Live&Learn Issue 30

Live&Learn NEWS AND VIEWS FROM ACROSS THE ETF COMMUNITY

ISSUE 30 – MAR 2014

Albania A state of hope Prime Minister Edi Rama in an interview with Live&Learn How Iceland puts women to work | 08 To make their return a success, migrants need skills | 13 Torino Process – Reloaded | 14 GIZ – ETF’s German link | 20

INSIDE 04 Albania: a state of hope

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Country focus: Albania

The future of skills

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Economic crash empowers young women in Iceland

A pastry chef in the land of university students

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Arab leaders step up the debate on jobs for youth

The ETF’s German link

CONTACT US Further information can be found on the ETF website: www.etf.europa.eu For any additional information, please contact:

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EU neighbours – partners in migration

Look on the bright side and build on it

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To make their return a success, migrants need skills

New publications & Digital update

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 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.

ISSN: 1725-9479 @ European Training Foundation, 2014

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The Torino Process 2014

ETF and ILO give training in career guidance

Printed in Italy Printed on paper awarded the European Union Eco-label Cover photograph: Thierry Charlier/AFP/Getty Images Please recycle this magazine when you finish with it.

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Editorial

LEARN MORE…

This edition of Live&Learn, our thirtieth, arrives as we begin to reflect on the fact that the ETF has reached the venerable age of twenty. This is not an occasion for back-slapping or self-congratulation but an opportunity to take stock of the tremendous journey that brought us to this point, while fixing our vision firmly forwards.

Live&Learn presents again a diversity of countries and topics we deal with at the ETF every day. If ever a nation has turned its attention fully to the future, Albania did so last year, when it elected the youngest government in its history. In our interview, Prime Minister Edi Rama, a renowned artist as well as a leader, paints a picture of the hope that is rising in his country, a hope based on the immense potential of Albania’s young people.

Our guest writer from Iceland, another partner country, explains how women there are encouraged to take up vocational careers, while one young entrepreneur in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia shares her recipe for success.

Three years since the Jasmine revolution in Tunisia, Arab Mediterranean countries simply must find a way to create some 40 million jobs for the region’s youth by 2030. Recognising this, ministers at our conference in Marseille showed an openness and informality that was both refreshing and inspiring.

Facing the future is one thing; knowing what it will bring is quite another. The jobs young people will enter in fifteen or twenty years’ time may not even exist yet. But it is clear that they will need skills of an ever-higher order to cope with the escalating complexity of everyday life – our feature article gives insight on how governments and other organisations try to peek into the future of skills.

That willingness, and an imperative, to share and learn is one reason we have given our twentieth anniversary year a simple title: Learn more. Learn more in this issue of Live&Learn. ■

In another example of successful partnership, this time with the German Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the ETF can be seen learning from its peers and sharing its own expertise for the benefit of our partner countries. We present three great examples of our cooperation with one of the world’s biggest donors in vocational education and training.

Bent Sørensen Head of Communication Photo: ETF/Marcin Monko

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Country Focus Albania

ALBANIA

A STATE OF HOPE

Albania’s very young population, the young well-educated individuals, its wonderful nature and its natural resources Photo: Prime Minister’s Office, Albania

Interview with Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania

Prime Minister, you are a politician, but also an artist, a painter. How would you picture, in broad strokes, the state of your country today?

It is a state of hope. A hope born on 23 June 2013 [the last parliamentary elections] that did not fade, but grew stronger after the first 100 days of the new government. The vote for the Alliance for the European Albania, which has been in government since September 2013, represents the will of an overwhelming majority. The future of Albania, which is a country with incredibly rich and diverse human and natural resources, needs to be managed wisely by pursuing policies that turn natural resources into competitive advantages in the global market and ensures opportunities for

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its human resources. In this picture of flickering brushes of hope, opportunities and challenges stand face-to-face as two equally strong and well-defined shapes. The shape of challenges is composed of smaller shapes with basic colours that represent the necessity of making reforms, including in the justice system, and the urge to persistently fight the endemic corruption that has been hampering the development of the country since the beginning of the pluralist era. The shape of opportunities, on the other hand, is the dimension of a colourful space, filled with light and brightness, which refers to Albania’s very young population, the young welleducated individuals, its wonderful nature and its natural resources, particularly in terms of hydroelectric energy.

Edi Rama was born on 4 July 1964.

Politician, visual artist, publicist, former professor of the Art Academy and former basketball player of the Albanian National Team, he is currently the leader of the Socialist Party of Albania and the country’s prime minister.

In one of your interviews you said that the ideology Albania must embrace was the ideology of work. Do you still believe in it? How can you help Albanians to embrace the “ideology of work” while most young people are out of jobs and unemployment has never been higher?

Well, the truth is that over the past century Albanians were forced to embrace different ideologies, but none of them really worked for the country and its people. That is why I have always been a bit reluctant to think of ideology as something to be embraced. Yet I think that what we in Albania need today is a revised concept of work and obviously, we need to find solutions to increase employment for growth and development. Changing the Albanian administration’s approach toward work, improving the working conditions of thousands of employees or self-employed individuals in the private sector, developing the vocational education so that we make it easier for young unemployed people to find jobs or start their own enterprises, supporting agriculture and farming to transform the working conditions by enhancing, on the other hand, the employment opportunities for the inhabitants of these areas are things I must have said related to work in Albania. We have to develop an integrated strategy in order to increase employment in the short term, but also sustainably.

My government has already such a strategy in place and we have taken the first steps towards its implementation in the first one hundred days.

succeed in turning the will for change expressed in the elections of 23 June into a substantial transformation of the Albanian state and society. Duly, the members of my cabinet are young.

Though not extremely, compared to the extremely young population we have in the country. On the other hand, I do not think that young people or young professionals have been excluded from the Albanian public sphere or let’s say from governing positions. It is true that women, in particular, have been underrepresented and, to a larger extent, we could say even excluded from the public sphere. The equality of chances and gender equality has been one of the key issues of the Socialist Party programme for the 2013 elections, but also of the Socialist Movement for Integration, and it remains a founding pillar of the governing programme of the Alliance for European Albania.

We are committed to forging a close cooperation with various social and political actors and civil society, in order to ensure concrete results that would impact society as a whole and the life of the individuals, in particular.

An estimated 1.5 million of your countrymen are living in Western Europe and the United States; in the 90’s you were one of them. Do you think Albania could benefit from its diaspora? Would you try to bring some of your emigrants back home?

