDP.Structural indicator ‘Science and technologygraduates’:Tertiary graduates in science and technology per 1 000 of population aged 20-29 years.Long-term indicator:Pupils in upper secondary education enrolled invocational stream.

– Secondary data from national administrativesources; – follows the ISCED97 (15) (1998-2003) and ISCED76(1992-97); – breakdowns possible by level of education, sex,age, type of curriculum (general, vocational), mode(full-time, part-time), type of institution (public,private) field of study, nationality;– Eurostat collects further information for EU coun-tries by region and on foreign language learning(Eurostat education questionnaires).

Continuing VocationalTraining Survey(CVTS)(Eurostat)

Continuing vocationaltraining (CVT) and initialvocational training (IVT)in enterprises

Enterprise with at least 10employees in NACE sec-tions C-K, O (16)

Reference years: 1993, 1999;from 2005 onwards everyfive years (regulations)

1999: EU 25 (except Cyprusand Slovakia), Bulgaria, Nor-way, Romania1993: EU 12.

CVT: Training policies, organisation and manage-ment of CVT, types of CVT, other forms of CVT be-yond courses, participation, training hours, cost,fields and providers of CVT.IVT: Participants, cost.

– Breakdown of participants/hours by sex, of hoursby external/internal courses, of costs by direct andindirect costs;– extension to IVT from 2005 onwards;– inclusion of missing NACE sections and enter-prises with fewer than 10 employees not com-pulsory;– access to micro-data might be granted.

Adult Education Survey(AES)(Eurostat)

Participation in adultlearning

Individual, age: 25-64

first round 2005-2007

EU Member States (21), Ro-mania, Switzerland

Participation in formal/non-formal education andtraining inside/outside working hours, methods andsubjects of informal learning, access to information,obstacles in participation, attitudes towards learn-ing, use of ICT, self-reported language skills, par-ticipation in cultural and social activities.

– Different ways of implementing in countries (sep-arate survey (13), inclusion of core AES in existingsurveys (8), registers (2));– follows ISCED97, LFS and ILO definitions/clas-sifications; – breakdown by sex, age groups, level of educa-tion, employment status;– legal basis concerning statistics on lifelong learn-ing under development.

Labour Force Survey-ad hoc module onlifelong learning(Eurostat)

Adult learning Individual (at least 15 yearsold)

In 2003

EU Member States,Bulgaria, Iceland,Norway, Romania,Switzerland

Educational attainment, participation in/outside for-mal education and training, fields of education andtraining.

– Breakdown by age, gender, nationality, labourforce status;– access to micro-data might be granted.

Labour Force Survey-ad hoc module ontransition(Eurostat)

Transition of young peoplefrom education to workinglife

Individual aged 15-35

In 2000

EU 15, Hungary, Lithuania,Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia

Employment/unemployment, occupational status,social origin, educational attainment, job mismatch.

– Breakdown by age, gender, nationality, labourforce status;– repetition in 2006 under discussion.

Labour Force Survey(LFS)(Eurostat)

Labour market characteris-tics (e.g. employment, un-employment, inactivity,hours of work, occupation)and sociodemographic char-acteristics (e.g. sex, age, ed-ucation) of the population

Individual (at least 15 yearsold) and household

annual and quarterly data(since 2003)

EU Member States, EFTA,Bulgaria, Romania (EU-10since 1983, EU 15 since1995, EU 25 since1999/2000)

Revised core module on education (2003): partici-pation in regular education and training, participa-tion in courses and other taught activities, educa-tional attainment. Structural indicator ‘LLL’:Percentage of the adult population aged 25 to 64participating in education and training (whether ornot relevant to the respondent’s current or possiblefuture job) in the four weeks preceding the survey.Structural indicator ‘Early school leavers’:Percentage of the population aged 18-24 with atmost lower secondary education and not in furthereducation or training.Long-term indicators:– Population aged 20-24 having completed at leastupper secondary education– Unemployment rates of the population aged 25-59 by level of education– Population aged 25-64 having completed at leastupper secondary education.

– Follows ILO definitions and recommendations;– education data follows ISCED97;– breakdown by age, gender, nationality, labourforce status;– some data only for people up to 64 years oldpeople;– access to micro-data might be granted.

Cedefop

(15) http://www.unesco.org/education/information/nfsunesco/doc/isced_1997.htm

(16) http://europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/ramon/other_documents/intro_cpa1996/en.cfm


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Community statisticson income and livingconditions(EU-SILC)(Eurostat)

Income, poverty, social exclusion, living conditions,labour information, activity status


Annual from 2003/2004onwards

EU Member States; Iceland,Norway, Turkey from 2005

Educational attainment, current education activity,year when highest level of education was attained.

