Live&Learn Issue 34

Live&Learn NEWS AND VIEWS FROM ACROSS THE ETF COMMUNITY

ISSUE 34 – OCTOBER 2015

Interview with

Director-General Servoz Torino Process – Seven key themes | 06 Voices from the field – Kyrgyzstan and former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia | 08 Country focus – Georgia | 12

INSIDE 04 Meet Michel Servoz

CONTACT US

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Moving skills forward together

Migration: Making skills a strategic imperative

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Voices from the field: Kyrgyzstan and former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

GEMM: Pilot projects’ progress

Further information can be found on the ETF website: www.etf.europa.eu For any additional information, please contact: Communication Department European Training Foundation ADDRESS Villa Gualino, Viale Settimio Severo 65, I – 10133 Torino, Italy TELEPHONE +39 011 630 2222 FAX +39 011 630 2200 EMAIL info@etf.europa.eu

To receive a copy of Live&Learn please email info@etf.europa.eu

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Country focus: Georgia

Harvesting knowledge: A Moldovan winemaker’s journey abroad

The European Training Foundation is the European Union’s centre of expertise supporting vocational and training reforms in the context of the European Union’s external relations programmes.

Print ISSN 1725-9479 TA-AF-15-034-EN-C PDF ISSN 2443-7433 TA-AF-15-034-EN-N @ European Training Foundation, 2015 Cover photograph: European Union

Please recycle this magazine when you finish with it.

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Editorial

SUCCESS IN VET The vocational education and training (VET) agenda received new impetus in June with the Torino Process conference, the biennial progress update of VET in partner countries. A high-level ministerial meeting took place the same month, focusing on improving the quality and status of VET by 2020.

Highlighting success stories of VET was a key action that emerged. The attractiveness of VET, or lack-there-of, is seen as a barrier not only to potential students but their parents. Sharing the good news stories will help make VET a first choice option.

In this issue…

The ETF is doing just that, shining a spotlight on the people advancing the agenda.

Earlier this year we recruited five young journalists to report on VET. Their stories – Voices from the Field – are in. From graduates to older-jobseekers, we get two very different perspectives from the ground in Kyrgyzstan and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

In Tbilisi, Georgia, we visit an entrepreneurial community ensuring vocational education is a pathway open to all students, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

in a Mobility-Partnership programme to hone his skills abroad. He’s back home, helping his harvest and his economy grow.

From Moldova, it’s win-win-wine! for one young winemaker who took part

Across the southern Mediterranean, many countries continue to face high

unemployment. The Governance for Employability in the Mediterranean pilot-project is working with two priority groups: women and youth.

We check-in to see how the initiative is helping countries develop VET systems that better meet labour market demands.

And our cover story, Michel Servoz, Director-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, European Commission, shares his insights on the critical role of skills, employment and migration.

As Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, told the Torino Process conference, VET should become a first, not second choice.

To achieve this for students, parents and most of all employers, requires commitment from many stakeholders.

The ETF, for its part, is helping candidate countries make this a reality.

Photos: ETF/Davide Bozzalla October 2015

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Interview

MEET MICHEL SERVOZ Michel Servoz oversees Social Affairs and Inclusion at the European Commission. In June, he was in Italy for the high-level Torino Process conference – biennial look at the development of skills and vocational education and training (VET) in partner countries. Key themes were making VET more attractive and aligning it with the needs of the labour market. We caught up with Michel Servoz to get his insights.

Photo: European Union

A growing number of young people in Europe are entering higher education, yet employers continue to complain of skills shortages.

How is the EU addressing this, and what advice do you have for the ETF’s partner countries?

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Adjusting to labour market needs and avoiding skill mismatches requires flexible education and training opportunities that combine different types and levels of learning throughout life. The Commission is very committed to assist Member States in modernising their education

and training systems to help deliver further growth and competiveness.

Ministers from EU Member States, candidate countries, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein renewed their efforts to raise the status and quality of VET at

a meeting in June. The result was a set of new medium-term deliverables, known as the Riga conclusions.

This includes five priority areas: implementing quality assurance; increasing access to VET qualifications for all; more work-based learning and apprenticeships; a stronger focus on key competences; and initial and continuing professional development of VET staff.

The European Alliance for Apprenticeships also seeks to effectively mobilise EU Member States, candidate countries and a large number of stakeholders to engage in quality apprenticeships to facilitate young people’s transition to the labour market.

recognised qualification. Most often there is a contractual relationship between the employer and the apprentice, with the apprentice being paid for their work.

Apprenticeships have proven to be highly advantageous. Companies investing in apprenticeships are able to better shape the skills they require, gain fresh ideas and innovation. For individuals, combining study and work allows them to acquire work experience while gaining skills sought by employers. This reduces mismatches, offers a stepping stone into the labour market, and may result in a job offer from the company where they have trained.

This has been accompanied by the actions focused on making qualifications more relevant to the workplace: the increasing use of learning outcomes approaches to define qualifications and development of National Qualifications Frameworks.

By the end of the year, we will issue some guiding principles on how to implement apprenticeships when it comes to governance, support for companies, attractiveness and career guidance, and quality assurance. These have been developed with the help of Member States, social partners and VET providers.

High unemployment in ETF partner countries requires targeted and effective interventions that promote entrepreneurship, supports active labour market policies, focuses on the links between VET and employment through work-based learning, and last but not least, links skills to transparent and recognised qualifications.

While it is vital to equip young people with job-relevant skills, the guaranteed so-called job-for-life model is in decline.

What can policy makers in partner countries do to ensure VET systems equip young people with skills for life and work?

Apprenticeships are seen as a powerful means of facilitating the access of young people to the labour market.