Albanians who work and live outside the country and the Albanian diaspora constitute an invaluable asset of our country. It is obvious that Albania could and should benefit from the knowledge, experience, talent and the investments of these people who are really attached to their homeland. I have always underlined, and I take the chance to do it again, that this is not just a statement tinged with some sort of idealistic patriotism, but a true effort to present our people outside the country with an opportunity to transform Albania’s welfare altogether for the country and for them. My government is aware that, first of all, that means taking responsibility, creating trust and supporting Albanians who live abroad. On the other hand, one of the ministers of my cabinet is an Albanian from the diaspora and several vice minister positions are covered by Albanians who have returned to the country to contribute to the new government. The same applies to the state administration, where Albanians who have recently returned from working abroad [or] young people who have completed their studies abroad, offer their contribution at various levels. I hope that every success and achievement of the new government will provide incentives for the Albanians who work and study abroad and the Albanians of the diaspora to return and work, or invest or just enjoy their lives in their homeland. ■ Text: Marcin Monko, ETF

Six women hold ministerial posts in your cabinet, your team is extremely young, most of the new ministers have never held senior political posts – is it just a pragmatic choice or can it be read as a statement directed to the people who were traditionally excluded from the public sphere?

Sometimes in Albania, the lack of experience may be a virtue, while experience a vice. So, I choose the virtue over the vice. However, I don’t think this has to be considered as a pragmatic choice or an idealistic one for that matter. I chose my cabinet with the belief that it should be the driving force behind a larger team that shall

Prime Minister Edi Rama with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton. Albania is seeking EU candidate status.

Photo: EEAS/EU

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Country Focus Albania

Albania has suffered half a century of extreme austerity and isolation.

Photo: Peter Boer – Flickr Creative Commons

EDUCATION IS NOT AN ESPRESSO In Albania, a window of opportunity is appearing for strategic education reforms that go beyond quick fixes.

Evelyn Viertel is the ETF’s country manager for Albania. Without hesitation she says that during all of her many years of working at the ETF she has “never been involved in preparing such a big reform as appears to be taking shape in Albania now”.

“Investments in vocational education and training (VET) in the past years have been rather ad hoc. They lacked a vision to link these investments to each other and to development priorities. Donors selected perhaps the best schools. The EU funded what the ministry told them to. But all of this was not based on any grand design of what the network of providers should look like in the future and which profiles they should cover in order to support national and regional development goals,” she says.

Then, in September last year, the government changed and a new, young and visionary team took over that wanted to address these issues.

“As it turned out, we were somewhat ahead of these developments. In 2012 we undertook some national skills needs analyses to see what kind of profiles a reformed system in the country should offer.”

“The next thing we launched was a study covering four regions where local

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experts reviewed the development goals. They then contrasted this with the current provision of training and in this way found the gaps and requirements. This is being finalised now.”

The change of government and its commitment to education for jobs offers a unique opportunity to make sure these changes happen. The authorities have now asked the ETF and Germany’s GIZ to work together on a third study. After we looked at the national and regional levels in the first exercises, this new study will look at the institutional level and expand coverage to the whole country.

“These studies should help the ministry to take decisions on reorganising provision. This should free resources by closing down obsolete programmes and merging others. The money saved can then be invested in a more sensible and coherent manner.”

“We are working on this with others, such as the ILO, the Swiss and the Austrians. Once the strategy has been prepared, we will gather the donors again to discuss what each can contribute to the accompanying roadmap. But the whole operation remains under the firm ownership of the Albanians,” says Viertel.

Erion Veliaj, the minister of social welfare and youth, is clear about this too. Their ideas were not developed in Brussels but in their own heads. So is there a need for more work from the ETF in Albania?

“Of course there is!” says Veliaj.

“Countries like ours [...] run the risk of reinventing the wheel. Organisations like the ETF provide an international memory.

They can show us the experience of others trying their hands at particular solutions.”

“Young governments like ours need this kind of memory. But we also need skills ourselves. All the goodwill in the world cannot provide proper reforms without the necessary skills. So we also hope to get training for our administrators and executives to help them make better decisions and think ahead of the market.”

“Education is not an espresso. You cannot brew it in a few seconds.

Therefore, the historic memory of what works and what doesn’t, and also the capacity of the ETF, are great assets for governments with big ambitions. Like ours.” ■

HIGH ON A WHIRLWIND OF CHANGE Optimism rules as Albanians brace for profound education reforms following last year’s elections.

When it defeated the governing Alliance for Employment, Prosperity and Integration, Albania’s new socialist government came to power in September last year with the same promises: jobs, economic development and European integration. But the people who made them are a very different breed. They are young and visionary, and bent on breaking from half a century of extreme austerity and isolation.

For the new government, education is not just a priority on paper. Just four months down the line, the tools of the cleaning cupboard have been brought out and the youngest cabinet in the history of Albania is clearly using them!

One of the most striking moves of the new government has been to shift responsibility for all vocational education to the Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth, whose minister, 34-year-old Erion Veliaj, leaves little to the imagination when asked about the country’s top priorities: “Jobs, jobs and jobs are the number one and, well, the number 100 priority,” he says.

But jobs were also a stated priority of the previous government. How can the socialists make a difference?

“The way we approach it may be a blessing or a curse, but in this country for too long having one of the youngest populations in Europe was considered a burden. Because jobs were scarce, kids were parked in education in order to postpone their employment. We think that having such a young population is an opportunity.”

The government wants to steer the skills output of the education sector more proactively. They reason that the demand for jobs exists and has existed all along, but it is the tremendous mismatch between actual education output and labour market demand that stifles growth.

“Many people ask what’s wrong with people being trained as lawyers. What’s wrong with it is that we have 2 000

students graduating from law schools every year and there is no work for them. They end up working as waiters.”

“Of course everyone wants the best for their children, but we have to convince people that you don’t need a university degree to be successful. You can be a very famous carpenter and run your own reality show of extreme house makeovers. Albanian carpenters do very well in Greece. You can be a famous chef. In fact, the guy who runs Noma in Copenhagen, René Redzepi, is Albanian.”

“We will have to change people’s mentalities. This is about redefining what is cool, what is fame, what is honest work and what are profits. We have already started campaigning for that, but we also have to shift resources towards schools that actually teach skills for jobs.”

The latter is of course one of the juiciest parts of the plan and one that should be followed with interest by other countries.

“We have had changes of government with their many promises before, but this time the atmosphere is different. The communication is different. They listen to the experts. They are new to their jobs, they don’t know much about things and they are open to suggestions.”

Crucially, a bigger role in VET is not only foreseen for industry and the labour market, but also for learners and their families. “On TV there are campaigns saying that children and parents will be part of the recruitment process in schools,” says Lindita Dhima, “if this is indeed true, it would be very good.”