– Introduced to replace the ECHP (see below);– sociodemographic background variables;– cross-sectional and longitudinal data;– access to micro-data might be granted (delayof at least two years to the reference period).

Household BudgetSurvey(HBS)(Eurostat)

Household consumptionexpenditure on goods andservices

Household

every 5-6 years since 1988,next reference year is 2005

EU Member States, Bulgar-ia, Romania (1999)

Education consumption expenditure. – Harmonisation of non-harmonised national da-ta on consumption expenditure of private house-hold;– breakdown by demographic and socioeconom-ic background variables;– low comparability across years;– low comparability across countries for educationservices; the variable may not be included in 2005.

Labour Cost Survey(LCS)(Eurostat)

Level, structure and short-term development of labourcosts

Enterprise or local unit withat least 10 employees, NACEsections C-K

Four-yearly (since referenceyear 1996 according to reg-ulation)

EU Member States,Bulgaria, Iceland,Norway. Romania

Wages of apprentices, employers’ contributions forapprentices, vocational training costs (excludingcosts for apprentices).

– NACE sections A, B, L, O included in some coun-tries;– LCS is part of the system on labour cost statis-tics.

Harmonised EuropeanTime Use Surveys(HETUS)(Eurostat)

Structure of time use, par-ticipation in activities, dai-ly rhythm of the population

Individual (age varies acrosscountries)

Collected once for surveywaves between 1998-2002

EU Member States (18 cur-rently covered), Bulgaria,Norway. Romania

Time spent on education and training (classesand lectures, free time study).

– Statistics are based on non-harmonised nation-al time use surveys;– breakdown by age groups, employment status,level of education, sex.

Labour Market Policydata collection(LMP)(Eurostat)

Labour market policy Labour market measures(‘Public interventions in thelabour market ... distin-guished from other gener-al public employment pol-icy measures in that theyact selectively to favour par-ticular groups ...’)

Annual (since 1998)

EU Member States, Norway

Targeted employment policies of the EU coun-tries resulting from the 1997 agreement to launchthe European Employment Strategy.Summary tables on public expenditure and partic-ipants (stocks and flows) by type of action and bycountry and on participation by type of measure. Long-term indicator:Labour market policy expenditure in active meas-ures by type.

– Links to the OECD database on LMP;– active measures: training; job rotation and jobsharing; employment incentives; integration of thedisabled; direct job creation; start-up incentives;– passive measures: unemployment and early re-tirement benefits;– additional qualitative information on each labour-market policy measure;– public expenditure distinguished by direct re-cipient (individuals, employers or service providers)and by the way the expenditure is disbursed (e.g.cash payment and foregone revenue).

ICT household survey(Eurostat)

Household ICT usage Household.

Annual (first half of the year)since 2002

EU Member States

Use of Internet in relation to training and educa-tional purposes (formalised educational activities,post education activities, other education activities).

– Based on legal act since 2004;– breakdown by age group, household type, ob-jective 1 regions and other regions, type of for-malised educational activities.

Structural BusinessStatistics(SBS)(Eurostat)

Business demography,labour and capital input,turnover, value added

Enterprise

Annual since 1995

EU Member States,Bulgaria, Norway,Romania, Switzerland

Number of apprentices.

European CommunityHousehold Panel(ECHP)(Eurostat)

Income, poverty, social ex-clusion, living conditions,employment, education andtraining, health


Annual 1994-2001

EU Member States, Iceland,Norway, Switzerland, newMember States, Bulgaria,Romania, Turkey

Participation in education and training, general ed-ucation (duration, level), vocational training (du-ration, type, objective), educational attainment/age,language skills.

– Sociodemographic background variables;– longitudinal data;– follows ISCED76;– access to micro-data might be granted.


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Labour marketprogramme database(OECD)

Labour market programme(LMP)

Measures: active or passive

since 1985

OECD member countries

Public expenditure on LMPs. – All types of public spending, including national,regional and local;– excludes the private sector’s spending on ap-prenticeship and other training. Similarly, train-ing financed through payroll taxes is excluded;– active measures: public employment services andadministration; labour-market training; youth meas-ures; subsidised employment; measures for the dis-abled;– passive measures: unemployment compensationand early retirement due to labour-market reasons.

