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ISSN: 1725-7344
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HIGHLIGHTS
THE ETF IN 2006
HOW TO CONTACT US
Further information on our activities, calls fortender and job opportunities can be found onour web site: www.etf.europa.eu
For any additional information please contact:
External Communication UnitEuropean Training FoundationVilla GualinoViale Settimio Severo 65I – 10133 TorinoT +39 011 630 2222F +39 011 630 2200E [email protected]
THE EUROPEAN TRAINING FOUNDATION (ETF)
FACILITATES COMMUNICATION AND LEARNING
BETWEEN THE EU AND ITS PARTNER COUNTRIES IN
THE FIELD OF HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT.
HIGHLIGHTS
THE ETF IN 2006
A great deal of additional information on theEuropean Union is available on the Internet.It can be accessed through the Europa server(http://www.europa.eu).
Cataloguing data can be found at the end ofthis publication.
Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications ofthe European Communities, 2007.
ISBN: 978-92-9157-521-3ISSN: 1725-7344
© European Communities, 2007.
Reproduction is authorised provided the sourceis acknowledged.
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FOREWORD
Every year, the annual Highlights showcase some ofthe best of the work of the European TrainingFoundation. But they are not just a review ofachievements of the past year. In identifying whatthe ETF itself considers flagship activities in supportof human resources development in ourneighbouring regions, these Highlights also hold apromise of what the next year may bring.
In this case, the next year is 2007, the year of thefiftieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome and theEuropean Year of Equal Opportunities in whichwe try to send the message across Europe that,although we have made a lot of progress inachieving equity among European citizens, weare not quite there yet and much remains to bedone.
Both solidarity and equal opportunities arecornerstones of European social and employmentpolicy, and their role in human resourcesdevelopment in the European Union as well asbeyond can therefore not be underestimated.
I am therefore pleased to see that these highlightsof the European Training Foundation so stronglyadvocate progress through international cooperationand progress through equal opportunities as pillarson which the European Training Foundation rests itsimportant work of supporting human resourcesdevelopment in the regions that surround theEuropean Union.
Vladimir ŠpidlaCommissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and
Equal Opportunities
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Vladimir Špidla,Commissioner for Employment,Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities
A REMARKABLE YEAR
You have in front of you the 2006 edition of ourannual Highlights. It is an issue that is perhaps evenmore aptly named than any earlier edition because2006 was truly a year of highlights for the EuropeanTraining Foundation.
We entered 2006 in the slipstream of an absolutehighlight for our host city Turin: the 2006 winterOlympics, the buzz of which was impossible toignore even from our location in the hills on theoutskirts of the city.
As 2006 drew to a close we could welcome twocountries into the European Union that had beenamong our closest partner countries for more than adecade. Up until the end of 2006, we had workedhard with both countries to help to prepare them foraccession and we look forward to deploying theexpertise of our Romanian and Bulgariancolleagues in our future work with other partnercountries.
In between these two milestones, a string ofsignificant events made 2006 the remarkable yearthat it would be for the ETF as an organisation and
for EU support to human resources development inour neighbouring regions: closing our 2004-06mid-term perspectives and preparing for a broaderETF mandate in the years ahead under a new set ofEuropean support instruments.
Early in the year, the work of the European agencieswas acknowledged when in February, President ofthe European Commission, José Manuel Barroso,met with the Heads of EU agencies in Brussels for adiscussion about the activities and the role of thedecentralised EU agencies and when in April adelegation of Euro parliamentarians visited the ETFin Turin.
Our contacts with the European Commission alsochanged when Nikolaus van der Pas swapped seatswith Odile Quintin. As the new Director General forEducation and Culture she came to head ourGoverning Board, chairing her first session in June2006.
Cooperation between the ETF and its host countrywas strengthened through meetings at ministeriallevel on the position of the ETF in Italy. The Italian
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Trust Fund has provided strong support to ETF workin the Western Balkans and the success of thisclose collaboration resulted this year in an extensionof our framework agreement. The new generation ofjoint ETF-Italian Trust Fund projects will focus onnational qualification frameworks and financingvocational education and training in the WesternBalkans and the Mediterranean region.
The ETF was, again, very positively appraised by ateam of external evaluators. Their recommendationsgreatly supported another highlight of the year: theproposal to broaden the mandate of the ETF tocover the entirety of labour market related humanresources development in our partner countries.With the prospect of the launch of the newinstruments for EU external support in January2007, the ETF’s new mandate will markedlyincrease the flexibility with which it can pursue itsgoals.
On a sad personal note, 2006 was also the yearwhen we were shocked to receive the news of theuntimely death of my predecessor Peter de Rooijwho had skilfully directed the ETF through the firstdecade of its existence.
Even the briefest overview of our 2006 highlightscannot be complete without mentioning theconference Skills for Progress, which saw morethan 200 participants gathered in Turin to discussthe key themes of our current work in humanresources development. The conference isdiscussed in detail in this publication and I shouldtherefore at this point just like to use the opportunity
to once more thank the numerous colleagues, ourAdvisory Forum members and our Governing Boardmembers who were crucial to the success of theevent.
More than that, I should like to thank all of mycolleagues for their continuous efforts to highlightthe pivotal role of human resources development insupporting peace and prosperity in the EuropeanUnion and beyond.
Muriel DunbarDirector, ETF
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Muriel Dunbar, Director, ETF
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1. LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER
Education and training policy must be developed bythe people it affects: the governments, employersand citizens who together are the beneficiaries ofthe skills and competences that are conveyed andacquired through education and training. Theimmediate and future needs of any self-containedlabour market are best defined and responded to bythose who operate within it.
Having said this, in our world today there is hardlyanywhere such a thing as a self-contained labourmarket left. As trade has gone global, so has labour.Companies that until recently were strongly linked totheir country of origin now outsource design, manuallabour and research and development to formerlyinsular labour markets far beyond their home countries.
As a result, the need for international orchestrationof education, training and labour marketdevelopment has increased. In fact, it has increasedto such an extent that just ten, twenty years agopeople in industrialised countries felt that all thatwas needed to develop budding economies was to‘export’ policy development models that had proventheir worth and implement them across the globe.
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Learning from each other
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Skills for progress – partnership is crucial
“Partnerships between stakeholders in education and trainingare crucial for developing human capacity,” said the President ofthe Piedmont Region, Mercedes Bresso, at the closing of theETF’s triennial Advisory Forum conference Skills for Progress,held in June at the Lingotto in Turin.
Some 200 policy makers and training and labour market expertsfrom 55 countries attended the event to discuss some pressingquestions in the global debate on skills development. After threedays of thematic and regional workshops, debates and informalconsultations, the delegates defined a group of priorities for theEuropean Training Foundation's work and the countries in whichit is active.
Partnership building with employers and social partners,employment policy development, and policy monitoring wereamong the issues highlighted. In addition, the participantspointed to vocational education and training as an investmenttool for competitiveness and emphasised the need for capacitybuilding for governance issues and the preparation forsector-wide approaches.
Gender and migration and their impact on education, trainingand labour market issues were among other current topicsraised throughout the sessions. Participants agreed that equalaccess to opportunities and mobility of the labour force throughbetter comparability of qualifications are factors that need to beaddressed in the design of future policy measures.
ETF director Muriel Dunbar was impressed by the quality andquantity of the contributions from a variety of sectors and regions.The recommendations that came out of the conference will beused to better focus future activities of the ETF and to define itsrole as the main facilitator of policy learning in the area of VET.
In her closing remarks, Muriel Dunbar stressed the importanceof the link between the ETF and the delegates for making itswork more visible and effective and encouraged the participantsto nurture the relations between them.
“But you too need links,” she said. “Exchange of experiencesamong countries is an essential ingredient in policy learning.”
Mercedes Bresso, President of the Piedmont Region at the ETF's Skillsfor Progress conference in Turin, June 2006
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It didn’t work. Cultural, political and religioustraditions are not always as flexible as trademechanisms.
This leaves us today with the worthy challenge offinding common ground without infringing on eachother’s cultural identities. It is in this friction zonethat the ETF operates, trying to assist partnercountries of the European Union to develop theirhuman resources without compromising theirtraditions and cultural identity.