Meanwhile, Minister Erion Veliaj seems convinced that things are good. “I joke with my staff about how we are going to measure success: if four years from now people are willing to pay a bribe to get their son or daughter into vocational school, then we will have done a good job.” ■ Text: Ard Jongsma, ICE

Lindita Dhima, head of section at the National Agency for VET and Qualifications, says the decision to place responsibility for all vocational education with the Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth can stifle internal strife between government agencies. What is more, she believes that bringing all vocational training under one umbrella may finally see the emergence of a more holistic view of education.

Additional reporting by Marcin Monko, ETF

“Until now, the two subsystems of VET and continuing VET operated separately and were not integrated parts of a lifelong learning approach.”

“But what I like most and am most optimistic about is that the ministry is putting all stakeholders together. The dialogue is very intensive. They are, for example, starting more feasibility studies of so-called multifunctional centres – work which the ETF started last year.

These centres will not just cover long programmes but also short training and retraining courses. Legal hurdles made this difficult until now. It looks like these are being cleared.”

Erion Veliaj, Minister of Social Welfare and Youth jokes: “If four years from now people are willing to pay a bribe to get their son or daughter into vocational school, then we will have done a good job.”

Photo: Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth, Albania

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Guest writer Iceland

ECONOMIC CRASH EMPOWERS YOUNG WOMEN IN ICELAND The 2008 economic crash had a drastic effect on Iceland but government efforts to reduce youth unemployment have lessened the blow considerably. A scheme to keep young people studying has had a particular effect on women, encouraging many to consider training for jobs that have traditionally been seen as a male domain. Sigrún María Kristinsdóttir reports from Reykjavík.

Soon after the economic meltdown hit Iceland, the number of unemployed youth nearly doubled. Reacting quickly, the Icelandic Directorate of Labour took steps to avoid drastic consequences by engaging young people and enhancing their skills.

“We wanted to avoid the situation Finland experienced after its economic crisis in the 1990s, when a generation of young people could not find work. We realised that young people who have not completed upper secondary education or any kind of job-related training are in the worst position,” says Soffía Gísladóttir, manager at the Directorate of Labour’s Regional Office in North Iceland.

In cooperation with secondary schools, businesses and local councils, the Directorate of Labour organised several

programmes aimed at reducing youth unemployment. For example, in 2011, 199 unemployed young women and 260 men were given support to attend vocational courses in secondary schools rather than simply receive unemployment benefits. Another 1 020 enrolled at secondary schools as a result of the scheme and employers were offered incentives to hire new people. The Ministry of Welfare reports that secondary schools saw a 5.5% increase in applicants under 25 in 2011, mostly due to the scheme.

“ICELAND HAS BEEN NAMED THE COUNTRY WITH THE NARROWEST GENDER GAP IN THE WORLD BY THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM”

Although according to government agency Statistics Iceland the overall number of VET students did not rise much as a result of the scheme, many education and labour market observers in Iceland believe that without it many more young people could have faced unemployment.

Hjalti Jón Sveinsson, principal of secondary school Akureyri Technical College, and Inga Lúthersdóttir, a teacher at the Comprehensive Secondary School at Ármúli, Reykjavík, were delighted with the scheme.

“We were especially pleased with the increase we saw in women entering traditionally male vocations,” says Hjalti, adding that while women made up only 3.4% of his school’s technical students in 2007, by 2012 that number had risen to 18%.

According to Statistics Iceland, twice as many women were registered in cabinet making in 2012 as in 2007, a rise from 11 to 21 students. Women became more numerous on other traditionally male-dominated courses such as training for electricity-related professions and electricians where female students went from 2% in 2007 to between 4% and 5% in 2011. In 2007 there were no women studying industrial mechanics but by 2012, 6% of students were women.

“Employers fight over our students, there is a clear need for people with vocational training of all kinds, despite the economic situation,” says Hjalti.

Sara Hermannsdóttir (right) learns cabinet making with her teacher Þorleifur Jóhannsson at Akureyri Technical College. After the financial crash in Iceland in 2008, enrolment in house building dropped drastically, but applications to furniture manufacturing grew.

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Rebekka Magnúsdóttir (right) attends a massage therapy course. “It is ever so important to empower youth, to give them both hope and strength,” says her teacher, Inga Lúthersdóttir, at the Comprehensive Secondary School in Ármúli, Iceland.

Invaluable assistance Rebekka Magnúsdóttir is a 23-year-old single mother who lives in a small town outside Reykjavík. “I had trouble at school and after I had my son it became even more difficult to stay in education.

But I got help from both the Directorate of Labour and the town council until I reached the stage I’m at now, where I can get a student loan,” explains Rebekka, who has completed half of her three-year massage therapist course at the Ármúli Comprehensive Secondary School. “I know I’m lucky. It is invaluable to get this help – I don’t think I would be where I am now had I not received this support.”

The scheme may be having an even wider impact. Sixteen-year-old Abigail Cadisa from Akureyri finished her compulsory education last spring, and though she was not part of the scheme, she nonetheless chose to enrol on training for electricity-related professions at the same time as a more general course at Akureyri Technical College.

“I haven’t decided what I will specialise in yet, but I am interested in electricity and it seemed natural to enrol. My father says I’m being sensible because I can become an electrician or an electronic engineer, and if I decide to get a university education, I can use my training to make a decent living and not just work at a low-paying job like in a supermarket,” says Abigail, who is the only female out of 20 students on the first year of this course.

The support Abigail gets from her father is still a rarity in Iceland, though times may be changing.

“Vocational training in Iceland faces the same problems as it does elsewhere – we need more women,” explains Hjalti, adding that he is pleased with the increase of female students in cabinet making since the crash, a traditionally male-dominated vocation that had become nearly extinct in Iceland.

“Curiously, young women are attracted to this vocation now. Maybe it is the design aspect that attracts them.”

Therefore, we really encourage them to upgrade their education,” she says.

The funding for the special courses is now running out and the number of students has started to go down – Statistics Iceland reports that there were 2.6% fewer students enrolled in 2012 than in 2011. “But our results have been such that the need is not as great as it was, precisely because our scheme has been so successful,” concludes Soffía. ■

Support has not reached everyone Text and photos: Sigrún María Kristinsdóttir, ICE

However, the government’s efforts still leave some groups out in the cold.

Soffía explains that those that fit the programmes’ bill have in essence been very lucky.

“We’ve noticed that mothers aged 25 to 35 with little education often have problems re-entering the job market because the work available to them is not suited for someone who has to pick up their children at four o’clock and can’t work weekends – and women still bear the brunt of childrearing in Iceland.