International AdultLiteracy Surveys(IALS)(Statistics Canada, OECD,Eurostat, UNESCO)

Adult literacy Individual aged 15-65

1994, 1996, 1998

20 countries

Performance in selected skill domains (prose lit-eracy, document literacy and quantitative literacy). Creation of comparable literacy profiles acrossnational, linguistic and cultural boundaries.Participation in adult education and training.

– One of the most sophisticated surveys to meas-ure adult literacy according to prose literacy (un-derstand and use information for texts), documentliteracy (locate and use information contained invarious formats) and quantitative literacy (applyarithmetic operations to numbers embedded inprinted materials);– breakdown by demographic variables, work his-tory, education level, earning, etc.

Adult Literacy and LifeSkills Survey(ALL) (OECD)

Adult literacy and life skills Individual aged 16-65

2003

Bermuda, Canada, Italy Mex-ico, Norway, Switzerland,the United States

Performance in selected skill domains (prose lit-eracy, document literacy, numeracy, analytical prob-lem-solving).

– ALL is a large-scale, international comparative as-sessment designed to identify and measure a rangeof skills domains: prose and document literacy, nu-meracy, and analytical reasoning/problem solving; – breakdown by demographic variables, work his-tory, education level, etc.

Special educational needs:student with disabilities,learning difficulties anddisadvantages(SENDDD) (OECD)

Special educational needs Students with special edu-cational needs

2-yearly (since 1999)

all OECD countries (includes19 EU countries)

Education and training provision, special schools,public/private institutions.

– Rely on secondary data from national adminis-trative sources; – breakdown by level of education, settings of pro-vision, gender, age, size of special schools,teacher/pupils ratios, public/private institutions, etc.

Civic Education Study(CIVED 1999)(Internationalorganisation foreducation assessment -IEA)

Students’ knowledge of fun-damental principles ofdemocracy, understandingof citizenship, trust in in-stitutions and nations.

All students enrolled on full-time basis in the grade inwhich most students aged14 are found (grade 8 inmost countries)

1996-97 (qualitative casestudies); 1999-2000 (datacollection)

24 countries in phase 1 (14EU); 28 countries in phase2 (17 EU)

Civic and citizenship knowledge, attitudes and be-havioural tendencies of pupils, curriculum andclassroom practices, school climate, teacher char-acteristics.

– Contextual data collected from students andthrough teacher and school questionnaires;– breakdown by gender, civic knowledge, civic at-titude, civic behavioural tendencies;– additional survey of upper secondary school stu-dents in some countries.

Programme for interna-tional assessment of adultcompetences(PIAAC) (OECD)

Competences and their im-pact on social and economicoutcomes for individualsand countries

Individual

3 cycles of 5 years gap. Firstresults available in 2010

voluntary participatingcountries

Performance in selected skill domains; use of se-lected skills in the workplace.

Currently under preparation.The aim of PIAAC is to (a) identify and measuredifferences between individuals and countries incompetences believed to underlie personal and so-cietal success; (b) assess the impact of these com-petences on social and economic outcomes for in-dividuals and countries; (c) gauge the performanceof education and training systems in generating re-quired competences; and (d) help to clarify thepolicy levers that could contribute to enhancingcompetences.The PIAAC first cycle will assess the skill level ofthe population in participating countries (litera-cy, numeracy, problem-solving, etc.) as well as theuse of selected skills in workplaces using the jobreporting approach.

Programme forInternational StudentAssessment(PISA) (OECD)

Student achievements Young people aged 15 en-rolled in an educational in-stitution

every 3 years

OECD member and partnercountries willing to partic-ipate: 43 in 2000, 41 coun-tries in 2003, at least 58countries in 2006

Measure of performance in selected skill domains:reading literacy; mathematics literacy, scientificliteracy, problem-solving.

– Breakdown by sociodemographic backgroundof pupil; home language; migration background;– background variables on teachers and schools.


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Trends in InternationalMathematics andScience Study(TIMSS) (InternationalOrganisation forEducation Assessment -IEA)

Assessment of students’mathematics and scienceachievement.

All students at several gradelevels (4 years and 8 yearsof schooling + final year ofsecondary education)

1995, 1999, 2003, 2007

46 countries in 2003 (12 EUMember States + Bulgaria,Norway, Romania)

Performance in mathematics and science; attitudesand self-concept; curriculum and classroom prac-tices; teacher and school characteristics.

– Breakdown by grade, gender, maths and scienceknowledge, attitudes and self-concept, home so-cioeconomic of pupils at grades 4 and 8;– extensive information about teaching and learn-ing of mathematics and science collected from stu-dents, teachers and school principals.