What lessons does the EU have for countries that are trying to move from school-based to work-based learning in VET? The growing interest in apprenticeships in Europe is due to the positive correlation between these practices and low youth unemployment. This is the case for example in Austria, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Apprenticeships are a successful form of work-based learning, which in comparison to school-based learning is more responsive to labour market needs. They are part of formal education and training, alternate and combine company-based training with schoolbased education, and lead to a nationally

Skills are a global currency and only the best prepared and most skilled economies will innovate and grow, thus furthering prosperity for future generations.

A substantial improvement in the partner countries’ capacity to identify, anticipate and match future skills, and labour market needs, is a precondition for the design of efficient employment, education and training policies. Reducing the skills mismatch requires better labour market information followed by public actions and mechanisms to improve the responsiveness of education and training to labour market demands.

Partner countries’ modernisation of their education and training systems should also include a reform of governing structure and qualifications systems.

These help push the transition focus towards outcomes instead of inputs, thus helping create quality assurance systems.

Mobility is an issue in the context of increasing migration. The ETF is helping partner countries develop migrant support measures from an employment and skills perspective.

How do you see the ETF’s work fit into the broader EU policy picture?

Europe has to manage migration better, in all its aspects, from asylum to legal migration and integration – this is one of the political priorities of the Juncker Commission. Several proposals were put forward in the European Agenda on Migration, published in May 2015.

Attracting migrants with the skills profile European labour markets need, and helping migrants who flee war and persecution to build and use their skills will be key challenges for the future.

This requires work before a person moves – whenever this is possible, during the move, and in case of circular migration, also when returning to the country of origin. The ETF’s work on migrant support measures from an employment and skills perspective (MISMES) yields very valuable insights.

Supporting partner countries in the EU neighbourhood regions to develop their national VET systems and employment policies is key to upskill human capital and improve employability whether migration happens or not.

What is your number one priority for the ETF in the next three to five years?

We have been talking about migration, and clearly managing migration is a crucial issue for the European Union, for our relationship with neighbour countries and indeed for peace in the whole region.

The ETF doesn’t need to change its strategic priorities until 2017 for work with neighbouring countries, which remain: reinforcing evidence-based VET policy analysis; modernising VET systems in a lifelong learning; and increasing the relevance of VET provision in respect of the labour market, economic and social cohesion.

As mentioned above, if the ETF properly pursues these objectives it will contribute to successfully implementing the European agenda on migration.

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Torino Process ⏐ News and views

MOVING SKILLS FORWARD TOGETHER The Torino Process conference explored a range of topics on VET reform in ETF partner countries.

Over the two days, seven principal themes emerged.

Torino played host to the high-level conference bringing together policy makers, officials, academics, experts and media.

Action: making a difference ETF Director Madlen Serban urged delegates to find ways to make a real difference to people’s lives. “We must work together to find solutions,” she said.

“The focus here will be on what can be achieved, not what can’t.” Her colleague, Anastasia Fetsi, highlighted the “serious issues” the sector needs to confront, in particular the number of young people not in employment, education, or training.

This exacerbates social and economic exclusion, she warned, leading to serious consequences.

Marianne Thyssen, called for VET to be “people’s first choice, not a second option.” Improving the image of VET also resonated throughout the event.

Egypt’s Minister for Technical Education and Training, Ahmed Mohamed Youssef, highlighted the need to promote VET success stories to the public. And while making VET appeal to students and their families is one priority, it must also be attractive to employers, said Barbara Rambousek, Senior Inclusion Specialist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

them access to employment. Director of the Society of the Irish Motor Industry, Alan Nolan, reminded delegates that employers are themselves customers of the skills system. Closer alignment requires a more meaningful dialogue between VET institutions, governments and employers. As the Vice-President of Agroindsind, Moldova, Leonard Palii, put it: “The basis of a successful VET system is the interaction between the education system and labour market.”

A bigger picture: the holistic view

Alignment: a balancing act Attractiveness: the case for VET European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility,

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Also discussed was the delivery of graduates with skills that the labour markets demand, in order to give

VET systems must increasingly focus on the people who go through them, both at policy level and when designing courses. To achieve this, participants

increasingly difficult to do, however.

Skills needs are notoriously hard to forecast, and are becoming more unpredictable as organisations face deep-seated global megatrends. As ETF’s Helmut Zelloth explained, these include digitisation, demographic change, migration, and globalisation.

VET governance should therefore be structured to provide flexibility, along with closer integration between providers and employers. The European Association of Craft and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises’ Thomas Mayr, told participants: “VET has to be delivered at least partly in the workplace.

That’s how to make it responsive.”

An entrepreneurial mind-set: learning to create value

called for a bottom-up approach to VET policy. “Start at local level,” urged a delegate from Algeria, “analyse knowledge and capabilities, then build capacity based on what you find.”

Agility: responding to change Georgia’s First Deputy Minister of Education and Science, Ketevan Natriashvili, flagged the responsibility of VET systems to reflect what’s happening around them, and to be able to quickly adapt their offering in line with market trends. This is becoming

To respond to far-reaching change, said Madlen Serban, “We need an entrepreneurial mind-set everywhere; in schools, colleges, universities and workplaces.” Director of the South East European Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, Efka Heder, described entrepreneurialism as “a core twenty-first century competence.” But it means more than just encouraging people to start businesses. It requires a sociallyoriented approach to encouraging innovative, purposeful, and long-term value creation. It also means instilling a willingness to take risks, and to not fear failure, as the Club of Rome’s Gunter Pauli said in his keynote.

And for VET systems, it means delivering hands-on, project-based, multidisciplinary courses; not necessarily what the sector is used to providing.