Youth unemployment in Iceland – some data  Population in October 2013: 325 010 (Statistics Iceland 2014)  VET students in 2011: 43% female (3 741 students), 57% male (5 034 students) (Statistics Iceland 2013)  Unemployed 16-24 year-olds (Statistics Iceland 2014) • 2007: 7.3% • 2010: 16.3% • First nine months of 2013: 11.6%  Half of the unemployed and 75% of unemployed youth have not completed secondary education (Directorate of Labour 2014)  Young women are less likely than young men to be registered as unemployed.

They stay in school longer and due to maternity leave or other types of support they are often ineligible for unemployment benefits (Ministry of Welfare, Statistics Iceland)

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Report from conference

ARAB LEADERS STEP UP THE DEBATE ON JOBS FOR YOUTH With the numbers of young people of working age in the region ever increasing, how can we create 40 million jobs by 2030?

Photo: ETF/Marcin Monko

Report from the ETF’s Policy Leaders’ Forum on Public Management of Education, Training and Employment Policies in the Arab States of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean There was a tangible spirit of openness and plainspeaking at the ETF’s forum for policy leaders in Marseille on 6 October.

The meeting of policy leaders from eight Arab Mediterranean countries, including several ministers, showed that politicians are ready to respond to the high expectations of the region’s young people.

One year on from the first meeting of ministers of education and employment organised by the ETF in Jordan in September 2012, Marseille signals a new way of doing things. In spite of their busy political agendas Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia made the time to attend again while Algeria made its debut.

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and training (VET) in Algeria, without much success till now, which is why we were so keen to attend,” said Mohamed Benmeradi, Algerian Minister of Labour and Social Security. This forthright tone and willingness to recognise past mistakes very much set the tone in Marseille. With the Arab Spring still making waves, the countries represented were able to put aside any petty rivalry and share a common concern – with the numbers of young people of working age in the region ever increasing, how can we create 40 million jobs by 2030?

“Compared to Jordan where some delegations were just reading from their notes, I think that the quality of interventions is much higher. There was real dialogue, not just a series of

monologues,” said Geert Bouckaert, Director of the Public Management Institute at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. The heartfelt interest shown by Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education and Culture, together with the plainspeaking of Pervenche Berès, Chair of the European Parliament’s Employment and Social Affairs Committee, helped to enliven the debate.

Another departure was the way debate even erupted between members of the same delegation. This was the case of Morocco, where there was a friendly crossing of swords between Minister of National Education Mohamed Louafa and Mohammed Zerdali, Chair of the Moroccan Parliament’s Social Affairs Committee. Jordan, Morocco and Libya chose to include members of parliament

The meeting of policy leaders from eight Arab Mediterranean countries, including several ministers, showed that politicians are ready to respond to the high expectations of the region’s young people.

Photo: ETF/Juha Roininen – EUP&Images

in their delegations, in the case of Libya, two women. Their presence was judged

by Bouckaert as very necessary “as a way of engaging civil society and allowing it to come onboard.”

With some countries in a difficult political situation, it came as little surprise that the debates centred less on solutions than on a thorough analysis of the problems.

However, one thing that came up time and time again was how to improve the image of VET – how to make VET more attractive, not just to young people, but also to their parents who often tend to see it as a last resort.

Tunisia explained how it is launching a television campaign to boost the public perception of VET and is aiming to use success stories to convince parents.

But Naoufel Eljammali, Tunisia’s Minister of Employment and Vocational Training, called for a paradigm shift in the EU’s cooperation on VET. “Discussing the theory has had its day; in Tunisia we have already done our own analysis of the situation, we have a clear roadmap and what we need is specific material aid, not general know-how,” he said.

This marked informality and willingness to tell it like it is was aided by the

presence of five Young Mediterranean Leaders, an ETF programme to help develop tomorrow’s leaders. “It is time for action not words – we need to see your attitudes toward young people change,” Badia Safi-Eddine, Head of Projects at Morocco’s Agency of Social Development, told the assembled ministers.

Just one more sign that the slogan of the meeting – The culture of change, the change of cultures – was one well chosen.

Text: Armand Chauvel, ICE ■

Three years on On 17 December, Tunisia marked the third anniversary of the events that sparked the Arab Spring. On that day in 2010, an unemployed fruit vendor whose goods had been confiscated by authorities set himself on fire. ‘Employment, Liberty, Dignity’ was the slogan of the Tunisian Jasmin Revolution that followed. The uprising created a domino effect across North Africa and the Middle East. The ETF responded quickly with a series of actions – analysing the situation, recommending measures, helping implement solutions. Below are some examples.

Issues and solutions to youth jobs crisis In the recently published paper “Youth Employment: challenges and policy responses in the Arab Mediterranean countries” the ETF recaps the persisting problems that the region’s young people face on the labour market and in education. An important caveat: these issues will not go away themselves. The share of the population under 30 has exceeded 60% and as a result the working-age population approaches 70%.

Governance for Employability in the Mediterranean (GEMM) GEMM is a regional project carried out at the request of the European Commission. The project will benefit the ETF partner countries in the EU’s southern neighbourhood. GEMM offers solutions to a common problem in the region: the gap between skills demand and supply. It invests in good,

anticipatory governance of VET at local, sub-national and country levels to reduce the mismatch between the needs of the labour market and the skills supplied by the education and training system. Ultimately, it aims to make young people more employable.

Policy Leaders’ Forums The ETF continues to engage the region’s policy makers at the highest level to strengthen the commitment to reforms and discuss progress. The Policy Leaders’ Forum for the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean took place in Marseille on 6 October 2013. The forum provided an opportunity to assess the progress in youth employment policies since the previous high-level meeting in Amman in 2012. It considered whether current policy frameworks and processes are effective, and reviewed how regional cooperation can give an additional impetus.

Investing in local solutions to youth unemployment Forty companies, 19 public institutions and NGOs, and 15 schools welcomed about 2 000 young people on 14 November at the Regional Forum for Employment, Entrepreneurship and Training in Médenine, a major town in south eastern Tunisia. The purpose: to connect employers with potential workers, and to offer young people a chance to get a career advice and job-ready training. The event concluded an ETF project that took a sub-national approach to the development of human capital.

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New project Migration

EU NEIGHBOURS – PARTNERS IN MIGRATION The ETF and the researchers from the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy, kicked-off a new project to collect information on the existing policy measures to support legal migrants. This inventory will help both policy making and EU cooperation with the neighbouring countries. Live&Learn talked to Philippe Fargues, who heads the Migration Policy Centre at the EUI, and Alessandra Venturini, who is executive director of the Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration (CARIM).

What are the features of migration in Europe?

What’s the objective of a migration policy?

Philippe Fargues: Contrary to trade, migration is not fully globalised. Distance matters in migration. People move next door, they don’t like to cross too many borders.

So our main partners in migration are our neighbours.

