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European Qualifications Framework |
The salient steps in the process
The European Council of Lisbon in March 2000 was the starting point for a virtuous process, which has involved the Member States and their respective national systems of vocational education and training. Due to a common need to deal with new problems deriving from rapid economic, social and technological change and from the continuous need to renew the skills of citizens-workers, European countries decided to focus together on developing their education and training systems, to increase Europe’s competitiveness. Lisbon opened up the prospect of close cooperation in the field of vocational education and training (VET) between Member States.
A comparison of the various national systems revealed a complex and multiform panorama, characterised by significant differences between systems of education and training on a national and regional level and by different conditions of overall system governance. From the point of view of educational, training and employment opportunities, the benefits of the European system remained above all theoretical, due to a lack of transparent qualifications and a lack of provisions allowing citizens to transfer their skills from one system to another.
In order to deal with this situation, it was necessary to translate the principles established in Lisbon into concrete actions. This was the thrust of the Copenhagen Declaration of 30 November 2002, in which the Education Ministers of 31 European countries (Member States, Candidate Countries and EEA Countries) laid down priorities, within the proposal for a European common framework aimed at achieving various objectives, including:
- encouraging mobility and lifelong learning by making qualifications and competences transparent;
- improving the quality of vocational education and training systems;
- facilitating the personalised access of all citizens to higher education and training pathways through the recognition and validation of non-formal and informal learning;
- establishing a common approach for transferring the results of learning from one system to another;
- establishing a common reference code for education and training systems based on learning outcomes.
In pursuit of the “transparency”objective, the prospect of a single framework for the transparency of qualifications and competences was developed. The idea was to bring together the various tools of transparency deployed on a European level within a single, more visible and manageable format, bearing the “Europass logo”.
The outcome of this process was Decision n.2241/2004 of the European Parliament and Council, which established the Single European Framework for the transparency of qualifications and competences: Europass.
With reference to the objective of “quality”, in the Document of the Council of the European Union of May 2004 on ensuring quality in education and vocational training, the Member States and the Commission were requested to promote a common framework to ensure quality in education and training, to coordinate activities at a national and regional level between the main players involved in education and vocational training, and to provide incentives for the creation of cooperation networks to allow transnational exchanges of the best practices deployed in the various countries. April 2008 saw the Proposal for a Recommendation to ensure quality in vocational education and training .
In pursuit of the objective of “recognition and validation of non-formal and informal learning”, it was once again the Council of the European Union in May 2004 which established the Common European Principles for the identification and validation of non-formal and informal learning.
In 2002, work began on establishing a common approach for the transfer of learning outcomes, with the first Proposal of the European Commission on the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET), inspired by the ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) framework, already in use in the academic field, to allow the transfer and capitalisation of learning outcomes when moving from one learning context or national system to another. The construction process of the ECVET system, whose reasons were reinforced in the Maastricht Communiqué of 14 December 2004, was consolidated with the starting of the consultation between Countries (Commission staff working document – October 2006), only recently concluded and resulting in the Proposal for a Recommendation of 9 April 2008.
In function of the objectiveof a“common code of reference for the education and training system”, discussions began on a single European framework, which would make it possible to relate and collocate the various qualifications (diplomas, certificates etc.) issued by Member States within a level-based structure.
In the meeting of Heads of Government held in Brussels in March 2005, consultations between Member States were promoted and then started, to assess the various views on the prospect of setting up the single framework and to consider the possible impact of a meta-structure of this type on the various national systems. On the basis of the conclusions of the consultation process, a Proposal for a Recommendation on creating the European qualification framework for lifelong learning (EQF) was presented by the Commission on 5 September 2006, leading to the definitive Recommendation in April 2008.
In all the processes described, a central concept is that of “lifelong learning”, a guiding principle of European policy in the field of education and training since 2001, with the issue of the Communiqué on “Achieving a European area of lifelong learning”.
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What is the EQF?
The European Qualification Framework (EQF) is a translation instrument – a conversion and reading grid – which makes it possible to relate and collocate the various qualifications (diplomas, certificates etc.) issued by the Member States within an 8-level structure; their comparison is based on learning outcomes.
It is a meta-structure in the light of which, on a voluntary basis, the Member States are asked to reconsider their own education and training systems, to establish links between the individual national systems of reference for qualifications and the EQF.
The EQF is thus not a duplication of the national systems at a European level, nor is it an attempt to impose standardisation of the qualifications at a European level.
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Why a Single Framework, and for whose benefit?
The EQF was designed and set up to work as a common code of reference, in order to allow the various European countries to position their national systems and make them comprehensible.