Assuring quality: monitoring VET provision Monitoring quality is vital for tracking the implementation and impact of VET strategies, and to produce data that can help set standards and inform policy.

Russian Ministry of Education and Science’s Natalia Zolotareva explained that evaluation has been part of the Torino Process since 2010, and monitoring procedures were strengthened during the 2014 round. Since then, partner countries have embraced monitoring and made significant progress. Areas for improvement were also identified, including selection of key performance indicators, integration of monitoring tools into countries’ evaluation systems, involvement of stakeholders in generating information, and ability to convert evidence into insight for policymaking.

However, Madlen Serban warned against “monitoring fatigue,” adding that the large quantities of data being produced must be integrated into a meaningful body of evidence.

Last words With the Torino Declaration announced the conference drew to a close, and Twitter buzzed with messages from participants. ETF governance expert Siria Taurelli summed up the task ahead: “Conference ends, work begins. #TRP2015.”

Text: Ezri Carlebach Photos: ETF/Davide Bozzalla

The Torino Process is about building the evidence base for VET reform, and supporting partner countries’ policy makers to design and implement good public policy.

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Voices from the field ⏐ Kyrgyzstan

WHAT’S IN A NAME? VET’S STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION IN KYRGYZSTAN Askar Erkebaev looks at why students prefer academic study in Kyrgyzstan, despite the better job prospects VET offers.

In Kyrgyzstan only 30,000 students are enrolled in the country’s 101 vocational study institutions, with 12,000 places remaining vacant.

Timur, 26, works for the Department of International Law at the Kyrgyz Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He started at the Department full of enthusiasm, dreaming of a diplomatic career.

Instead, he finds himself in a low-ranking job, on a low salary and with limited future prospects.

Over his four years working at the Ministry, he has become increasingly demotivated.

“I began as an unpaid intern, to gain some work experience during my final year at university. I even continued after graduating, only to be appointed to the most junior post. Now I regret taking the job.”

But at least Timur has a job. Many of his peers are struggling to find work in their field of study. Sultan is 24, and studied finance at the same university as Timur.

But he found local employers needed different skills.

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“On applying for jobs, I was told that there are too many economists and financial specialists on the market,” explains Sultan. “So I worked as a trade agent for a couple of years, but found it unsatisfying. It didn’t make use my skills.” He left, and is now unemployed, admitting: “Maybe I chose the wrong subject to study.”

Timur and Sultan’s experiences are common. Kyrgyz students prefer to study the professions, despite weak demand for them in this small, underperforming Central Asian economy.

According to the Ministry of Education, Kyrgyzstan has 52 universities, with 230,000 students – among a population of 5.8 million. Every year 30,000-35,000 young people enrol in universities, up to 60 percent of them for humanities or economics courses. Only 30-40 percent find jobs in their chosen fields after graduating. The rest work in other

areas, or join the growing ranks of the unemployed.

A Ministry of Labour, Youth and Migration report numbered around 205,000 people unemployed in Kyrgyzstan at the beginning of 2015, with at least a third of them being young people. But official data is thought to understate the case: the actual numbers are probably much higher.

The high rates of unemployment could in part be explained by Kyrgyzstan’s developing economy, where stable employment and decent salaries are rare.

The average wage is less than 200 euros and is being eroded in real terms by rising inflation. Many people are leaving for Russia in search of higher-paid jobs.

A practical edge There is a third option for young Kyrgyzstanis looking to improve their prospects, besides studying a profession

or moving abroad. They could choose vocational education and training (VET).

Kyrgyzstan has a four-stage VET system: initial, secondary, higher and continuing education. But according to the state, only around 30,000 students are currently enrolled at Kyrgyzstan’s 101 vocational study institutions.

Baktygul Kokusheva is a product of the VET system. The 32-year-old studied flower arrangement, graduating in 2002.

She immediately found employment and now runs her own flower shop.

“Thanks to the VET system, I learned a profession while getting my secondary school diploma,” she explains. “The course combined study with practice, which is why I was able to find a job.”

Baktygul found vocational learning of more practical use than academic study.

After her VET course, she began parttime study at university, but found she was learning nothing new. “I’d learned what I needed on my VET course, so had no need to study at university just for a higher education diploma.”

University graduates themselves are also seeing the practical benefits of VET. Adyl Taylakov, senior specialist at the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Analysis at Kyrgyzstan’s VET Agency, points out that in 2014, 2,000 graduates took short-term VET courses to obtain manual skills and help them to secure jobs.

He underlines the advantages of the country’s vocational education: “It’s flexible, and can cater for all levels – school pupils, students and graduates.

For example, school pupils can get a profession alongside their secondary education. After that, they’re free to choose – they can study at university or begin immediate employment.”

Nikita Dyikan studied IT security at a VET college, and found a job as soon as he’d finished. He’s since worked at a leading

internet service provider, run the IT security department at a large, stateowned military plant, and worked for two government agencies. Now, aged just 24, he has his own business.

Like Baktygul, he studied part-time at a university after completing his VET studies, but learned little that was new to him.

“I desperately needed work, so applied for VET study after school,” he says. “Within a year, I’d learned IT security practice, and can now afford to work for myself. I didn’t need university study. VET made not just my career, but my whole life.”

Image problem Adyl Taylakov points out that the Kyrgyz VET system prepares about 15,000 qualified workers every year. Up to 80 percent of them find employment, as their skills are in demand: the Kyrgyz economy actually needs an estimated 30,000 skilled specialists to enter the workforce each year.

“New businesses are starting every day,” he says. “So Kyrgyzstan needs qualified workers. That’s why VET graduates can find jobs paying 250-350 euros, which are decent salaries in Kyrgyzstan.”