As a European agency, the European TrainingFoundation is excellently positioned for this task.After all, the great European experiment – of unitinga whole continent politically and economically with
full respect for each individual country’s culturalidentity – has been an unprecedented learningprocess from whose pool of results many lessonscan be drawn.
Closing the circle, perhaps the most importantlesson that has been learned during fifty years ofEuropean integration has been that it is better tohelp each other to learn than to teach each other,lest teaching turn into preaching, or simply beinterpreted as such. Even in pedagogy, this is atested concept: although learning and teaching arenot mutually exclusive, learning implies absorption,effect and development. Teaching alone doesn’t.Learnt matter sticks. Taught matter doesn’tnecessarily.
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2. A NEW OUTLOOK
Policy development
The principle of learning from each other is not newto the ETF. Study visits, for example, have formedthe backbone of much of the ETF’s project activitysince its establishment in 1995. Projecting thisprinciple onto the field of policy development,however, is a more recent development that took offin 2003 and was refined in the years since.
And this brings us to 2006, the subject of thispublication, when policy learning was endorsed,both by the European Commission and the ETF’sAdvisory Forum, as the guiding principle for futureactivities of the organisation.
Such policy learning found its root in modifiedtraditional peer reviews. Peer reviews have beenused for a long time, most notably in highereducation and research. More recently, they havecome into vogue among international organisationsas a way of studying national policies from onecountry to another. Their focus, however, hasalways been on the outcome, the final review.
Recognising from earlier experience the value of theactual process of learning that takes place amongthose participating in a peer review, the ETF slightlyshifted the objectives of its peer review activitiestowards these learning processes. It tried to maximisethe gains for both the reviewers and the reviewed.
But concerns about the impact of ETF peerreviewing activities on actual policy developmentremained. Those who participated in the reviewslearned tremendously but their gains were notalways taken full advantage of nationally.
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After broad discussions in 2006 – such as at theAdvisory Forum but also in the ETF Yearbook – theETF therefore decided to let the shift to the new EUinstruments of support (see next chapter) coincidewith a decisive effort to take the process of policylearning one rung higher on the political ladder inthe partner countries so that large scale assistanceto human resources development on the groundcould be better supplemented by and coordinatedwith education and training policy reform.
The way forward
Education and training constitute a very broad fieldof activity and although vocational education andtraining is arguably the section of any educationsystem that is most directly connected to the labourmarket, the internal boundaries that once sharplydivided our education systems into different sectorsare fading. And with lifelong learning taking an ever
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Towards peer learning in policy
development
Support to peer learning in policy development, or policylearning, is nothing more, nothing less than providing theopportunity for policymakers from one country to learn fromtheir peers in other countries. Peers abroad expose them tocurrent practice in different environments. From what theyencounter, they take the best ideas home to adapt and dovetailinto tailor-made solutions that fit the culture and needs of theirown countries.
For the ETF, the move towards policy learning is the result of anatural process that fitted well into evolving ideas on externalassistance from the European Commission and theorganisation’s own learning cycle. As the ETF developedexpertise in education and training through its projects inEastern Europe, Central Asia, North Africa and the MiddleEast, it increasingly developed the capacity to deal with thepolitical foundation of education and training reform.
It also saw the success of the pilot schools and centres itsupported across the partner countries and the demand therewas from others to follow up on this success. In the countrieswhere the political will was strongest, such initiatives would bepicked up by the authorities and used in national reforms. Butin other countries, the development of these islands of reformcame to a grinding halt as external funding dried up.
It was deemed increasingly essential that policymakers wereactively brought into reform activities. Bottom-up initiativesalone were not going to cause landslide reforms.
While thus the target of ETF assistance was gradually movedtowards the policymaking level in the partner countries, themeans to provide assistance were kept firmly in place.Learning from each other, sharing expertise through peerlearning, networking, study visits etc., remained at the heart ofthe support philosophy of the ETF.
Where the ETF works
more important role in our daily lives, theboundaries that divide learning and work are fadingtoo.
As a result, the somewhat arbitrary limitation of theETF’s field of work – vocational education andtraining – had gradually become more problematicduring the past ten years. A broadening of itsmandate to cover the whole of labour market relatedhuman resources development had therefore beenanticipated for some time. The EuropeanCommission prepared its view on the matterthroughout 2006. Important input came from the2006 external evaluation of the ETF.
The Commission published its advice to theEuropean Parliament, Council and Economic andSocial Committee on 19 December. Largely agreeingwith both the positive general view and the specificrecommendations of the evaluators, it added asection on the need for change in view of otherdevelopments in European external assistance:
� The introduction of the new external aidinstruments, the Instrument for Pre-AccessionAssistance (IPA) and the EuropeanNeighbourhood and Partnership Instrument(ENPI), marks a significant step towards apolicy-driven rather than programme-driven
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The ETF x-rayed
The founding Council Regulation of the ETF stipulates that theEuropean Commission should evaluate the agency every threeyears. The third of such external evaluations, covering the periodfrom 2002 to 2005, was completed in 2006 by ITAD Ltd, aUK-based consultancy company.
The evaluation provided recommendations for the ETF’sgeographical remit and thematic mandate as well as for itsgoverning structure. As such it also informed the revision of theETF’s Council Regulation. The overall conclusions andrecommendations from the external evaluation process werediscussed at the ETF Governing Board meeting in June 2006.
The evaluation considered the work of the ETF as good value.The Commission in Brussels and the Delegations have apositive perception of ETF’s provision of expertise in vocationaleducation and training across a range of services. According tothe report, ETF added value derives from the sustainability of the
institution, its understanding of the reform context, its network ofexperts and its capacity to respond flexibly and rapidly torequests.
The evaluators noted how the limitations to the thematicmandate of the ETF had been treated flexibly by both theCommission and the ETF. They too found it restrictive andrecommended that the upcoming revision of its mandate takeaccount of the view that VET is only one part of humanresources development. In their view, the planned revisionshould accommodate the terms human resources development,vocational education and training, lifelong learning and links tothe labour market and employment.
Although the report also argued for some increased flexibility inthe ETF’s geographical remit, allowing its expertise to be usedby the EU in countries at comparable stages of development andfacing similar socio-economic challenges, the evaluatorsunderlined that such greater flexibility should come with tougherprioritisation so as not to water down the effect of its work inindividual countries.
approach to external assistance in a sector-wideperspective. Both instruments are designed toprovide support towards the achievement bypartner countries of home-grown reforms in thesectors concerned. The objectives are defined bya process of dialogue with partner countrygovernments and support is provided to them forthe implementation of reform processes designedand managed by them.
� In this new context, the ETF will increasingly berequired to provide the Commission withinformation and analysis at the policydevelopment and programming phase. The other
focus of attention has to be in helping partnercountries to build the capacity to define andimplement indigenous reform strategies, and inpromoting networking and exchange ofexperience and good practice between the EUand the partner countries and among partnercountries themselves.
These new external aid instruments, the IPA andthe ENPI were introduced together with anotheracronym, the DCI (Development CooperationInstrument), on 1 January 2007. Perhaps more thananything else, their expected arrival dominated ETForganisational developments in 2006.
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Partner countries meet to discuss the Copenhagen Process Photo: ETF/A. Ramella
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The new EU instruments for external assistance
In the period from 2007 to 2013, the EU’s external assistance programmes will be covered by threenew instruments. These are:
• the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA)1
• the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI)2
• the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI).
The IPA and ENPI will support activities that promote closer integration with the European Union andcontribute to stability while facilitating economic growth.
For candidate and potential candidate countries covered by the IPA, the support provided may lead toaccession within varying timescales.
For countries in the Neighbourhood region, support will lead to closer links with the EU’s internalmarket.
The countries of Central Asia will be covered by the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) in thefuture.
The new instruments aim at greater ownership in the use of external assistance by the partnercountries and at creating mutual commitments with the EU. They contain significant common elements,including:
• placing assistance within a framework of clearer relations between partner countries and the EU;
• promoting mutually agreed bilateral strategies that integrate external assistance within the policypriorities of each country;
• supporting greater sustainability of the results of assistance by including measures to improve prioritysetting and reduce the fragmentation of assistance, such as through sector-based approaches.
1 The countries and territories covered by the IPA are: Serbia; Montenegro; Kosovo (under UN Security Council Resolution 1244);Albania; the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Croatia and Turkey.