Migration is deeply affected by the economic crisis and migrants are paying a high price for the crisis in terms of being unemployed, being misused. Migration is important for Europe, for European societies, European cultures, identities, etc. We should not underestimate the role migrants play in the fabric of Europe.

Alessandra Venturini: As a [migration] policy maker, you have to decide what your objectives are. Do you want the migrant to come back?

Do you want the migrant to remain for life? Do you want to reduce the time the migrant searches for a job?

Do you want to open them opportunities for careers?

There is no one migration policy that at the same time can manage all these objectives.

Who manages migration?

This project is important because we’ll be able to understand how some interventions are better than others, and how countries differ in this respect. Morocco is a very large country with a very large population, so even if Moroccan migrants remain abroad for good, it is not a big problem because the Moroccan population is growing. However, countries such as Moldova or Georgia have declining populations, so with population being a scarce asset, these countries should move toward more temporary migration.

Until now migration has been mainly managed by the receiving states through delivering visas, etc. and most of all by employers by providing jobs, salaries, playing on different costs of labour. So the main players were on the receiving side. The “pull factors” have been more important than the “push factors”.

Can sending countries have more influence on migration?

This new project is designed to raise the leverage that you can have as the sending country. The sending countries can have a role in making the migration work better for them. This is exactly what I expect from this project. We are going to raise the profile of the sending country in the migration scene, which is very much dominated by the receiving countries.

Can this new project help improve migration policies?

According to you what would be the best migration policy for the EU?

MORE INFORMATION:

For the European Union the best policy is to integrate migrants, so that they can seek jobs that befit their skills, have a wage that allows them to live, and make the decision to go back if they want to. Of course it depends on the member states: some countries need higher skills, while some others need lower skills. A policy Europe can be proud of is one which promotes circular migration, temporary migration, high-skilled migration, and integration if migrants choose to remain. The idea is to have temporary workers, but workers with rights, with pensions, portability of rights – first-class migrants. ■

http://ow.ly/tMqKS

Text: Marcin Monko, ETF Photos: EUI

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Photo story Migration

TO MAKE THEIR RETURN A SUCCESS, MIGRANTS NEED SKILLS In 2012 the ETF carried out a survey of some 12,000 potential and returned migrants in Armenia, Georgia and Morocco. Live&Learn presents a telling story of one of the returnees in Georgia. he attended after his return. Grigol’s story shows how important is support for the returnees, including training and recognition or validation of the skills migrants learn abroad. ■

Photos: ETF/Marcin Monko

The ETF’s survey once again confirmed that when migrants sort life after return, their skills and qualifications become crucial. Last November in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, we visited Grigol Iobashvili, a former migrant, who found a new career thanks to a training

Grigol Iobashvili emigrated from Georgia to Latvia in 2012. He spent nine months there but was not able to find a suitable job. In 2013 he returned.

After his return Iobashvili contacted Targeted Initiative for Georgia, an EU-funded project supporting returnees. He trained in jewellery making and found employment in a small workshop.

Enamel pendant with traditional Georgian design. Grigol, who graduated in financial management, but detested his profession, now finds more fulfilment creating jewellery. He plans to open his own shop.

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Torino Process

TORINO PROCESS 2014 FOCUS ON PROGRESS The Torino Process is once again bringing together 30 ETF partner countries for a review of vocational education and training (VET). Following the success of the international conference in 2013, the ETF launched the third round of the process.

The process aims to build consensus on the ways forward in VET development, including measuring the progress of reform and determining the vision for VET in the countries. By convening key stakeholders from ETF partner countries, the process provides an opportunity to share up-to-date knowledge on policies and their results.

7 CHALLENGES Policy makers in the partner countries must respond to crucial questions in VET reform. The Torino Process helps them do it.

1. How to achieve a shared longterm vision of skills for jobs?

2. How vocational education, innovation and policy making can respond to current and future needs?

3. How to engage business and bring learning and working closer?

4. How to make social inclusion a cross-cutting principle on VET? 5. How to improve the attractiveness of VET? 6. How to improve quality of teaching?

7. How to share responsibilities for the governance of VET?

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What’s new in 2014?

Policy developments and achievements

In 2014, the ETF will try to increase the countries’ ownership of the process i.e., to create a situation where the Torino Process will be at the heart of national policy making. The ETF also aims to broaden participation by involving private sector, civil society, and social partners, and to identify the gaps in capacities of all those involved in VET policy making.

Countries that have already participated in the Torino Process should gather their most recent data and research and refer to policy developments or achievements that have occurred since 2010 or 2012.

They should improve, where possible, the quality of the evidence and analysis.

Countries new to the process are invited to participate in this round by preparing baseline reports.

“We’ll move from diagnosis and recommendations to implementation of reforms,” said Elena Carrero Perez, senior specialist in VET policies and systems and coordinator of the Torino Process.

“So far the Torino Process focused mainly on strategies. But the difficulty lies in moving from strategies to action, to implementation and seeing which policies work, and which don’t in the concrete context.”

From problem identification to policy implementation Shifting emphasis to how policies are carried out, the Torino Process will start looking more into the implementation of policies, as well as monitoring and evaluation. The ETF will accompany partner countries in defining policy options and choosing three main priorities in each country. In some countries the ETF, together with local partners, will try to design different policy scenarios, assessing their impact and cost in advance. This is to help partner countries to make informed political choices.

Torino Process Timeline

Jul Sep 2014

Nov 2014

Dec 2014

Jan Feb 2015

Nov 2014 Mar 2015

Jun 2015

First consolidated draft country reports (for most partner countries) Consolidated drafts for EU candidate countries

Final country reports endorsed

EU candidates endorse their reports

Regional conferences

Torino Process International Conference

Photo: ETF/Alberto Ramella – EUP&Images

The round will also encourage benchmarking with the EU or other countries. “In each region we’ll identify one or two examples of good practice in dealing with different elements of the Torino Process,” said Carrero Perez.

The process has already started. First draft country reports will be ready between July and September 2014, the regional reviews will come afterwards and the process will be concluded with a series of regional meetings culminating in an international conference in Turin in June 2015.

What’s in it for a partner country?  Better evidence based policy making  Consideration of VET in employment, education and social inclusion contexts

 Report used by the EU and international donors for country strategies and decision making  Help in implementing reforms. ■

 Help stakeholders come together

OVERVIEW OF THEMATIC SECTIONS AND KEY QUESTIONS Vision and strategy

 Introduction to the VET system  Vision for the VET system  Capacity for innovation and change  Drivers of innovation and change

Addressing economic and labour market demand

 Factors shaping demand for skills  Mechanisms for identifying demand and matching skills  Potential of the VET system to influence demand

Addressing demographic, social and inclusion demand

 Factors shaping demand for VET  Delivering to the needs of individual learners  Delivering to societal needs

Internal efficiency of the VET system

 Quality assurance  Policies for VET trainers and directors  Teaching and learning  Efficiency gains and losses

Governance and policy practices

 Map of entities involved in VET by level of governance  Governance and practices in areas mentioned above

Transversal element (all sections)

 Assessment of progress since 2010

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Feature

THE FUTURE OF SKILLS What skills will be in demand in five or ten years? This is a crucial question for students, workers and employers. What to learn? How to re-qualify?