So with better job prospects on offer, and as VET education is free, why are there currently 12,000 unfilled places on vocational courses in Kyrgyzstan?

people in demand are construction workers, cooks, tailors, agricultural workers, welders and carpenters.”

To combat the stereotype, the Ministry of Labour, Youth and Migration and the Ministry of Education are planning a national promotional campaign. The aim is to boost understanding of the importance of VET, and promote the professions in demand. This may be Kyrgyzstan’s best hope of helping its young people make informed choices – choices that will give them the best possible prospects of employment.

Text: Askar Erkebaev Photos: ETF

The problem is a negative perception.

According to Taalaybek Cholponkulov, director of the state VET Agency, it’s an image that hails back to Soviet times, but persists among Kyrgyz youth.

VET schools were – and are – seen as places where troublesome young people end up.

“It is an old prejudice, which stops many young people applying to VET institutions,” an official explains. “They find it hard to accept the reality that there are too many economists, lawyers and diplomats. Yet the fact is that the

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Voices from the field ⏐ Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

NEW TRICKS: TRAINING PROGRAMMES FOR OLDER WORKERS IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA Older workers make up a growing share of the unemployed, but are not taking up training opportunities. Zaklina Hadzi-Zafirova reports.

Former textile mill owner Velimir Vasilevski started driving cabs when his business closed.

The then 60-year-old felt he was too old to retrain and start a new business.

Velimir Vasilevski has lived a few lives already. He’s been a technical director at a factory in Yugoslavia. He was a textile mill owner in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s early years of independence.

And he’s been unemployed. Now, at 64, he drives a taxi, a job he hopes will provide him with some security in retirement.

It’s not that he lacked other opportunities.

Since 2007, the country has rolled out various initiatives to boost people’s job prospects – small-business training, grants, retraining for skilled professions – but has failed to achieve the desired take-up.

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That’s despite an unemployment rate of about 28 percent in 2014, and less-thanpositive prospects for high-school and university graduates. According to ETF data, the proportion of 20 to 34-yearolds finding jobs within three years of graduating has been below 45 percent since at least 2012. This is well below the EU average of 76 percent.

For older job-seekers, who make up a growing share of the country’s unemployed, learning a new skill or starting a business can be a step too far. When his textile mill closed four years ago, Velimir could have taken advantage of a

programme that trains and provides grants to entrepreneurs. But at 60, he was four years away from receiving a pension.

“It didn’t pay for me to start my own business. It takes at least three years to really get a company working. By the time that happened, I would probably have retired,” he says.

What’s more, the country’s economic prospects didn’t prove tempting. “Now would be a bad time for me to open a factory,” Velimir affirms. “Who knows if I would sell anything?”

Empty seats While it’s especially challenging to get older workers into training, the country’s recent efforts to attract adults of any age have fallen flat. Only 3.6 percent of working-age Macedonians participated in adult education in 2013 – a third of the EU average – according to the ETF. Only about 300 adults have attended courses in Macedonian since 2012, when the government started certifying independent institutions that offer entrepreneurship and other employmentrelated training. Of those, about 100 have found jobs, according to the government’s Adult Education Centre – a drop in the ocean compared to an unemployment figure of more than 265,000.

Officials say most people stay away from the training programmes because, with a few exceptions, they cost money. Tuition fees for courses at the Open Civic University in Skopje, for example, range from USD 280 for typing, to more than twice that to train as a beautician. The country’s average monthly salary was around USD 550 in February 2015.

The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia does offer a limited number of free spaces for those willing to train for in-demand professions, the list of which is updated each year. This year, 180 unemployed people will be selected for training in cookery, accountancy, tourism, hairdressing, waiting and energy-efficient gas system installation.

Irena Milkov, head of the Adult Education Centre’s department for preparation of standards, procedures, and criteria, says the government needs to subsidise

more training places and launch more promotional campaigns for courses.

Barriers to entry Since 2007, 6,800 people have taken up government-sponsored entrepreneurship training and grants. These relatively modest numbers could be down to more than just a lack of places or awareness.

One 30-year-old woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, claims the programme did not go beyond writing a business plan. She was also frustrated by a requirement that grant recipients must run a business for at least three years after getting funded.

A pregnancy derailed her plans to open a language school, but she says her explanations were lost on bureaucrats, who seemed more concerned about boosting job-creation figures than whether her business actually succeeded. Pressed to set up shop, she ended up in debt, without customers, and unable to get onto the jobseekers register because she was classed as self-employed.

opening a new Employment Service Agency. But the Agency’s director, Vlatko Popovski, says the proportion of older people taking advantage of the new training opportunities has been disappointing. It has reached only around 10 percent for unemployed people between the ages of 40 and 50 years.

Above 50 years old, this drops to 4 percent.

“My obligation was that the firm should exist for three years, and it’s your risk as to whether the business goes well or poorly,” she says.

“There’s a stigma surrounding education and taking new classes,” says Popovski.

Beyond age According to government statistics, there were almost 59,000 unemployed Macedonians aged 50 to 64 in the last quarter of 2014. While that accounts for about one-fifth of the total unemployed, it’s up 13 percent year-on-year, at a time when jobless numbers for younger workers are falling.

The government is trying to raise the visibility of its training schemes by

But he points out that gaining new skills during the latter stages of working life could open up opportunities, as companies are now waking up to the value of older workers.

Popovski explains: “Companies have already started to look beyond the usual age limit, because they see people over 35 as being more serious about work obligations. In the future, we expect [age] prejudices to disappear, because across Europe, older workers are in demand.”