2 The ENPI covers countries of Eastern Europe (Belarus, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine), the Southern Caucasus (Armenia,Azerbaijan, and Georgia) and the Mediterranean region (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority,Syria, Tunisia and eventually Libya).
New ways of EU support
The new EU instruments for external assistancereplace the frameworks (Phare, Tacis, CARDS andMEDA) through which ETF cooperation with thepartner countries took place until 2006. Their scopeis broader and their approach more comprehensivethan those of earlier support instruments.
More significant for the work of the ETF is the fact thathuman resources development takes a greater role inthe new instruments. Not only has the increased focuson knowledge and skills in the EU resulted in a reviewof the role of education and training in externalassistance, human resources development is alsoviewed in a more holistic way than before.
The new programmes and preparation for thesetook centre stage in much of the work of the ETF in2006, both internally and externally.
Organisational changes
Within the ETF, the changes were best reflected inthe revision of departmental divisions. Until 2006,ETF operational departments had been dividedalong geographic lines. These regional departmentswere abolished in favour of one large OperationsDepartment.
This organisational change reflected the ambitionsof the ETF that were formulated for each of the newinstruments in its mid-term perspectives for theperiod from 2007 to 2010 (see also chapter 7: A
Glance Ahead). It allowed expertise availableacross the former geographic departments to beflexibly applied in transversal topics such as the roleof education and training in poverty alleviation,gender issues, migration and other new thematicareas that arose in 2006.
Shifting operations
This same Operations Department faced a number ofchallenging tasks right from its launch in 2006. Oneof these was directly related to the anticipated newEU external support instruments: the preparation ofpartner countries for the new EU approach.
This was particularly relevant for potential future EUMember States. Even more than before, EU support tothese countries will focus on accession and accessionrequirements. This asks for further alignment with EUdevelopments in human resources development andthese have been many in recent years, most notablythrough the Copenhagen Process.
Copenhagen Process
A series of projects that started in 2005 helps toengage partner countries in EU human resourcesdevelopment measures. An information disseminationproject aims to introduce candidate countries andcountries of the Western Balkans to developmentsrelated to the Copenhagen Process. Two smallerprojects now do the same in countries of North Africa,the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
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Common to all of these projects is their aim to raiseawareness of all the tools for vocational educationand training reform that are being developed in theEU, such as common efforts in quality assurance,the European Qualifications Framework andEuropass. It is hoped that countries will use thesemodels in their own reform processes by puttingthem on the agenda during their policy discussions.The projects also support networking betweencountries so that they can learn from each others’experiences. A Copenhagen Newsletter, publishedby the ETF, supports such efforts. First published inJune 2006, it provides information and news on pastand future events four times a year.
Within the two-year project that is aimed at thecandidate countries, 2005 was the year ofinformation dissemination, while 2006 was the yearof capacity building and looking at the detailedimplications of the Copenhagen Process oneducation and training in each individual country.
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Copenhagen workshop, Turin, December 2006
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Serbia and Kosovo prepare for the IPA
In September and October, two seminars in Belgrade andPrishtina set out the path for support to the two regions underthe new Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPA). The seminarswere part of a broader initiative to inform Balkan countries ofIPA opportunities jointly organised by the local ECrepresentations and the ETF.
In Belgrade, some 50 participants concluded that more intensedialogue on human resources development, better cooperationand greater institutional decentralisation were priorities for theyears ahead.
Ms Donka Banovic, Chair of the Education Committee of theSerbian Parliament, highlighted the realistic image of theSerbian labour market that the ETF provided through itscountry analysis for IPA. She pointed out that betteradministrative capacities of assimilating EU funds werenecessary to continue labour market reforms.
Two weeks earlier, Kosovo’s* next phase of EU support forreforms had been discussed by civil servants, politicians,social partners and civic society at a workshop in Prishtina.
This workshop engaged a range of partners in a reflectionprocess on the importance of strategic investment in humanresources in a country which is increasingly exposed tocompetitive forces from South Eastern Europe and beyond.
Fatmire Mullhagja-Kollçaku, chair of the national Committee onEmployment and Social Affairs, underlined the socio-economicdifficulties facing the small Balkan region. “We need consensuson how we develop our human resources,” she said, pledgingher support for a new mechanism to coordinate strategic policy.
The workshop concluded with a recommendation to establishan IPA task force to channel the concerns of stakeholderstowards the highest levels of government and the EuropeanCommission.
* Kosovo as defined in UNSCR 1244
In 2006, the project team organised activities in all(potential) candidate countries of South EasternEurope. Reports were drafted, study visits weremade and four conferences were organised, settingup institutional structures on four key Copenhagenissues: national qualification frameworks, qualityassurance, social partnership and career guidance.
The ETF organised another series of Copenhagenworkshops in Georgia, the Russian Federation andUkraine in September 2006 which were alsoattended by participants from Armenia andAzerbaijan.
Preparing for neighbourhoodassistance
The new EU foreign policy approach aims to promotedemocracy, prosperity and the rule of law in thecountries surrounding the enlarged European Union.As a result, human resources development (HRD)will come to play a bigger role in EU support to theneighbouring regions than it has ever played before.
As a service to EC services and other internationaldonors deepening their involvement in HRD in thecountries covered by the European NeighbourhoodPolicy Instrument, in September 2006 the ETFpublished a report on human resources developmentin the European neighbourhood region which
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Caucasians learn in the Italian
foothills
During late October, a delegation from threecountries in the Caucasus region - Armenia,Azerbaijan and Georgia – visited Rome andTurin to study local experience of educationand training.
The seven participants were entrepreneursfrom the tourism sector, educationprofessionals and government officials.Guided by ETF staff, they were given thechance to see how central and regionalgovernments are handling this importantissue.
In Rome, the Caucasian delegation learned ofItaly’s discussions on a national qualificationsframework (NQF). They were introduced to thelegal framework, national policies, trends forreform and decision making processes.
In Italy, responsibility for VET was devolved tothe regions in 1970 and, moving on to Turin, thefocus shifted to illustrating how one region, inthis case Piedmont, is successfully implementinga qualifications framework.
Piedmont has suffered a severe economicdownturn over the past twenty years due to thedecline of heavy industry such as the carmanufacturer, Fiat. It is now betting on tourismas one of the levers for economic recovery. Aninitial meeting with Piedmont’s regional authorityin charge of VET served to show howresponsibilities are divided among the centraland regional governments.
The Piedmont scenario was sadly familiar to thestudy visitors, whose countries are facing similarchallenges during the economic transition.
This activity was part of a larger ETF projectaimed at helping national stakeholders in partnercountries to develop a good understanding ofnational qualification frameworks.
provided a country by country guide to the currentstate of play in HRD in these fourteen countries.
The 71-page document brought the latestinformation on the situation of HRD in each of theNeighbourhood countries. This included anoverview of the social and economic context, adescription of the strengths and weaknesses of theeducation and training systems and a brief review ofthe main HRD reform initiatives that are currentlysupported by international donors. Every chapterended with a series of recommendations detailingwhat donors could do to help improve humanresources development in each country.
Suggestions included the need to developcontinuing training in Algeria, the need forinstitutional capacity-building in Ukraine and theneed to use technical vocational education andtraining to combat social exclusion in the West Bankand Gaza Strip.
While the report made some very specificrecommendations, its overall aim was always topromote sustainable system-wide reform rather thanpiecemeal measures which may not have a lastingeffect.
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Preparing for neighbourhood assistance
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Sector-wide support
Already today, support to the Mediterranean regionis characterised by this changing nature of EUassistance towards system-wide support. Althoughcountries in this region are not preparing for futureaccession, the alignment of their education andtraining systems to European practice has gainedsignificance, particularly since agreements on futurefree-trade zones were sealed.
A large proportion of the ETF’s support to the regionis channelled through the project Education andTraining for Employment (MEDA-ETE). It waslaunched in 2005 but many of its key activities didnot start until 2006.
To recap, the ETF-managed MEDA-ETE projectconsists of four main components. The first twoconcern a Euromed Annual Forum and internationalnetwork on technical and vocational education andtraining (TVET) for employment. The third coverssupport to self-employment of young people. Thefourth promotes the development of e-learning inthe region.