World Values Survey(WVS)

Worldwide investigation ofsociocultural changes andvalues and beliefs of peo-ple in a particular society

Individuals more than 15years old.

Irregular; last Europeanwave in 1999

1999-2001: 60 societies cov-ering 6 continents (almost60 % of the world’s popu-lation), 24 EU countries

Surveys on a range of social, political and moral is-sues. Questions on citizenship and democracy.

Survey organised through a network of leadinguniversities all around the world (about 80 coun-tries).

Eurobarometer onlifelong learning(DG PRESS, DG EAC,Cedefop)

Opinion of EU citizens onLLL

Individual, at least 15 yearsold

In 2003 (EU-15, Iceland,Norway)

In EU 10 (new MemberStates)

Past learning experiences, learning preferences, ob-stacles and incentives, opinion on lifelong learning,important skills, learning conducive environment.

Breakdown possible by country and sociodemo-graphic characteristics (e.g. gender, age groups,occupational status, subjective assessment of ur-banisation).

Eurobarometer on VET(DG PRESS, DG EAC, Cedefop)

Opinion of EU citizens oncontinuing and initial vo-cational training

Individual aged 18 to 64

In 2004

EU Member States

Source of acquired knowledge and skills, formsof CVT during and outside working time, recenttraining and reasons, training policy in the work-place, guidance on and objectives of training, fu-ture training.

Breakdown by country and sociodemographic char-acteristics (e.g. gender, age groups, occupationalstatus, subjective assessment of urbanisation).

Second on InformationTechnology inEducation Study(SITES) (InternationalOrganisation forEducation Assessment -IEA)

SITES-M1: Educational useof ICTSITES-M2: innovative ped-agogical practices using ICT

SITES-M1: principals andtechnology coordinators inschools using computers atvarious grades (mandatorypopulation: 14 years old);SITES-M2: teachers andlearners in schools of grade6, grades 7-9 and grades 10-12

SITES-M1: 1998-99; SITES-M2: 2000-01; next issue:2006

SITES-M1: 26 countries (13EU, Bulgaria, Norway.);SITES-M2: 28 countries (13EU, Norway).

ICT in education related policies, teacher charac-teristics, pedagogical practices using ICT.

– Breakdown by grade;– SITES 2006 will deal with the impact of invest-ments in ICT in education.

Bainbridge, S. et al. Learning for employment:second report on vocational education and train-ing policy in Europe. Luxembourg: Office for Of-ficial Publications of the European Communities,2004 (Cedefop Reference series, 51).

Bainbridge, S.; Murray, J. An age of learning:vocational education and training policy at Euro-pean level. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publi-cations of the European Communities, 2000 (Cede-fop Reference series).

Descy, P.; Tessaring, M. The value of learning:evaluation and impact of education and train-ing: third report on vocational training researchin Europe: synthesis report. Luxembourg: Officefor Official Publications of the European Com-munities, 2005 (Cedefop Reference series).

Descy, P.; Tessaring, M. Training and learningfor competence: second report on vocational ed-ucation and training research in Europe: syn-thesis report. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publi-cations of the European Communities, 2001 (Cede-fop Reference series, 6).

European Commission - Standing Group onIndicators and Benchmarks. Overview of in-ternational statistical surveys relevant for educa-tion and training. Brussels: European Commis-sion, 2005. [Internal working document].

Leney, T. et al. Achieving the Lisbon goal: thecontribution of VET: final report for the EuropeanCommission. 15.10.2004. Available from Internet:http://www.refernet.org.uk/documents/Achiev-ing_the_Lisbon_goal.pdf [cited 13.9.2005].

Bibliography

Key words

Vocational education and training, skills, statistics, data sources.


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Tessaring, M. Training for a changing society: areport on current vocational education and train-ing research in Europe. 2nd ed. Luxembourg: Of-fice for Official Publications of the European Com-munities, 1999 (Cedefop Reference series).

Tessaring, M.; Wannan, J. Vocational educationand training - key to the future: Lisbon-Copen-hagen-Maastricht: mobilising for 2010: Cedefop

synthesis of the Maastricht study. Luxembourg:Office for Official Publications of the EuropeanCommunities, 2004 (Cedefop synthesis of theMaastricht study). Available from Internet:http://www.trainingvillage.gr/etv/HomePages/Front_page_news/Cedefop-Synthesis-report-of-the-Maas-tricht-Study-Final_EN.pdf [cited 13.9.2005].

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