Text and photos: Zaklina Hadzi-Zafirova

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Country focus ⏐ Georgia

BALANCING ACT: GEORGIA’S PARTNERSHIP ORIENTED APPROACH Public and private sectors and citizens alike, vocational education and training (VET) reform offers opportunities and rewards to all concerned. It also requires long-term investment and a collaborative approach to policy development. Georgia is making strides to improve VET, access, and the entrepreneurial scene. The ETF paid a visit earlier this year to find out more.

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students with special needs is part-andparcel of making it accessible to anyone.

A commitment to making vocational education, skills and jobs open to all students, including disadvantaged backgrounds, shines through every aspect of the partnership-based entrepreneurial community in the capital Tbilisi.

“Inclusive education was introduced to the VET system in Georgia in 2013,” Gudushauri explains, following the country’s ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that year.

At the heart of the partnership is Mermisi College, a community VET school whose visionary principal, Nona Gudushauri, is adamant that making a college accessible to

“Once we started to enrol students with special needs we had to change some infrastructure in the college.

We provided a special elevator, a specially equipped bathroom, and now

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we’re following the requirements of universal design to meet all the possible requirements of students.”

The way the college accommodates students with special needs is not only through the building. As George Petriashvili explains, the human element is essential. After losing his sight in an industrial accident, he heard about Mermisi’s open approach and was soon enrolled.

“Frankly speaking, when I first got here I was a bit scared,” he admits, “especially

Mermisi College, a community VET school in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, is making vocational education an option for all.

in the first week. But after that I adapted to the situation, because of course my class mates as well as my lecturers and teachers helped me”.

Moreover, an inclusive attitude is good for all, as Nona Gudushauri has seen. “The inclusion of students with special needs into the environment of our college helps to improve the general situation in the college,” she observes, adding a list of benefits to the whole college community that includes improved communication, stronger relationships, and greater environmental awareness.

just asking you – ministers, politicians, employers – please hire people with special needs. We can do a good job for you.”

Nona Gudushauri stresses that this is not asking for an act of charity. “I’d like to encourage employers to open the doors for students with special needs and to hire them because they’re very good, they can do a good job and they’re very motivated.”

Just like any graduate of high-quality VET provision, you might argue. Indeed, Gudushauri’s long-term vision is for her college to give its graduates the greatest mobility and choice possible, by providing “a strong and valuable diploma, to enable them to continue their education in a leading European institution”.

Text: Ezri Carlebach Photos: ETF

The next step is to bring the potential of differently-abled graduates to the attention of Georgia’s employers.

Ketevan Chumburidze is one of several deaf and hearing-impaired students at Mermisi, but what primarily attracted her to the college was the opportunity to pursue her passion for cooking and traditional cuisine as a vocation.

Given the opportunity to share a message with the worlds of policy and industry she makes a very direct appeal: “I am October 2015

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Country focus ⏐ Georgia

EMPOWERMENT AND EDUCATION – A FORMULA FOR SUCCESS Young textile and design students with entrepreneurial ambitions.

Business skills are taught from a young age in Georgia, a country with high-levels of interest in entrepreneurship.

What about those who own, or want to start a business? As an employer, textiles manufacturer Natela Tsukhrukaidze recognizes that inclusive policies are in her own best interest when it comes to hiring talent for her workshops at KartuliSarmosi Ltd. “I recommend all employers to hire young people in general. Young specialists, people from colleges, because now that our country is developing again we definitely need new skills, new blood so to speak.

But I would also like to underline that they should definitely hire people with special needs.”

Mermisi graduate Khatia Laferashvili now works as a seamstress at KartuliSarmosi, and her experience shows that the strength of Mermisi’s partnerships with employers provides an effective pathway from learning to work.

“They taught me how to sew, how to work,” she recounts. “I can communicate better with people, that’s what the college 14

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gave me. I really like to work here and it is very important to me to be part of a team.”

Laferashvili also demonstrates how a combination of the communication skills, teamwork and relationship-building that she has gained both at Mermisi and at KartuliSarmosi could eventually lead to her becoming her own boss.

“In the future I want to become a designer,” she affirms.

Entrepreneurial mind-sets start in school The significance of this is not lost on Nino Chikovani, General Director of the

Georgian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI). When asked to explain why entrepreneurship is so important, her response is simple: “It’s the future of our economy.”

The CCI’s mission is to work with the private sector, business and entrepreneurs to drive economic growth. To achieve this, it brings the players together, starting from primary school age, to raise awareness and give them and their parents the right image of what entrepreneurship means.

CCI research shows a high level of interest in entrepreneurship in Georgia compared to other European countries.

Her team, part of the Junior Achievement Worldwide network, looks at the kinds of problems young people face in starting a business.

and Science, Deputy Minister Ketevan Natriashvili works closely with other ministries, the public, private and third sectors.

While JA’s research highlights needed skills, fed directly into curriculum planning, in Gegeshidze’s opinion, the main attribute for success is ‘entrepreneurial spirit’.

“We’re also focusing on social dialogue, because it is not only up to the government,” says Natriashvili. “It is important to involve all social partners in this process.”

But that isn’t some magical feeling that a person either does or doesn’t have. It’s something that emerges from the combination of empowerment and education on which the Junior Achievement Worldwide programme is based.

Whether the issue is entrepreneurship education, improving qualifications, or supporting returning migrants, policies are informed by social partnerships and consultation.

“Somehow we should give the youth this spirit,” says Gegeshidze, adding that the core elements are training, creative thinking, and financial literacy – all part of the flagship programme – Entrepreneurship Education for All of the Youth in Georgia.

For Chikovani, this is evidence that people believe that they can start their own business, which in turn highlights the importance of appropriate training.