Specifically, the EQF can:
- simplify communication between players involved in the education and training processes of the various countries and within each country
- allow the translation, collocation and comparison between different learning outcomes, allowing qualifications and competences to be used also outside the country in which they were earned
- make it easier to match the needs expressed by the labour market and the education and training opportunities offered in the various countries
- support the validation processes for non-formal and informal learning
- act as a common point of reference for the quality and development of education and training
- contribute to the development of qualifications at a sectoral level, acting as a point of reference. Common levels of reference and descriptors should make it easier for stakeholders to identify the interconnections and synergies with the sectoral qualifications
- stimulate and guide reforms and the development of new national qualification structures
A complex structure such as the EQF has been designed to simplify processes with benefits on various levels and for various categories of beneficiaries. It obviously intends to facilitate political players and the institutions in the various European countries, and to make it easier to compare systems. It aims to make the labour market more dynamic and to help businesses, which could, for example, find it easier to consider and assess people from various countries on an equal footing, in a move towards establishing a more mobile and flexible European workforce. Moreover, from the citizens’ point of view, the EQF aims to ensure that qualifications and skills are more “portable”, giving them a greater opportunity to assess job and education/training opportunities in the various countries of Europe.
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The key elements of the Single Framework
There are essentially three key elements characterising the structure:
- Common levels The first of the key elements defining the EQF is represented by the common levels of reference, correlated to the learning outcomes and collocated in an 8-level structure. The level structure makes it possible to organise in ascending order – from lowest to highest complexity – the learning outcomes that can be achieved in the course of a lifetime, by means not only of formal, but also of non-formal and informal processes. Learning outcomes state what a person is expected to know, understand and/or is able to do, upon completion of a learning process; using the learning outcome as a comparative parameter means going beyond a comparative approach based on learning methods and processes. In the EQF, the learning outcomes are represented using descriptors of knowledge, skills and competences, also in line with the new formulation of the key competences. On the basis of this structure it becomes possible – at a national, regional or sectoral level – to classify academic and professional qualifications (diplomas, certificates, etc.), at the appropriate EQF level and certify the learning outcomes people have achieved.
- Common principles The second key element is constituted by the range of common principles agreed on at a European level on the quality of education and vocational training systems, on the validation of non-formal learning, and on key competences, and aims at achieving mutual recognition. This set of principles and procedures provide the guidelines for cooperation on various levels.
- Tools The third component is the set of instruments aimed at responding to the needs of individual citizens:
- an integrated European credit transfer system for lifelong learning (ECVET)
- the Europass portfolio
- the Ploteus database on learning opportunities
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EQF: how it relates to ECVET
The integrated European credit transfer system (ECVET) is part of the set of instruments included in the EQF strategy. In practice, it is a system which assigns credit points to qualifications and/or to their component units. A unit is defined as the “smallest part” of a curriculum, of an education or training process, or of a qualification, and corresponds to a specific combination of knowledge,skills and competences. Each unit may vary in size, according to the national education and training system of reference. It corresponds to a specific result at an industrial level, in terms of expected results. A unit is associated with a professional figure/profile in turn inserted within a given level of the qualifications structure.
The credits are assigned to the learning outcomes achieved, taking into consideration the set of knowledges, skills and competences required for a qualification or a unit. The requirements for acquiring a qualification or a unit must be defined by the competent bodies at a national level. The integrated European credit transfer system explicitly correlates the units to the levels of the EQF for the purposes of capitalising and collecting credits.
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EQF: the relation with Europass
Europass, like the ECVET, is also a functional tool as part of the EQF strategy.
It was in December 2004 that the Commission adopted the decision on the single Framework for the transparency of Europass qualifications and competences. The device inserts the qualifications and competences within a perspective of lifelong learning, focusing on:
Europass has thus brought together within a single framework a set of documents that can be used to make one’s qualifications and competences transparent and more easily understood. Europass does not however allow various levels to be compared, and its development is thus closely connected to the creation of the EQF. In future, the documents making up the portfolio, with particular reference to the Diploma Supplement and Certificate Supplement, will have to contain a clear reference to the appropriate EQF level.
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Repercussions of the EQF in Italy
In order to set up the EQF, the national authorities of each country have been requested to establish links between their own systems of qualifications and the Single Framework itself. Under the Proposal for a recommendation, formalised by the European Commission on 5 September 2006, each Member State should take steps, by the end of 2009, to establish such links, in particular with relation to the eight learning levels established under the EQF. By the end of 2011 all the certificates/ qualifications issued in the various countries should contain a reference to the Single European Framework, so that they can be “legible” in the various national systems and can be “spent” as training credits.
Italy’s response to the request from Europe became concrete in 2007, when a committee for the construction of a national system of minimum professional, certification and training standards, promoted by the Minister of Labour, started work. The committee has the objective of defining a national standards system coherent with the setting up of the EQF. The committee members are the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Universities and Research, the Regional Councils, the Independent Provincial Councils and social partners.
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