And can these questions be answered definitely?

A skill seems a rather straightforward thing: the ability to perform tasks and solve problems. We need skills everywhere: on the job, at home, as active citizens. A skill is what you learn, but also how the result of this learning can actually be deployed. Skills are therefore meaningful only in a concrete context – an occupation, the workplace, a region, the industrial sector. And this context changes over time.

Skills – best before…

Governments and other organisations try to peek into the future to see what skills will be needed. There are employer skills surveys, quantitative and models-based projections, sector studies, and qualitative methods like focus groups and Delphistyle methods. Statistical techniques and powerful computers have improved significantly in the past decades, but the data is still hard to come by and events can influence the path of the predictions.

There are some projections that we can trust more than others. For example as populations grow older in Europe, there will probably be more demand for old-age carers.

Yet there is always a wild card. Nobody knew in advance the timing and the extent

of the recent economic downturn. The price of energy and other key mineral resources surprises us all the time. And who knew ten years ago that Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn would be such pervasive social phenomena? All these unexpected events have a significant impact on the economies, on the employers and the skills they ask for.

Imperative to plan So should we just forget about longterm forecasting of skills? “It is necessary to try to anticipate, to apply best possible methods for skills needs forecast,” said Lizzi Feiler, former ETF expert who was the team leader of a project on anticipation and matching of skills. “You cannot not plan. If you are not trying to assess the changes coming

In ETF partner countries skills needs forecasting is difficult and does not enable clear decisions about education.

Photo: Iason Athanasiadis – EUP&Images

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Even elementary jobs, traditionally requiring no or low-level qualifications, are expected to become more complex.

Photo: ETF/Ard Jongsma

in the future, you are in a way assuming that things will remain as they are. And this is the sort of assumption that is likely to be wrong.”

According to Feiler, a good forecasting mechanism has to be based on a mix of components: inputs from employers’ organisations and directly from companies as well as statistical data backed with research methods of econometrics.

What’s coming

Employers can define their skills needs but they are not clairvoyants. Shawn Mendes, an ETF expert working on the FRAME project, which has a strong component on foresight, recalled a meeting with a group of business people: “They joked that they would go ecstatic if I told them what skills they needed then, let alone in the future.”

“Organisational cultures have changed a lot. Working conditions are now more flexible or, one could say, more precarious.

Almost everybody needs to have an entrepreneurial spirit, to communicate effectively, market and sell oneself,” said Feiler. “This is the set of traits that employers seem to seek more and more in prospective workers.”

Forecasting can be especially difficult in the transition economies where the ETF works. Not only are data and institutional capacity limited. Small transition economies are the receivers of technology, and are often taken by surprise by the changes. Large, developed economies are technology generators.

They know first what’s coming.

But generic skills alone like communication or entrepreneurship are not enough. According to Feiler, “if we want an economy to grow and be competitive, we need a combination of technical and generic skills.”

In a recent report on eight ETF partner countries the authors admitted that “estimations of the nature of the demand for skills… are mostly quite weak, and seem too inconclusive to be accepted in negotiations and interactions with the education sector… Even the more rigorous measurements of mismatch… do not provide sufficiently conclusive results… to enable clear, unambiguous decisions about education...”

“Forecasting is difficult and even the best public administrations have trouble with it,” said Mendes. “The best way to go about it is to set up as many links between business and education as possible. It can be done through sector councils, trade advisory boards and especially in work-based learning. This will help keep vital information going between the world of learning and the world of work.”

Cedefop, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, regularly issues briefings on future skills.

The last one said that “most newlycreated jobs will require higher skills, if not necessarily high-level qualifications.

The highest rates of job creation are forecast for technicians and associate professionals.” However, even elementary jobs, traditionally requiring no or low-level qualifications, are expected to become more complex.

In a recent article of the New York Times two professors, David H. Autor and David Dorn, wrote: “We expect to see growing employment among the ranks of the ‘new artisans’: licensed practical nurses and medical assistants; teachers, tutors and learning guides at all educational levels; kitchen designers, construction supervisors and skilled tradespeople of every variety; expert repair and support technicians; and the many people who offer personal training and assistance, like physical therapists, personal trainers,

coaches and guides. These workers will adeptly combine technical skills with interpersonal interaction, flexibility and adaptability to offer services that are uniquely human.”

It seems there are two things we can be quite confident about. One is that there are no evergreen skills. Another is that if you are a constant learner, you’ll be capable of growth and improvement every day. ■ Text: Marcin Monko, ETF

FRAME and foresight Foresight provides a methodology and mix of qualitative and quantitative tools to address a range of goals and objectives. It can:  provide an overall strategic review and direction of a system,  identify priorities for innovative action,  engage a wider range of stakeholders and build a common vision among them,  make decisions more robust by exploring scenarios.

The ETF’s FRAME project applies the foresight methodology to human resources development in the preaccession countries. The objective of the project is to develop a vision for skills 2020, priorities and a roadmap for adaptation by the national education and training systems.

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My vocation

A PASTRY CHEF IN THE LAND OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

“I have a secret ingredient which means my cake tastes different from all the other biscuit cakes in town” says Eleonora Koleva.

A budding pastry chef in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is keen to set up her own business. Ljubica Grozdanovska Dimishkova reports from Skopje.

Pastry chefs, waiters, cooks and bakers are in demand in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, but studies show that 85% of final year secondary school students want to go to university. Finding young people who have completed vocational education and training and who are now working in the job they trained

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for can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Eleonora Koleva is an exception.

From a young age she always loved helping her mother make biscuits and cakes at home so when it came to choosing a profession, it was not difficult to guess what would be the natural

course of events in Eleonora’s working life. Now 19, Eleonora, from Ilinden, a small town on the outskirts of Skopje, is a qualified pastry chef. She gained her diploma in June 2013 after three years’ study at Lazar Tanev, a Skopje vocational secondary school specialising in catering and tourism.

Eleonora comes from a family where nearly everyone opted for vocational training and now works in a related job.

Her mother is a housewife, her father a baker, one brother works in a local peanut processing factory, while the other is a pizza chef, so she will be the only pastry chef in the Kolev family.