“Young people have to get some knowledge about entrepreneurship and how to establish a company. They have to know aspects of the tax system, the market situation, the general economic situation, the export potential, and so on.”

The biggest challenge for Georgian youth is knowledge and skills, says Eka Gegeshidze, Executive Director of Junior Achievement (JA) Georgia, echoing Nino Chikovani’s view.

Nina Chikovani and Eka Gegeshidze don’t just share a view about what Georgian youth need, they actively collaborate in delivering the solutions.

“First of all the Chamber of Commerce saw that entrepreneurship education for youth was a problematic issue in Georgia,” says Gegeshidze.

These findings were presented to the Prime Minister, who quickly announced that every Georgian youth should have access to this kind of education. The CCI then ran a competition, leading to JA Georgia being commissioned to create the programme.

This partnership-oriented attitude is visible throughout the Georgian skills eco-system. At the Ministry of Education

However, Natriashvili is clear that producing good policy is not an end in itself.

“We develop policies only hoping that they will have the result at the college level, at the graduate level, and at the employer level,” she says.

If the partnerships in evidence here are anything to go by, those results will come about and Georgia will continue making progress on its journey towards sustainable, inclusive development and economic growth.

Policy, partnerships and the ETF Georgia is one of a group of nations, under the EU’s Eastern Partnership umbrella, promoting social and economic development through stronger democracy and better governance.

From a skills-based approach to migration, building entrepreneurial communities and working with qualification frameworks, much of this work is impacted by the policy areas the ETF is involved in.

Text: Ezri Carlebach Photos: ETF

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Skills dimension of migration

MIGRATION: MAKING SKILLS A STRATEGIC IMPERATIVE In the last issue of Live&Learn (no. 33, May 2015) we reported on the ongoing work to support policies that put the spotlight on the skills that migrants have, acquire, and use. The ETF’s inventory has been revised, and the results are in.

In 2014 the ETF conducted major research surveys in Albania, Egypt, Moldova, Tunisia, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, and Morocco to investigate the impact of specific support measures on potential and returning migrants. The ETF subsequently made a Global Inventory of these migrant support measures from an employment and skills perspective, known as MISMES, that provides a classification and assessment of the most commonly used measures worldwide.

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The Global Inventory records and explores policy measures that support migrants by focusing on their skills and on employment-related issues. These are defined as “specific policy interventions aimed at improving the labour market integration of migrant workers and/or at reducing the underutilisation of migrants’ skills”.

The 11 most commonly found models are briefly described and assessed in

terms of their efficiency and impact. The importance of this analysis is obvious at a time when migration is increasing. While the use of these measures has increased there is relatively little evidence about their outcomes or the best way to build on what is already being done.

One of the major challenges is a lack of data due to inconsistencies in the monitoring and evaluation of MISMES. As a result, the Global Inventory’s

The skills dimension of migration was the topic of a recent conference organised by the ETF in Brussels.

conclusions and recommendations are necessarily general, and include a call for concerted action by all the international, national, and non-national organisations involved to ensure better correlation of monitoring processes, impact assessment, and funding decisions.

Much of the attention that MISMES have enjoyed recently stems from the attractions of the so-called triple win scenario, in which migration leads to benefits for the sending countries, the receiving countries, and the migrants themselves. Few can seriously doubt that migration is here to stay, and maximising the benefits for all involved in this way will depend on appropriate policy efforts.

The main message of the revised Global Inventory is that MISMES can be an important tool in the management of legal and circular labour migration, thereby enabling the ‘triple win’ scenario. Greater interest in, and funding for, MISMES can therefore be used to improve migration management.

Here is a brief summary of some of the key recommendations.

Combine: The evidence points to better labour market outcomes in situations where a number of migrant support measures are combined and implemented together. While these measures should be evaluated in their own right, they must also be integrated with other measures, as well as with contextual factors and institutional arrangements.

Integrate: The more integrated MISMES are with sending countries’ national systems, the more effective they will

be. Local public institutions may be better placed to ensure the sustainability of MISMES, but they also tend to be most in need of capacity building.

Providing a natural setting for design and implementation of MISMES helps too, so bilateral labour mobility agreements between sending and receiving countries should be encouraged, along with incountry multi-sectoral partnerships and social dialogue.

Balance: Public and private involvement is needed for MISMES actions and for capacity building. Examples from some Asian countries suggest that even where projects are successfully implemented, long-term effectiveness is unlikely to materialise if the measures go against the grain of a country’s overall migration dynamics.

Invest: Skills are a strategic imperative for countries in Asia, where authorities are investing heavily in the skills of all labour migrants before they leave, and recognising their skills upon return. Doing this within the framework of their national qualification systems avoids introducing any distortion into their own labour markets. This kind of investment leads to the greatest dividends.

There are also some relatively straightforward steps that the international development community, working in partnership with ‘triple win’ players, could introduce to improve the volume and quality of evidence about MISMES. In particular EU institutions, Member States, and European Neighbourhood countries might consider two concrete research-related actions.

First, the development of a global repository of MISMES, hosted and coordinated on a voluntary basis.

And second, the creation and use of a mandatory information template and post-hoc evaluation method for all funded and implemented MISMES. The reality is that labour markets are growing more global and people will always leave home to find work. By focusing on the acquisition, development, and utilisation of skills, and by locating these skills firmly in the realm of appropriate employment, the ETF supports the ambition that, whether or not they return home at some point, those who leave do so for good – their own good, the good of their families and communities, and the good of the countries where they live and work.

Text: Ezri Carlebach

Link: Building more bridges between migration management and wider international development cooperation could help to strengthen skills partnerships between sending and receiving countries.