The Euromed network on TVET for employmentcomprises government officials, educationrepresentatives and statisticians from eachparticipating country. A parallel network of experts intraining for teachers and trainers supported the workof the project through the publication of ten countryreports and one regional analysis on the role ofe-learning in training of teachers and trainers.
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Education and Training for Employment
One hundred experts from the southern shores of theMediterranean gathered in Turin for the first MEDA-ETE AnnualForum in April 2006. Education and Training for Employment orETE is an ambitious ETF-managed project aimed at boostingemployment in ten countries of the Mediterranean region. Theforum acts as the project’s engine and steering wheel, designedto feed input from the main partners back into the project andprovide guidance for future activities.
In her keynote speech, EuropeAid’s Claire Kupper illustratedhow the project fits into the core aims of the BarcelonaProcess and EU regional programming in the non-EUMediterranean countries. “The three main principles onwhich EU cooperation with our southern neighbours buildsare dialogue, exchange and cooperation,” she said.
ETF staff outlined which areas will be worked on during 2006as part of the Euromed Network on TVET for Employment.This section of the project aims to produce one comparativeanalysis and one thematic study every year for the three-yearduration of the project. Both are linked to thematic networks inthe region. In 2006 the comparative analysis covered thesubject of vocational guidance, while the thematic studyfocussed on the issue of the recognition of qualifications.
Project leader Borhène Chakroun expressed his satisfactionwith the project’s results to date. “We have a year of broadconsultation and preparation behind us and we arecommitted to using all we have learned over this year infuture,” he said, “the work so far has shown the need toimprove education and training in our MEDA partnercountries. It also confirms our belief that ‘learning from eachother’ is the best way of achieving this.”
MEDA-ETE Annual Forum, Turin, April 2006
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Implementation of the components coveringself-employment and e-learning was partlysubcontracted. These activities commenced in2006. More specific information on some of theproject components can be found in later chaptersof this publication.
Donor coordination
The ETF has always tried to gather different donorsaround the table to coordinate their assistanceprogrammes. A broader role in human resourcesdevelopment for the ETF and an EU move towardssector-wide support will make the need for this evenmore urgent. The ETF continues to expand itsexpertise in human resources development in thepartner countries and wants other organisations to beable to draw from its pool of knowledge. At the sametime, EU assistance will require closer coordinationwith other bilateral and multilateral donors to avoidoverlap or, worse, incoherent support to reforms.
In 2006, one of the highest profile efforts tocoordinate with other international donors in thepartner countries was the conference “Newdirections in technical vocational education andtraining reform in the Middle East and North Africa”.
Access to education and training in these regionshas surged in recent years. In itself this is a positivedevelopment for countries where a more promisingfuture for young people has the potential to improvesocial and economic stability. But pressure in
numbers is testing the limits of the existing forms ofeducation in the region.
Many schools and training institutions in this part ofthe world are insufficiently prepared to cater formodern knowledge societies and internationalcompetition. To make sure that broad participationdoes not work to the detriment of quality, relevanceand management of education in the region, urgentreform initiatives are needed.
Proposals for education development in technicaland vocational education and training (TVET) inthese regions had been outlined in a 2006 jointETF-World Bank report on the issue. Commentingthat in recent years TVET has regained much of itsstatus as a tool for competitiveness andemployability, in this report experts from the WorldBank and the ETF called for a broad upgradingprocess to also allow TVET in this region to betterrespond to the needs of modernising economiesthrough improved cooperation with social andeconomic partners. They also call for closepartnership among development agencies tostreamline their work.
The joint ETF/World Bank conference in Cairo inSeptember aimed at sharing the findings of thereport with experts and policy makers who areactive in the region. It yielded new support initiativesaround the themes developed in the report. Theseactivities will provide a framework for building betterpartnerships with international developmentagencies.
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The demands of competitiveness
Given the rapid demographic transition taking placeacross the Middle East, Emmanuel Mbi, World BankRegional Director for Egypt, Yemen and Djiboutithinks that “the need to provide decent jobs to alarge influx of new workers requires the emergenceof a dynamic private sector capable of competinginternationally through increases in productivity asopposed to a reliance on low wages.” Building onthis, he believes that “improving the quality and therelevance of technical and vocational training arecentral to this challenge.”
Emmanuel Mbi spoke his words at a jointETF/World Bank conference in September 2006 inCairo at which regional experts and policymakersdiscussed new directions in technical vocationaleducation and training reform in the Middle East andNorth Africa. The title of this high profile conferencehad been borrowed from the main discussion paper– a report that is also a joint work by the twoorganisations.
The report outlines five critical challenges fortechnical vocational education and training reform inthe region: governance of the vocational education
and training systems, financing of training, qualityissues in vocational education and training, skillsdevelopment for the informal sector, andparticipation of the private sector and social partnersin the training system management and provision.
“We all feel it in our daily lives. The key objective ofskills development today is competitiveness,”confirmed Fayza Aboulnaga, Egypt’s Minister ofInternational Cooperation in her opening address.
ETF Director Muriel Dunbar said that, with theacceleration of globalisation and the opportunitiesthis brings to the labour market, countries acrossthe region should address the challenges tovocational education and training in a moresystemic manner. “Without a good supply ofvocational education and training graduates withrelevant skills entering the labour market each year,a country will not be able to gain or maintain aprofitable economic base, it will not be able toattract foreign direct investment and it will not beable to compete successfully in free trade,” shesaid.
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Joint ETF – World Bank conference, Cairo, September 2006
Photo: ETF/Eldin Mohamed
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3. LINKING THE WORLDS OF EDUCATION AND WORK
Unemployment is still a massive problem in many ofthe ETF’s partner countries. In most cases, thepotential for jobs is there but education and trainingneed to help channel human resources towards newareas of need in a changing labour market.
Often this calls for radical reforms in theorganisation and delivery of vocational educationand training. Assisting partner countries in this bygiving them access to information, ideas andexpertise is the core business of the EuropeanTraining Foundation.
The strength of modern education and trainingsystems lies in the way in which they are linked toand integrated into the world of work. RecentEuropean progress in this field is generally hailed asquite successful and an example from which muchcan be learned by partner countries in the vicinity ofthe European Union.
Much of this progress builds on accurate monitoringof labour market conditions and trends. And indeed,the lack of capacity to monitor such trends
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adequately lies at the root of many of the problemsETF partner countries face in maintaining relevancein education and training.
In the Western Balkans, this year the ETF took thelead in gathering comparative data when itlaunched a transnational analysis of the labourmarkets in the region. The analysis identified gapsand challenges to help the countries’ prioritisereform efforts that are needed for future accessionto the European Union.
In June, the ETF convened a meeting amongexperts from the Western Balkan countries, theEuropean Commission and internationalorganisations to present the first outcomes of thisanalysis and to seek advice for further work. Thisproject was a follow-up to a series of labour marketreviews in the Western Balkan countries carried outby the ETF in 2004 and 2005.
Career guidance
As rapidly shifting labour market needs becomemore adequately translated into education andtraining, an increasing need to guide studentsthrough the myriad of training opportunities aroundarises. Today, career guidance is a more topicalissue than ever before.
Throughout the year, local experts from tenMediterranean countries elaborated country reportson career guidance. A team of EU experts produceda comparative analysis on guidance in theMediterranean region, based on the country reportsand several field visits. A thematic network ofpolicymakers on career guidance was created too.
The ETF review of career guidance systems in theMediterranean region is part of the MEDA-ETEproject (see also chapter 2).
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Mediterranean observations in Lisbon
Experts from around the Mediterranean gathered in Lisbon inJanuary to help launch a EuroMediterranean observatoryfunction network. The initiative is part of the Education andTraining for Employment Project that the ETF operates in theregion.
The observatory function network encourages nationalinformation systems from ten countries to work together. Theaim is to produce a common set of indicators on technicalvocational education and training (TVET) and the labour marketin Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria,Tunisia, Turkey and the West Bank and Gaza Strip by the end of2008. This information can then be channelled to policy-makersto help inform their decisions.
During the three-day workshop, delegates heard presentationson how to build useful indicators and identified those on which toconcentrate first.
With her recent experience of working on Jordan’s TVETindicators, Sana Khair, Decision Support Manager at theJordanian Ministry of Education, explained why it is much harderto get good quality information on technical vocational educationand training than on general education. “With TVET, there are somany players that you have to involve lots of differentorganisations in order to get useful information,” she said.
