European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training

The European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training ( ECVET ) is intended to become a European credit system for vocational education and training . The EU Commission has used since 2004 to a working group from different European countries (social partners and experts) to develop the system.

target

The aim is to promote training mobility, increase the attractiveness of vocational training and define recognition of vocational training for university training.

The mobility of workers and trainees is of great importance if the aim is to advance the economic unity of Europe beyond further progress in the creation of a single market for goods and services, to promote the exchange of experience across borders and in the direction of the development of a European identity. The reality in the economy does not yet correspond to these goals.

The planning for ECVET is based on the assumption that initial vocational training can be the phase of life in which European workers gain mobility experience at an early stage. In fact, the exchange of trainees across European borders has not yet played a quantitatively significant role. In Germany it is around 2%. In its Lisbon work program of February 2002, the European Council of Education Ministers agreed on systematic and structured educational cooperation in the European Union. In the Copenhagen Declaration (2002), the development of a credit point system for vocational education and training was identified as a common area of responsibility: The development of a European Credit (Transfer) System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET) takes the approach of the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) to promote intra-European student mobility, which has been developing since 1989, but has to take into account the specifics of vocational training. The Commission has therefore set up a Technical Working Group (TAG) which started its work in December 2002. Based on the preparatory work of the TAG, the proposal for an ECVET model was presented to the Directors General for Education and Training in July 2005 in Brussels. The proposal is currently being refined, also on the basis of the results of the two ECVET research projects.

Character and accomplishments

In the area of vocational training, the European Commission has a supporting and complementary function towards the member states: Article 149 of the EC Treaty formulates a ban on harmonization, Article 150 the ban on central interventions in national vocational training systems. In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, the ECVET is designed as a system that is based on the voluntary participation of the European member states and aims at transparency between the systems, taking into account national legislation in the field of vocational education and training.

ECVET is a system for accumulating and transferring credit points in vocational education and training. With its help, learning outcomes that a person has achieved in the field of vocational training can be documented and certified across “system boundaries”. In contrast to the ECTS at universities, qualifications should not be described in terms of the effort required to acquire them, but rather in terms of the learning outcomes and skills achieved. In order to achieve coverage with as many evaluation procedures as possible established at national level, very disparate evaluation criteria can be included in the definition of the ECVET levels, such as

The duration of the training,
The type of training
The objectives and / or results of the training,
The skills required to perform certain activities,
The position of a qualification in the professional hierarchy and
The classification of existing levels on the basis of proof of compliance.

However, the disparity of the evaluation criteria means that the same professional qualifications can be classified at very different levels. In this respect, the development of ECVET requires a European consensus to review procedures for acquired competencies and to ensure the quality of the system.

Web links

literature

Vocational training - magazine for practice and theory in companies and schools. Issue 96: Vocational Education and Training in Europe. December 2005, ISSN 0005-9536 .

EU Commission, DG Education and Culture (Ed.): Development of common reference levels to underline the European qualifications framework. EU, Brussels 2004.

Markus Linten, Sabine Prüstel: Selected bibliography "The European Vocational Training Area": Compilation from: Literature database for vocational education (www.ldbb.de). Status: April 2014. Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, Bonn 2014. (www.bibb.de , accessed May 5, 2014)

E. Mernagh: ECVET and Framework of Qualifications: the Irish Experience. National Qualifications Authority of Ireland, Dublin 2004. (nfq.ie)

K. Mucke, S. Grunwald: University- compatible credit points in vocational training - laying the foundation stone in IT training. W.Bertelsmann, Bielefeld 2005.

E. Severing: European certification standards in vocational training. In: Journal for Vocational and Business Education. Volume 102, Issue 1, 2006, pp. 15-29. (Full text) ( Memento from August 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive )

BIBB (Ed.): News from Europe. Issue 12, Bonn May 2007. (PDF) ( Memento from May 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

G. Fietz, I. Le Mouillour, T. Reglin: ECVET - Introduction of a credit point system for vocational training. (= Economy and Education. Volume 50). W. Bertelsmann, Bielefeld 2008, ISBN 978-3-7639-3459-1

Institutions

Cevet (center for vocational education and training) ( [2] )

Footnotes

↑ ECVET reflector

[1] ECVET reflector