At the same time, ensuring that employers in receiving countries are directly involved at every stage of policy design and implementation greatly increases the chances of concrete jobs for migrants – an essential, if not sufficient, condition for the triple win to occur.

Photos: Studio Braxton

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Project update ⏐ Governance for Employability in the Mediterranean

GEMM: PILOT PROJECTS’ PROGRESS Linking vocational education and training (VET) governance with graduate employment outcomes in the Mediterranean region is the focus of a project run by the ETF. Nine pilot projects have been set up through Governance for Employability in the Mediterranean (GEMM). We check-in for a progress report.

Capable and connected GEMM has been hard at work bringing people from the region together through workshops, study visits, and conferences to exchange ideas and share best practices. The pilot projects are designed to take an action-oriented approach to the quality and relevance of VET. They have been created with input from all EU Delegations, and with local social partners, NGOs, government agencies, and multilateral organisations including the ILO, the World Bank, GIZ, and the Anna Lindh Foundation.

The pilots are all designed to test governance practices and skills matching capability at local level, and to be able to feed into national policy debates where appropriate. This supports a wider ambition on the part of the ETF’s work in the region in helping its partner countries overcome the obstacles of over-centralised systems that stifle labour market flexibility, particularly among the young and for women of all ages.

A Compendium will describe the projects in detail and draw out their specific contributions to the overall objective of GEMM, before outlining the similarities

The underlying ambition of GEMM is to help countries in the region develop two specific areas in their VET systems, namely their capability in governance and their connectivity with local labour markets.

Taking the multi-level model as its guiding metaphor, GEMM operates at national and sub-national level and across the range of actors involved.

GEMM supports three main areas under the capability banner; planning and management, finance and funding, and quality assurance. From the connectivity perspective, the focus is on matching local skills needs, developing career guidance, and tracing the paths of VET graduates to better understand their labour market fit.

Jordan (Zarqa) Labour market needs analysis – skills matching in the retail sector

Tunisia (Gabes) Labour market needs analysis – skills matching in the mechanic and construction sector

Algeria (Blida) Matching local skills needs

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Labour market needs analysis – skills matching in the construction and agrofood sector

Libya (Tripoli) Labour market needs analysis – skills matching in the tourism sector

Egypt (Manoufía) Labour market needs analysis – skills matching in the agriculture sector

Israel (South) Labour market needs analysis – skills matching, multisectoral

Pilots’ progress

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Text: Ezri Carlebach

Labour market analysis in the automobile and logistics sector

Career guidance

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Inevitably, the political difficulties that the region faces take their toll on the ability of any such projects to function effectively. But that only underlines the importance of establishing, delivering, and learning lessons from them.

Morocco (Tangier-Tétouan)

Important evidence is emerging from the projects, such as the impact of career guidance and work experience on employment outcomes. As we reported in Live&Learn (no. 31, July 2014) research in Lebanon demonstrated graduates who receive such support fare better than their contemporaries who don’t. Sharing this knowledge across the region while retaining local relevance is exactly where the ETF’s expertise adds value.

Seven of the pilot projects are concerned with local skills matching through various kinds of labour market analysis. The remaining two look at career guidance and tracer studies respectively (see infographic).

and differences between them. Basic information on the projects country by country will be augmented by an overview of lessons learned and recommendations for sustainable impact based on the projects’ structures and mechanisms.

Tracer studies

Lebanon (Beirut and Lebanon Mount) Career information and career guidance in the industrial sector Palestine (West Bank, Ramallah Mount and Lebanon Mount) VET graduate tracer study, multi-sectoral

PROBLEM

d the lack Joblessness an in the bs jo e bl of suita ann Mediterranea g young on m am rly la cu rti Pa omen. w d an le peop

Up to 60 million young people will join the workforce by the middle of the next decade in the countries of Southern and Eastern Mediterranean, yet the ETF's analysis shows that Vocational Education and Training (VET) is, in general,, of low quality and too centralised.

EMM The ETF designed the European Union-funded GEMM project to combat this, drawing on its extensive expertise and knowledge in the field of human capital development and projects in the ENP South region.

2 2

Levels Of EEngagement

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SOLUTION

DURATION

42 Months (February 2013 ).

16 20 st gu Au

K Key Constraints To Tackle

Requiring a shift from supply-driven to a demand-driven provision.

Insufficient labour demand In particular for qualified labour.

Skills mismatches Contributing to low employability of graduates.

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G Governance Functions

Involving social partners and territorial/local actors in cooperation with central governments in VET policy making.

Engaging business sectors and civil society stakeholders in planning, delivery, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.

National VET policy makers, authorities in charge of VET, social partners.

Quality assurance Focus on the adequacy of the skills acquired during training, drop-out and completion rates, access and equity, employment rates and the type of employment obtained.

Sub-national (Territorial and local) VET providers (public, private), or actors involved in a territorial initiative on skills development.

Infographic: Article 10

GEMM: Governanc e for Employability in the Mediterranean Contributing to be tter youth and female emplo yability and enhancing mu lti-lev governance of Voca el tional Education and Tra ining (VET) systems in the ENP South region.

Financing Aligning funding to training institutions based on their performance.

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C Components

Focus on the national level and reinforcing capacities of governmental actors and employer and employee organisations to work in partnership.

Focus on the local/territorial level with a double capacity building objective to enhance local youth and female employability while also increasing the ability of partnership between VET providers and other stakeholders.

This project is funded by the European Union

The ETF is an EU agency that helps transition and developing countries to harness the potential of their human capital through the reform of education, training and labour market systems in the context of the EU's external relations policy.