The event was followed by a week’s study visit organised byPortugal’s Observatory of Employment and Vocational Training.The visit took the delegates on a whirlwind tour of Portugal’sinformation-gathering systems, with a special focus on thetourism and food and drink industries.
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Guiding career guidance
In July, an ETF workshop in Turin saw the birth of a new network for developing career guidance policyin ten Mediterranean countries. The event brought together representatives of the ministries of labourand education from seven countries to discuss how to improve career guidance systems in the region.
Morocco already has an extensive career guidance system, including facilities for training counsellors.“What we don’t have is a way of knowing if our system is efficient and meets peoples’ needs,” saysAbdassalem Bouaich, Moroccan local expert, “if we come out of this meeting with somerecommendations on how to evaluate the system and improve quality, that would be useful.”
Anna Gluck, deputy director of manpower and training at the Israeli Labour Ministry, wants to seeexisting Israeli resources used better. As one of the first fruits of the network, she and colleague BennyBenjamin have decided to make a joint proposal to their respective ministries on how technology couldbe used to free up resources.
Aboubakr Badawi, Egyptian localexpert, hopes the new MEDA-ETEnetwork will develop into a usefultool. “When all these people from theministries go back to their jobs, theyhave a heavy workload and notmuch time for anything new,” hesays, “but with a network, we setsome deadlines, encourage eachother and this makes sure that themomentum is not lost.”
After this first face-to-face meeting,the discussions continued via aspecial virtual community designedby the ETF, a study visit to Scotlandin September and a cross-countryanalysis that was published at theend of 2006. Guiding careers
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Transition from education to work
Closely related to the work in career guidance is anew ETF project analysing how young peopledevelop their skills and how they integrate into thelabour market. The project, Transition fromEducation to Work, was launched in Turin in July2006 and involves three countries from differentregions: Serbia, Ukraine and Egypt.
The project builds on earlier work to analyse thetransition from school to work. CATEWE(Comparative Analysis of Transition from Educationto Work in Europe) is a framework that wasoriginally developed through an EU-financedresearch project It is a conceptual tool to analysethe transition process in a holistic way and tocompare different models used in differentcountries.
The present project applies this framework in thethree countries. The project is part of the ETF’sInnovation and Learning programme that waslaunched in 2006 to maximise the impact of nationaldevelopments among partner countries through thesharing of expertise between policy makers fromdifferent countries.
Linking the worlds of education andwork through Tempus
In July 2004, at a Tempus meeting involvingrepresentatives from the EU Member States andTempus partner countries, the importance of
cooperation between universities and enterprises forthe higher education reform agenda in the currentTempus partner countries was discussed. In thiscontext, DG Education and Culture presented itsidea to launch a study on the role of the Tempusprogramme in university-enterprise cooperation.
The preliminary results of this work in progress werediscussed in June 2006 at a large seminar entitledTempus in Touch: University-EnterpriseCooperation, in Amman, Jordan.
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From education to work
The seminar was designed as a forum to raiseawareness about existing models ofuniversity-enterprise cooperation and about itsimportance as a way of enhancing the employabilityof university graduates.
Following the seminar, in early autumn the ETFpublished a summary report of the results of thestudy that took into account the discussions andfeedback from Amman.
The study identified examples of good practice inuniversity-enterprise cooperation in all of the currentTempus regions, but it found these mainly in areaswhere higher education and research activitiestraditionally existed. It also found that the cultural,legal and financial obstacles blocking furthercooperation are still significant.
It concluded that “a supportive environment needsto be developed, one that has the potential to breakthe dominant cultures at universities and enterprisesand that could help to develop strategies for newways of cooperating. Such an environment mustcomprise appropriate legislation, financial support,incentives, and support structures andmechanisms.”
It warned, however, that closer interaction betweenthe worlds of work and education is so urgentlyneeded that an unsupportive environment shouldnever be a decisive obstacle that stands in the wayof small-scale pioneering initiatives, illustrating thatelsewhere in the world such cooperation initially alsodeveloped in adverse environments. In this fieldlegislation tends to follow practice, rather than theother way around.
Towards the end of 2006, the summary report wasused as the basis for the publication Linking theworlds of work and education through Tempus.Published by DG Education and Culture, thisdocument brought the issue to a broader audience.
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4. REVALUING SKILLS AND RETHINKING QUALIFICATIONS
Skills are back, recognised as contributors todevelopment on par with general literacy andnumeracy. But skills today are a different conceptthan they were 50 years ago. Key skills today are nolonger the vocational skills that allow young peopleemployment for life in a trade or craft. Key skillstoday reflect the volatility of the labour marketwhose unpredictability requires a much moregeneric ability to learn, communicate and adapt.
Education developers in transition countries can stillbe bewildered by the enigma of what skills exactlyare needed to fuel a modern economy. And for goodreasons, because there is no universally applicablelist of skills that must be covered in vocationalcurricula. The trick is not to define an ultimate list ofneeded skills, the trick is to develop a system thatcan monitor constantly changing needs, analyse itsresults, and feed these back into a responsive andflexible education and training system.
The ETF helps partner countries develop suchsystems, together with peers from neighbouringcountries and experts from EU Member States thathave developed such systems in the past decades.
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurial skills form a set of generic skills thathave been long undervalued. They have gainedconsiderable importance in transition environmentsthat are characterised by a shift from largestate-owned companies to small and medium-sizedenterprises.
In many of the ETF’s partner countries,entrepreneurial skills are becoming a recognised partof human resources development. Particularly in the
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Western Balkans where industrial infrastructureshave been all but destroyed by transition and thewars of the 1990s, the ETF has been very active inpromoting the development of entrepreneurshiplearning. In line with this, the ETF also providedexpertise in this area to the European Commission’sDG Enterprise to support its national and regionalassessments of the partner countries in this region.
In 2006, local meetings were held in a number ofpartner countries while the European Commissionheld a conference on the subject in Oslo in whichrepresentatives from 33 countries participated. Thesubject is promoted across all of the ETF partnerregions.
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Skills needed in Serbia, but what skills?
Knowledge of what skills are most in demand is particularlyrelevant for the Serbian labour market. More than half a millionunemployed recent school graduates are testimony that theeducation system needs reform in order to better support labourmarket needs. Serbia has one of the highest youthunemployment rates in Europe. Its 44% compare to an average16-18% in EU countries.
The total number of registered unemployed in Serbia stands veryclose to one million. Of these, some 8% belong to vulnerablegroups. It takes the average unemployed person 3.5 years to finda job. As a result of ongoing privatisations, the Serbian economyis expected to meet even more redundancies in the nearest futureand there is no adult education system to alleviate the difficulties.
Against this economic background, the lack of preciseknowledge of what skills are needed contributes even further tomounting unemployment. The education provided andemployers needs should be integrated.
A final conference of the ETF project on skills needs identificationfor the Serbian labour market took place in Belgrade in June2006. Financed by Italy, this project had aimed at completing theidentification of skills needs that had already been initiated underthe EU’s CARDS programme with the establishment ofcommittees identifying sector occupational requirements.
Enhancing the capacity of these committees was now deemednecessary so that they could undertake skills needs analyses inthe different sectors and express them in terms of occupationalrequirements. The results were tested in two sectors: textile andretail.P
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Tracer studies
One way of evaluating the relevance of new skills invocational curricula is by carrying out tracer studies.
Tracer studies track students at set intervals aftercompletion of their training to see whether they areemployed, how they are employed and what therelevance was of the education and training theyreceived prior to employment.
In 2006, the ETF helped Tajik trainers developtracer studies to measure the effectiveness ofreforms. In Eastern Europe, successful tracerstudies in Azerbaijan in 2004 and 2005 werefollowed in 2006 by a similar study in Ukraine.
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Self-employment is employment too
At a meeting that took place in Turin in December 2006,representatives from the Western Balkans and Moldova gathered toreview progress on the European Charter for Small Enterprises andto share the experiences of the four countries which participated inthe ETF’s 2005 regional entrepreneurship initiative, namely Albania,FYR Macedonia, Moldova and Serbia and Montenegro.