“I TOOK THIS JOB TO SAVE MONEY. WITH THOSE SAVINGS AND SOME HELP FROM MY PARENTS, I WILL BE ABLE TO OPEN MY OWN SWEET SHOP!”

Within three weeks of finishing her secondary education, she found work as an assistant salesperson in a supermarket bakery, one of a chain in the capital of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Right after finishing her three-year training as a baker, Eleonora signed up for another year in order to gain a vocational diploma as a tourist guide. If all goes well, she will graduate in October 2014, thus in theory giving her the right to take the state graduation exam and a pathway to university.

“This is the first step in my career as a pastry chef. My current job involves serving customers in the bakery and packaging up the cakes and biscuits. But I also observe the head pastry chef in her daily work and learn new recipes and ways of decorating. I sometimes make suggestions for the decorations,” says Eleonora.

During work placements in several sweetshops in Skopje as well as practical classes at school she says that she learnt a lot, particularly about decorating cakes.

This has also included how to deal with customers and how to manage her time, something which proved to be quite handy at the time as her school gets plenty of orders for birthday celebrations and special occasions.

But, in spite of the many choices she will have in the near future, Eleonora has only one plan for her life: “I took this job to save money. With those savings and some help from my parents, I will be able to open my own sweet shop! There aren’t any where I live and I can’t let such an opportunity pass me by. I don’t want

to do higher education,” Eleonora says decisively.

She is one of the very few young people in the country who wants to find a job relating to her vocational training and who is not interested in going onto university.

Since 2011, the government in Skopje has been conducting a campaign to encourage even more young people to consider higher education. But recent analysis of the labour market highlights a hard route for young people from school to work and may seem to indicate a significant skills mismatch. “For more than 50% of young people who have completed their education and want to find a decent job, the transition lasts more than two years,” according to a July 2013 survey of people aged 15 to 29 carried out by the country’s State Statistical Office and the International Labour Organization. ■ Text and photos: Ljubica Grozdanovska Dimishkovska, ICE

Pastry chef Eleonora Koleva

Eleonora is confident that she will be able to develop her own signature menu and signature cake and that this will help her become a well known pastry chef in Ilinden.

“I am very good at making biscuit cakes.

I see this as my signature cake. I have a secret ingredient which means my cake tastes different from all the other biscuit cakes in town,” she says proudly.

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ETF partners

THE ETF’S GERMAN LINK It’s a limited liability company, but a very special one. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is owned by the German federal government. Most of its clients are German public institutions to whom GIZ “offers customised solutions to complex challenges,” according to the statement on the company’s website.

From its two headquarters, one in a leafy district of the former West German capital Bonn and the other in an officeblock dominated suburb of Frankfurt, GIZ operates in more than 130 countries around the world.

“In recent years the ETF has cooperated with GIZ on many occasions in the partner countries,” says Peter Greenwood, head of the policy making department at the ETF. “That’s why we decided that there is enough common ground to consolidate our cooperation.”

GIZ activities range from employment promotion and vocational training to governance and democracy, peace building, food security, health and basic education and environmental protection. It carries out over 100 TVET projects in more than 60 partner countries, 17 of which are ETF partner countries. GIZ is the EU’s largest donor of international assistance in vocational education and training (VET).

“VET and employment are core areas of GIZ’s activities,” says Kerstin Nagels, head of the TVET and labour markets section at GIZ. “It’s all but natural for us to try to

coordinate our work with the ETF in the interests of the partner countries, and to learn from each other.”

In 2012 the ETF and GIZ first analysed their cooperation. The results showed that working together can bring added value to the partner countries but also pointed to the need for a common platform to exchange experiences in the partner countries, more harmonization in planning, and common evaluation of achievements and impact.

Subsequently in 2013, ETF and GIZ representatives agreed on a set of principles of cooperation at country, regional and thematic levels. They include mutual information exchange on events, studies, initiatives; organising joint meetings, mutually reinforcing each other’s actions, sharing knowledge and reflecting together on thematic issues such as national qualifications frameworks; attractiveness of VET or financing.

In a unique development the ETF and GIZ set up a joint monitoring framework and started to draw action plans in the countries of common interest.

Next steps Greenwood says that in 2014 both organisations will exchange information more often and extend invitations to other donors. Experts from GIZ and the ETF will carry out joint monitoring missions. Finally the third round of the Torino Process will be an opportunity to deepen cooperation. ■ Text: Marcin Monko, ETF

Photo: ETF/Ard Jongsma

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GIZ AND ETF IN THE PARTNER COUNTRIES: 3 EXAMPLES Kosovo* The ETF and GIZ coordinated their support to the local institutions that undertook a “self-assessment” in the framework of the Torino Process reviews. They provided continuous support to the reform of the legislation framework, the VET Law, and the development of a better management and organisational structure of the entire VET system, including setting up the Agency for Vocational Education and Training and Adult Education and Training (AVETAET).

Palestine The ETF and GIZ support the overall objective of the Palestinian government, and particularly the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and the Ministry of Labour, to promote vocational training and the labour market in the Palestinian territories. Both organisations were involved in developing and implementing an integrated vocational training and labour market strategy as part of the National Development Plan. The ETF and GIZ will work side by side to establish the National TVET agency (NAVET), recently approved by the Palestinian cabinet.

Tunisia GIZ integrated the ETF’s expertise in its review of entrepreneurial learning (EL) in the Tunisian VET system.

The final result will be a joint report – together with the OECD – with recommendations focusing on the national and local levels. Based on the results, the ETF and GIZ plan to work together to support the Tunisian partners in implementing the measures proposed. The ETF will focus on providing policy advice while GIZ will work on capacity building. * This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.

Opinion

LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE AND BUILD ON IT Jason Laker is a tenured, Full Professor in the Department of Counselor Education and Ed.D. Program in Educational Leadership within the Lurie College of Education and a Salzburg Fellow at San José State University in California, USA. He is a member of the ETF’s Editorial Board.

Why we should move away from the often disheartening identification of problems in vocational education and training (VET) to a more positive quest for the best in people, their organizations, and the world around them.

There is a fundamental reason for our work in education, economic and social development. It is for the benefit of people—individuals, families, communities and nations—that we do our work. It is in the intimate hopes, dreams, capacities and relationships of people that we find purpose, possibilities and success.

Indeed, this work sometimes persists through seemingly intractable debate, political unrest and even times of violence, maintaining ties to current and prospective partners because we care about people and their prospects in life.

Yet, despite the obviously good and thoughtful intentions of the VET community, policy makers and community partners, we rely too heavily on jargon, policy instruments, so-called quality frameworks and other accountability regimes to “prove” the worth of our efforts. Moreover, the production of such items and reports containing them are often accepted as outcomes rather than as strategic enablers for achieving meaningful results for our constituents.