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Project update ⏐ MISMES

HARVESTING KNOWLEDGE: A MOLDOVAN WINEMAKER’S JOURNEY ABROAD Migration, skills and employment are inextricably linked. With the influx of migrants to Europe, the discussion turns to the topic of migrant skills. Connecting migration and jobs goes beyond the immediate refugee crisis. Young people, for example, travel to broaden their horizons, developing skills to take home, a process known as circular migration. The ETF has long been promoting this approach.

Sergiu Ves¸ca reaping the fruits of the harvest at a vineyard in South Tyrol.

The Moldovan spent a month honing his craft in northern Italy in 2010.

Sergiu Ves¸ca knows a thing or two about wine. The 37-year-old learnt the tools of the trade from his father, a winemaker, from the Telenes¸ti region.

A manager at Butucul Fermecat, one of 140 Moldovan wine companies, Sergiu also learnt a thing or two much farther away from home, in Italy.

Italy in 2010 for a month-long study tour.

More than 250 Italian specialists shared insights in harvesting, cultivation, clarification and chemistry, through to sales and market entry strategy.

“The links with commerce are very important, in Italy they have centuries of experience.”

While Sergiu didn’t learn much Italian, he learnt new things about Italian viticulture – the science, production and study of grapes and wine.

Sergiu was one of 30 young winemakers who travelled to northern

“We were also very open and shared our knowledge with the Italian

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winemakers. Only they can confirm if they learnt something,” he says, humbly.

Sergiu has since put his new skills into practice in the vineyard and the classroom.

“We want to teach the young people the advantages of wine producing, teach them that it is a career option.”

Moldova has a rich winemaking tradition dating back centuries. Today, the industry represents 7.5 percent of GDP,

employs more than 250,000 people, and produces 67 million bottles annually.

More than EUR 330 million has been invested over the past decade, with a focus on exports.

“Based on my studies and my experience, my conclusion is that it is much better to remain in my country and improve my business.”

Win-Win-Wine!

Despite the recent growth, the industry is variable and Sergiu has seen many colleagues take their skills abroad.

Sergiu’s story is an example of the socalled win-win-win situation where the sending and receiving countries benefit, as well as the migrants.

“My main objective is to remain active in the industry. Many of my colleagues have given up or have emigrated.”

Work carried out by the ETF, in particular Migrant Support Measures from an Employment and Skills Perspective

(MISMES), shows migrants’ skills are under-utilised both abroad and upon return.

The MISMES study highlights the need for specific policy measures to improve labour market integration and skillsmatching.

The ETF is working on skills-related projects and initiatives in partner countries that are helping to improve the situation.

Text: Susanna Dunkerley, ETF Photos: Sergiu Ves¸ca and Wine of Moldova

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Good for Youth Good for Business

European Alliance for Apprenticeships Social Europe

Work-based learning, in particular apprenticeships can enhance employability, notably of young people, and help to address the skills shortages to better match companies’ needs. Of great benefit to learners and companies alike, these schemes also contribute to Europe’s objective of ensuring

sustainable growth and employment.

This brochure focuses on the European Alliance for Apprenticeships (EAfA) launched in 2013 and addresses the challenges and possible answers of how to strengthen the quality, supply and image of apprenticeships. This is also in line with the new set of medium-

term deliverables agreed at European level in the field of VET for the period 2015-2020. The brochure features examples of successful and inspiring apprenticeship and other work-based learning policy initiatives and projects across Europe.

New Alliance website: http://ec.europa.eu/apprenticeships-alliance Video: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1188&langId=en&videosId=2670&vl=en&furtherVideos=yes Brochure: http://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=14127&langId=en Survey report: http://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=14218&langId=en Guiding principles: http://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=14217&langId=en

https://www.facebook.com/socialeurope

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https://twitter.com/EU_Social

Off the press and on the web

NEW PUBLICATIONS SUPPORTING PUBLIC POLICY MAKING THROUGH POLICY ANALYSIS AND POLICY LEARNING This paper reviews approaches to policy analysis and policy making. As part of its mandate, the ETF aims to make sure that policy analysis better supports policy making.

The organisation should act as a catalyst and a learning facilitator in the policy dialogue, rather

than a reviewer or evaluator through externally run processes. http://ow.ly/RAnqf

SECTOR SKILL COUNCILS: FORGING PARTNERSHIPS FOR RELEVANT SKILLS Mitigating imbalances between skills supply and demand is one of the biggest challenges vocational education and training policies and systems now face. Employers are becoming increasingly aware of the need to engage with public authorities in developing and implementing skills policies in the ETF partner

countries. A recent policy briefing provides insights to inform the policy dialogue on sectoral partnership approaches and sector skill countries. http://ow.ly/RAsK2

GEMM: MAPPING VET GOVERNANCE IN THE SOUTHERN AND EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN As part of the Governance for Employability in the Mediterranean project, the ETF conducted a mapping exercise of VET governance. The report looks at the results of the exercise, which focused on three areas of governance of

initial vocational education and training and continuing vocational training, namely planning and management, finance and funding and quality assurance. http://goo.gl/3N5m2x

LEARNING BY DOING IN BELARUS Many former Soviet countries are taking a fresh look at work-based learning and how they can rebuild bridges between the classroom and the workplace, between VET providers and enterprises.

The ETF is doing this through its Skills Connexions project, which aims to

promote work-based learning in six partner countries. A kick-off event took place in June in Belarus, bringing together representatives of education and business with national, EU and ETF experts. http://ow.ly/RAz0n

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For information on our activities, job and tendering possibilities please visit our website: www.etf.europa.eu For other enquiries please contact: Communication Department European Training Foundation Villa Gualino Viale Settimio Severo, 65 I – 10133 Torino T +39 011 630 2222 F +39 011 630 2200 E info@etf.europa.eu

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