Anthony Gribben, ETF Country Manager for Kosovo,Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, summarised theETF’s assessment of each country’s progress as submitted tothe European Commission. The evaluation looked at advancesin entrepreneurship education and training and in SME skills,chapters one and four of the charter.
Representatives of learning partnerships gave accounts of howentrepreneurship learning is developing in their countries.Aleksandar Milosevic, head of the Centre for SME andEntrepreneurship Development in Belgrade, described the workof the Serbian National Entrepreneurship Learning Partnershipagainst the backdrop of major downsizing and industrial
restructuring underway in Serbia. “We see the partnership as anadvocacy group to make sure our learning system directlycontributes to Serbian competitiveness,” he said.
Vesna Stojanova, a local capacity building expert and president ofFYR Macedonia’s Foundation NEO Business Education, reportedon how the Macedonian partnership is introducingentrepreneurship learning at all levels and in both formal andinformal education.
Meanwhile, Norwegian experts Elisabeth Rønnevig and SveinFrydenlund told how their country has developed a nationalentrepreneurship learning partnership based on the principle of“think globally, act locally.” Italian expert, Guiseppe Silvestris,explained how developing a culture of partnership andnetworking can make for smarter small businesses.
Wrapping things up after two days of intense debate, AnthonyGribben said the meeting was a perfect demonstration of thevalue of regional exchange and cooperation. He promised tokeep everyone fully informed on the next phase of the EuropeanCharter for the Western Balkans and Moldova following themeeting of national charter coordinators and the European
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Qualification frameworks
Revaluing skills requires new ways of thinking inqualifications. Skills can be acquired in many otherways than through formal education alone. Fullrecognition of this requires active participation fromall of those involved: authorities, education sector,employers, individuals. It also requires a matrix, orframework in which all of these fluid definitions ofrequirements can be ordered so as to becomprehensible among sectors and even amongcountries.
A national qualifications framework (NQF) can offersuch a matrix and NQFs have therefore beendeveloped throughout Europe and, with the help ofthe European Training Foundation, in many of thepartner countries.
One of the most significant developments forEuropean vocational education and training was theformal adoption by the European Commission inNovember of the European QualificationsFramework (EQF).
This, combined with the commitment of currentMember States to it, put much pressure on potentialfuture Member States to prepare for full integrationof their own national qualification frameworks intothe structure of the EQF.
But some of these countries have not even starteddeveloping such a national qualifications frameworkyet. In 2006, the ETF therefore worked across theBalkans and deeper into Eastern Europe and evencentral Asia to help countries build the capacity fordeveloping and maintaining their own nationalqualification frameworks.
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The employability of Ukrainian VET students
A pilot study of six vocational schools in Ukraine found that nineout of ten graduates are in employment three years aftergraduation. The tracer study, involving 167 former students and44 employers in the regions of Cherkas’ka, Zaporiz’ka and Kiev,was conducted by Ukraine’s observatory during summer 2005.The study covered students from four trade groups.
Although the study was not broad enough to draw reliablenational conclusions, it does provide some interesting data. Forinstance, 80% of VET graduates were found to be working infields related to their training and almost 40% are employed bythe company that provided their practical training while theystudied. “In spite of the poor reputation of VET in Ukrainiansociety, these results show either that demand for labour is sohigh that people get taken on anyway or that vocational schoolsare not as bad as some people think,” says Xavier Matheu who
was the ETF’s country manager for Ukraine when the study wasundertaken.
All is still not good news though. Half of the graduates hadchanged jobs more than twice in three years, citing as theirreason low wages and bad working conditions. Around 25% ofthose interviewed wanted to set up their own business but only2% had actually done so. This suggests VET graduates needfurther training in skills related to self-employment such ashandling financial and legal issues.
This modest pilot is intended to pave the way for morecomprehensive and regular surveys. “The idea was to see if thiskind of study could be applied in the Ukraine and if it is a goodway of measuring the effectiveness of vocational schools for thelabour market,” said Xavier Matheu. “The answer seems to beyes. The Kiev region has already committed to carrying out astudy across all trades and a national study is underconsideration too.”
One of the activities through which preparations fordeveloping national qualification frameworks takesplace is the ETF’s National QualificationFrameworks (NQF) project. Although just one ofmany in this field that the ETF is working on, thisparticular project covers nine countries in EasternEurope and Central Asia.
Through this project, country teams withrepresentatives from education ministries andemployer organisations work together withresearchers to initiate and develop an informedpolicy debate on the qualifications needed in the
labour market. They try to define how theirvocational education systems should be reformed tomeet these needs.
The project focuses on tourism, selected as a pilotsector. Some of the teams have managed toestablish or involve new national bodies, such asthe association of employers in tourism in Tajikistan,the expert group of employers, researchers andNGOs in Kyrgyzstan, and the employer-drivenAgency for Qualifications Development in theRussian Federation.
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Developing national qualification frameworks Photo: ETF/A. Ramella
The European Qualifications Framework
The European Qualifications Framework (EQF) is atranslating mechanism for European qualifications.It is a neutral international reference point.Importantly, it is based on learning outcomes – noton curricular inputs. In practice this means that ittakes into account the knowledge, skills andcompetences acquired through all forms of learning– formal and informal. It describes eight genericqualification levels.
To avoid misunderstandings, it may also be helpfulto describe what the EQF is not. The EQF cannotdefine new qualifications and the EQF is not meantto replace national or sectoral qualificationframeworks. It is meant to turn diversity from adisadvantage into a strength. As such, it serves afunction not dissimilar to the European CreditTransfer System (ECTS) in higher education. It is atool to connect a multitude of different sets ofqualifications.
Use and implementation of the EQF is strictlyvoluntary and without legal obligations for MemberStates or sectors. Having said this, the EQFresponds to a real need and has therefore beenendorsed by Member States and even countriesbeyond the European Union.
National EU governments have committedthemselves to using the EQF as a reference tool to
compare their qualification levels. By 2009 at thelatest, all should have operational qualificationframeworks that are linked to the EQF. By 2011, allnew qualifications and Europass documents mustcontain references to the EQF levels.
The core element of the EQF is a set of eightreference levels describing what a learner knows,understands and is able to do – their ‘learningoutcomes’ – regardless of the system where aqualification was acquired. This shifts the focusaway from the traditional approach based onlearning inputs such as length of learning or type ofinstitution. Focusing on the outcomes of learningcan provide recognition of non-formal and informallearning and should lead to a better match betweeneducation systems and the needs of the labourmarket.
By encompassing all types of education – general,higher, adult and vocational – the EQF will also givea welcome boost to the concept of lifelong learning.The proposal is one of the direct outcomes of theEducation and Training 2010 work programmeestablished after the Lisbon European Council in2000. It is the result of extensive consultation withMember States, the social partners and otherstakeholders.
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Framing reform in Montenegro
A referendum in May 2006 paved the way forMontenegro’s independence from Yugoslavia thefollowing month. The choice came with firmintentions to pursue European integration.
The country’s education authorities reaffirmed theircommitment to align Montenegro’s education andtraining system with key developments in theEuropean Union when the Ministry of Education andScience announced the establishment of acommission for national qualifications at anETF-hosted meeting in Podgorica in late 2006.
Building on earlier work on vocational qualificationssupported by the ETF and the EU CARDSProgramme, the NQF Commission’s objective is toensure transparency and coherence in qualificationsdelivered by the various segments of the country’slearning system.
As part of the ETF’s support to Montenegro toaccommodate the EU’s education policies, adelegation from the NQF Commission visitedDenmark in early October. Their objective was todetermine how the Danish authorities wereintegrating European Qualifications Frameworkprinciples into the national system. “Whatparticularly struck us were the strong links betweenschools and local enterprises in Denmark,” saidMladen Perazic of the Montenegro Chamber ofEconomy. “The business world in Montenegroneeds to be convinced of the new qualifications
drive and how this relates to wider regional andEuropean labour markets.”
“Indeed, the Montenegrin stakeholders havebecome quite savvy on NQF and EQF issues,” saidAnthony Gribben, the ETF’s Country Manager forMontenegro. “They are now determining what maybe suitable and affordable in their small country andmaking good use of the experience of EU smallcountries such as Denmark and also Scotland whichthey visited with our support in 2005.”