To be sure, numbers and reports are important. I confess my administrative attraction to a well-crafted chart or case study. Processes, terms of engagement and documentary evidence are all of potential value. But, after working in this area of education policy for years I am convinced it is an open secret that such tools are hollow and meaningless unless they represent real improvements in people’s lives.

During my remarks at an ETF conference in Tel Aviv last November, I asked delegates an intentionally strange question: “How many of you have people in your countries?” Even with translation, the amusement was immediate, as was my sense the audience understood the direction I was taking. I proceeded to

discuss the critical need to cut through policy chatter and place people at the centre of our work. I introduced the audience to an analytical paradigm known as “Appreciative Inquiry,” or “AI,” which was developed by Professor David Cooperrider of Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, USA. This method challenges conventional approaches to analysis such as SWOT, gap analysis, strategic planning and the like. Those standard methods typically begin with barrier and problem identification, which in my opinion is a depressing and deflating beginning to time spent with people who are giving their time and want good things to happen.

“HOW MANY OF YOU HAVE PEOPLE IN YOUR COUNTRIES?” Hammond (1998) explains: “The traditional approach to change is to look for the problem, do a diagnosis, and find a solution. The primary focus is on what is wrong or broken; since we look for problems, we find them. By paying attention to problems, we emphasize and amplify them” (pp. 6-7).

Cooperrider (2007) describes AI as “…the cooperative search for the best in people, their organizations, and the world around them. It involves systematic discovery of what gives a system ‘life’ when it is most effective and capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to heighten positive potential. It mobilizes inquiry through crafting an ‘unconditional positive question’ often involving hundreds or sometimes thousands of people” (pp. 245-263).

alike have stories about times when they felt most connected to education, the world of work, and a sense of vocational satisfaction. They have stories of collaboration, resilience, creativity and success. Wisdom inhabits such stories, along with trust, faith and a roadmap paved with experiences of solidarity rather than opposition.

This is a powerful form of internal benchmarking, made more compelling because it draws from the successes of those involved and others in analogous situations. One can use Appreciative Inquiry in addressing questions of skills as well. The Tel Aviv workshop included study visits to local vocational schools, and I had a number of poignant interactions with students and teachers based in AI. I asked students about what they were learning, what it meant to them, and how it connected to their vision for their lives. This elicited far more powerful narratives than probing about skills gaps and other deficits. The teachers also had very exciting stories about their experiences animating students’ ambition and curiosity, and how this informed their educational practice.

I would like to invite you into this transformative mindset. To begin, reflect on a time when you experienced curiosity and excitement working in VET. What were the conditions and partners like in that situation? What did you learn from that experience? These are the ingredients of your bottomless tool kit, and I trust that you can find new uses for them in your next project. ■ Learn more about Appreciative Inquiry at http://ow.ly/t4daC Text: Jason Laker, Department of Counselor Education & Ed.D. Program in Educational Leadership,

In the case of VET, stakeholders, community partners and local citizens

San José State University

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Off the press and on the web

NEW PUBLICATIONS CREATING A COMPETITIVE EDGE: PROMOTING SME SKILLS A POLICY BRIEFING In the EU and outside, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are critical for job creation and economic development. The quality of their staff affects the SMEs’ competitive edge. The new ETF briefing considers a number of challenges and solutions to better enterprise skills in ETF partner countries. It puts forward options to enhance both policy and practice for up-skilling SMEs. The briefing is addressed to policy makers in education, economy and employment, including organisations representing the interests of the SME sector. http://ow.ly/tuPS7

WORK-BASED LEARNING: BENEFITS AND OBSTACLES A LITERATURE REVIEW Work-based learning is frequently described in the literature as a set of learning practices that take place in a real working environment through participation in the work process. The learners can be young people, employees or the unemployed. Research identified many benefits that work-based learning can offer. The ETF’s review of the literature on this ever more popular approach to learning is organised around three main categories of people who stand to benefit most from it: learners, employers, and society at large. http://ow.ly/tuS50

DIGITAL UPDATE GOVERNANCE FOR EMPLOYABILITY IN THE MEDITERRANEAN NEWS FROM PROJECT Governance for Employability in the Mediterranean (GEMM) is a two-year project that involves employers, trade unions, local authorities in decisions relating to education and training to improve young people’s chances on the labour market. In the past year the ETF has carried a mapping of governance in vocational education and training across the region, while the country teams chose various pilot projects to implement in 2014. http://ow.ly/tuSq1

MAKING LEBANESE SCHOOLS MORE ENTREPRENEURIAL In Beirut on 7 December, the ETF and its partners from Lebanon and international organisations shared the results of a three-year project on entrepreneurial learning. The project supported both entrepreneurial-learning policy and the introduction of entrepreneurship classes as a pilot in some 30 vocational and general secondary schools. The project was co-funded by the Italian Development Cooperation. http://ow.ly/tuTq2

REVIVING SKILLS COUNCILS IN SERBIA Sector skills councils are widely used around the world. Their structures and functions vary but they all have a common goal: to ensure the supply of education and training meets the needs of specific sectors of the labour market. The purpose of the conference in Belgrade on 28 January was to bring back to life four councils that were established in Serbia in 2012. The participants in the meeting built on their earlier experience and considered conditions for the councils to be sustainable in the Serbian context. http://ow.ly/tuTFk

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Events

ETF AND ILO GIVE TRAINING IN CAREER GUIDANCE From 21 to 25 October in Turin, the International Training Centre (ITCILO), the training arm of the International Labour Organization based in Turin and the ETF held a training course entitled: “Career Guidance Policy and Practice: A strategic tool for Planners and Decision Makers in Employment, Education and Training’’. Twenty-two participants from 13 countries attended the course, including delegates from ETF partner countries.

 The crucial role of labour market and career information  Key elements of effective career guidance  Next steps of policy implementation – key messages and ways forward.

 The need and rationale for career guidance

The activities allowed participants to share and enrich the sessions with their own knowledge and experiences. There were also educational as well as experiential sessions, using participatory activities to help make sense of the learning, short interactive presentations, individual and group exercises and group discussions.

 Delivery models of career guidance – finding the optimal career guidance mix

The ETF and ITCILO will hold the next training on career guidance from 7 to 11 April 2014. More information at http://ow.ly/tCriX

The course covered the following topics:

ETF SUPPORTS READ ALL ETF STORIES, COMMENT AND SHARE THEM ON SOCIAL MEDIA ETF Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/etfeuropa

ETF Twitter page at https://twitter.com/etfeuropa

Online communities for education professionals at http://ow.ly/ukLQk

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