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Tourism as a pilot sector for national qualification frameworks
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Sectoral partnership
Sectoral partnership deals with the ongoing dialoguebetween different stakeholders with shared interestsin lifelong learning. It is an essential extension of allthe issues we have discussed in this and theprevious chapter of this publication.
The ETF has promoted social dialogue for yearsbut, fuelled by the European Copenhagen Process,the current drive towards broadly applicable nationalqualification frameworks calls on much deeperinvolvement of employers and trade unions in thedevelopment of curricula and qualifications.
For companies and other enterprises, anticipatingchange has become a survival need. But only the
largest of multinationals can afford to set up internalstructures that monitor future trends and respondwith appropriate human resources developmentstrategies. Smaller companies are dependent onpublic training systems. To maintain the relevanceof these, they need to bundle their resources withothers that have similar needs and call for influencein the definition and even provision of trainingaccording to their needs.
The development of sectoral partnership takes time.And although their development has proven difficultto force, some shortcuts can be made once a sectorhas demonstrated the desire to get organised. TheETF helps partner countries to organise theirsectors and prepare them for participation in theprocess of education and training development.
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National solutions through regional
cooperation
During a meeting of participants from all nine countries that takepart in the NQF project, Mike Coles, one of the leadingdevelopers of the European Qualifications Framework, pointedout “the key role of competences and learning outcomes as abridge between education and labour market”.
In each of the three sub-regions - Russia and Ukraine; Armenia,Azerbaijan and Georgia; Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan andUzbekistan – the project had a different start, but the knowledgeand experience accumulated by now in all of them was the mainmotive to meet at the European Training Foundation inNovember and learn from each other.
All the partner countries made it clear at the conference that theyare committed to continuing to develop a better understanding ofthe implications of national qualification frameworks. Each will
produce a complete pilot qualifications framework for the tourismsector and produce a draft national NQF policy paper by the endof 2007. The big challenge in all countries will now be totranslate agreed occupational profiles into learning outcomes.
While every single country has a different national context, theyalso share a lot of challenges in the area of qualifications: similarVET systems from their common history now all in need ofmodernisation, in a context of developing economies andincreasing labour migration. Therefore they agreed to go onmeeting and working with ETF support not only in their owncountries but also regionally, with a peer learning approachbecoming more and more important.
The ETF will further support the exchange of experience throughan electronic Knowledge Sharing Platform on nationalqualifications in English and Russian. It will host key documents,also from the international debate, and provide opportunities forteams to communicate with each other and the ETF projectteam.
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Sectoral partnerships respond better to
change
Well-organised sectors are more capable of anticipating change.As such they can greatly reduce job losses in industrialrestructuring and compete better for human resources and skillsin a tight labour market. This was the main message of a jointETF/Cedefop conference on sectoral partnership that was heldin Sinaia, Romania in late September 2006.
“In today's education and training we need strategic functionality,partnership, integration, continuity, and normalcy. Without thesupport of sectoral partners, most of these are hard to achieve,”said Romanian Secretary of State for Higher Education andEuropean Integration, Dumitru Miron, opening the conference.
Arjen Deij, the ETF’s country manager for Romania set out theaims of the conference: “We are not here to discuss whether ornot change will take place,” said the ETF's Arjen Deij, “Changewill take place and we have to face it. But together we can find
the best ways to respond to such change and that is what we arehere for.”
Participants were advised that the development of suchpartnership takes time. It is a gradual process to learn how torespond collectively to changing circumstances. The ability ofpartnerships to develop and adapt is therefore very important.
The conference informed participants about how sectoralpartnerships support qualification development, such as throughthe European Qualifications Framework, in Europe. Topics ofspecial interest included the transparency of qualifications andthe integration of qualifications and qualification systems intoqualification frameworks for lifelong learning.
The broader European context was also highlighted as anavigating tool. It is gaining importance with the increase ininternational mobility, the continuing debate on education andtraining issues at the European level, and the consequentemergence of European qualifications and a Europeanqualifications framework.
Photo: ETF/A. Ramella
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5. SKILLS DEVELOPMENT FOR POVERTY REDUCTION
For a long time the focus of poverty reductionstrategies has been on primary education butlessons from the past decades have clearlydemonstrated that successfully passing primaryeducation is no guarantee for work.
This has brought vocational education and trainingback into focus among many bilateral andinternational donors. So far, however, it has beenunclear how this revived recognition shouldtranslate into new education strategies and policiesin the ETF partner countries.
It was with this question in mind that the ETFidentified skills development for poverty reduction asone of the key transversal subjects of research forthe ETF in 2006. It dedicated the entire 2006 editionof its Yearbook to the topic (see below) and gave ita prominent slot on the agenda of the Skills forProgress conference.
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The ETF Yearbook
Under the collective title Skills development forpoverty reduction, the 12 chapters and statistical
annex of this year’s edition of the ETF Yearbookaddressed topics as varied as ESF-type support forsocial inclusion and the impact of skills developmenton migration.
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Skills for poverty reduction
The ETF has promoted the need to align thedebate on skills development in international aidwith the practice of systemic reforms invocational education and training in transitioncountries for some years now. Supported byexperience from Central Asia and theMediterranean region and much research byETF staff for the 2006 edition of its Yearbook,the ETF brought up skills development forpoverty reduction as one of the four key issuesof the Skills for Progress conference.
At the conference, ETF expert Peter Grootingsintroduced the subject asking the key questionsthe ETF hoped to make progress with in Turin:What kinds of skills are crucial for povertyreduction? How can people be assisted indeveloping the skills they need? Do they onlyneed skills? What kind of policies should poorcountries pursue and how can the donorcommunity contribute?
“As always,” he said, “answers to what and howquestions are very much interrelated anddepend on why skills development is found to beimportant for poverty reduction in the first place.
And before we can even begin to answer thewhat and how questions, we need to clarify whatwe are talking about. What does skillsdevelopment really mean? What does theconcept of poverty reduction encompass? Andwhat is the link between skills development andpoverty reduction?”
A clarification of concepts was urgently neededand in good part delivered in the chapters of theETF Yearbook 2006. Yet, Peter Grootings is thefirst to acknowledge that clarifying conceptscannot be an end in itself. “Knowing what we aretalking about should ultimately serve anotherclarification: What would be the role that the ETFcan play?”
The answer to this question was the keycontribution the ETF sought from the delegatesat Skills for Progress. In sessions dedicated tothe theme, they endorsed practical proposals forthe ETF to facilitate policy learning in this field.
The ETF, it was concluded, can best use thelimited means it has at its disposal by facilitatinglearning opportunities for policymakers, raisingtheir awareness on the role of skills developmentfor poverty alleviation and helping them to findand implement policy measures accordingly.
Other chapters looked at the problem of statusdecline of VET in transition countries, the need tobetter coordinate local development initiatives withthe traditional learning and training infrastructure,and ways in which EU experience with skillsdevelopment for growth can be used in differentcontexts.
Between the lines, one of the key warnings of theYearbook is to stop treating impoverishment in
transition countries differently from more structuralpoverty in developing countries. Transition partnercountries are impoverished. The difference withother poor developing countries is no longer theoccurrence of abject poverty; the difference is thatin transition countries there is a memory, individualas well as institutional, of better times. Thismemory can be used as a launch pad for reforminitiatives.
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6. FOCUS ON EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
Concern for the vulnerable in society has alwaysbeen a thread throughout the work of the ETF. Apartfrom the social benefits of inclusive educationpolicy, there are valuable yet often untapped humanresources among, for example, discriminatedagainst cultural minorities and physically challengedpeople.
Activities in 2006 that related to socially vulnerableminority groups in particular included a study thatmapped access to education and the labour marketof ethnic minorities in the Western Balkans. Onechapter of the Yearbook concentrated on inclusiveeducation. Discussions during the Skills forProgress conference in June and a number ofprojects in Central Asia also explored ways ofensuring inclusiveness of vocational education andtraining.
A current angle to this debate is the observation thatin some regions, students that can financially affordto, have turned their backs on vocational educationand training in such numbers that the only studentsleft are from socially vulnerable environments. This
has exacerbated the low status of VET in theseregions and is as detrimental to skills developmentas the opposite: a system that impairs access ofvulnerable groups to education and training.
Gender mainstreaming
One issue that the ETF came to acknowledge asunderexposed in its work to date is that of gendermainstreaming and 2006 was the year where astrong start was made to catch up in this field.
It was all launched when 50 young men and womenfrom 24 different countries came to Turin in March2006 to attend the ETF’s first conference entirelydevoted to gender issues. Held on the eve ofInternational Women’s Day, the theme of theconference was Women in Education andEmployment 2010. The conference sought toestablish how much equality men and women reallyenjoy in the spheres of education and employment,what the barriers are to full equality, and what canbe done to remove these barriers.
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Organising this conference was a departure for theETF in more ways then one. The participants – amix of people from training centres, universities,women’s business associations and NGOs – wereaged between 20 and 35, giving a younger profilethan is usually the case at ETF events. The formatchosen was a dynamic one, putting the accent onthe personal as well as the professional andallowing time for informal discussions andbrainstorming sessions as well as plenaries andpresentations. The aim was to generate a wealth ofnew ideas for action to feed into the ETF’s work inTurin and in the field. It was hoped the participantswould also benefit from useful pointers andsuggestions to put into practice in their work as wellas the chance to network with colleagues fromaround the world.
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A window to freedom
Why are women still denied equal rights toeducation in so many parts of the world?
Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Prize winner andIranian human rights campaigner, believesthe answer to the question is quite simple:“Knowledge is a window to freedom, and aneducated woman would not easily accept tobe subjected to oppression,” she toldparticipants in the ETF seminar Women inEducation and Employment 2010.
The answer may be simple, but Shirin Ebadimade it clear that ‘simply’ educating womenis not always sufficient: “Education – andhigher education in particular – plays a greatrole in improving the skills and knowledge ofwomen. But education alone is not alwaysenough to help women earn their ownlivelihoods.”
To explain this, she drew an example fromher home country, Iran: “More than 65% ofIranian university students are female, whichmeans that Iranian women are moreeducated than Iranian men,” she said. “Butthe unemployment rate for women is threetimes higher than for men.”
Unless educational attainment can be madeto translate into participation in the labourmarket, Shirin Ebadi said, academiceducation and specialisation lose theirbenefits and become a plain luxury.
Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Prize winner visits the ETF in March 2006
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By the end of the two days, the delegates hadproduced a long list of practical suggestions forfurther action both in their own lives and for thewider arena. The ETF used this fresh input to feedinto its daily work with partner countries and to pushforward its commitment to promoting genderequality.
On 3 May, the ETF presented the recommendationsof the conference to the European Parliament at therequest of the Chair of the Committee on Women'sRights and Gender Equality, Anna Záborská. TheEuropean Parliament subsequently asked the ETFto provide expertise on a new report looking at theissue of women and migration.
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Writing for equal opportunities
Some 70 young men and women from Eastern Europe,Central Asia, South Eastern Europe as well as theEnlargement and Mediterranean regions submitted anarticle for the essay contest Women in education andemployment 2010 that the ETF launched in August 2005.Their stories described the role of vocational education andtraining in advancing the status of women in their societiesor in strengthening the position of women in the labourmarket and business.
Each essay was assessed based on the originality of itscontent, its creativity, quality of text and the author’sknowledge of the subject matter.
Four winners were chosen. Zhibek Karamanova fromKazakhstan, Evgeniya Koeva from Bulgaria, MelhemMansour from Syria and Abdulfattoh Shafiyev fromTajikistan were all invited to participate in the internationalconference Women in Education and Employment 2010 inMarch 2006. The conference was organised on theoccasion of the International Women’s Day. ETF DirectorMuriel Dunbar introduced the winners in an awardceremony in which also Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Peace NobelPrize participated.
One of the four was selected as the beneficiary of afour-month traineeship at the ETF. Evgeniya Koeva, 24,took up her traineeship in the External CommunicationsUnit in late 2006.
Anna Záborská receives the ETF's publication on women in educationand employment
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Another ETF report on the issue, Gendermainstreaming in education and training, also sawthe light of day in 2006. A study co-authored by fourinternational experts, it was commissioned toanalyse gender mainstreaming policies in the fieldsof education, training and employment at theinternational level and the situation of genderequality in the same fields in Jordan, Morocco andTurkey, which are priority countries for ETF work.
After an introduction to the subject, the studydescribed the situation of gender mainstreaming inthe European Union and of gender mainstreaming
in education and employment within UNESCO, theILO and the World Bank. It closed with detailedprofiles of gender mainstreaming in education andemployment in the three countries covered.
The study provided an overview of the situation inthese countries. This will help potential donors tofocus on gender mainstreaming policies in futureassistance programmes and projects. The ETF, ormore specifically its working group on genderequality, will continue to analyse the situation inthese countries with a specific policy learningapproach.
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Members of the ETF group working on gender issues present their work at the European Parliament in March 2006
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Normalising gender issues
Gender statistics from many of your countriesshow a strange paradox between access toeducation and achievements later in life. Mostnotably in North Africa and the Middle East, girlsenjoy an equal or even higher number of yearsin education, yet their economic, social andpolitical achievements lag greatly behind thoseof men.
Because physical access to education is roughlyequal, financial and security reasons can beruled out as general explanations for thisparadox. Explanations are more likely found inculture or religion and may only be tackled byallowing women access to more economic,social and political functions. Waiting until theyempower themselves, as happened in Europe,amounts to wasting a tremendous skills resourcein the short term. And if it is indeed progress youwant, you will sooner or later need to utilise thisrich resource of skills by actively empoweringgirls and women to make their own choices.
If we really care about the future of girls andwomen in this world, if we really are seriousabout employing all the skills we can muster forprogress, then we have to make sure that in allof the work we carry out we don’t make genderissues a side issue. We must not make it ‘justanother issue’ – like education financing, oreducation management, or teaching methods. InEnglish the expression used for work aiming atgender equality is ‘gender mainstreaming’.Although it is an odd expression even in English,it does expose the heart of the matter: we needto strive for gender equity not to be somethingthat receives special attention just here and
there. We need to normalise it. We need tointegrate it in all the work that we do in educationso that, eventually, we may look back in wonder,realising that we raised the issue to a levelwhere it was no longer an issue at all.
(Excerpt from a speech by actress ClaudiaCardinale on the occasion of the ETFconference Skills for Progress, Turin,June 2006.)
World renowned actor Claudia Cardinale speaks atthe ETF's Skills for Progress conference in June 2006
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7. A GLANCE AHEAD
As can be seen from this edition of the Highlights,preparations for the new EU instruments of supportdominated ETF activities in the year 2006. By thesame token, their introduction will be of significantconsequence to its work in 2007.
In its mid-term perspectives for the years 2007-10,the ETF set out some of these consequences andintegrated them into planned activities. Thesemid-term perspectives are also interesting becausethey take into account for the first time theanticipated changes to the ETF mandate asdescribed in chapter 2.
Some crucial anticipated changes include therevision of the ETF’s advisory networks and theprovision that allows the ETF to prioritise its supportto certain partner countries.
Among its advisory networks, the ETF foresees asignificant review of the function of the AdvisoryForum. The Editorial Board will be continued,
reflecting the importance of top quality publicationsto a centre of expertise.
Prioritisation will in practice mean that limited fundscan more easily be allocated to situations that offerthe best perspectives in terms of innovation, impactor sustainability.
On the basis of the new functions of theorganisation and in-house deliberations dating backas far as 2005, the mid-term perspectivesformulated a very specific ETF response to each ofthe new instruments. As they will govern the work ofthe ETF from 2007 onwards, we will close thisglance ahead with a summary of these:
In all regions, ETF interventions will become morepolicy oriented. Peer reviews and learning activitieswill be used to formulate policy advice and analysisfor the benefit of both the European Commissionand national authorities, and for the facilitation ofnational policy dialogue.
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Networking for relevance
Just as the ETF recommends broad partnerships to supportcoherent and relevant policy development in partner countries, itrelies on broad partnerships to maintain coherence andrelevance in its own activities.
To date, one of the key consultative networks of the ETF hasbeen the Advisory Forum whose members met regionally andevery three years in plenary to discuss strategic developmentand to propose new topics to be addressed.
While appreciating the tremendous role the Advisory Forum hasplayed in the last ten years, the recent external evaluation byITAD Ltd recommended a review of the structure of the Forum,arguing that changes to the role and working methods of the
ETF asked for the ways in which it keeps its feelers out in thefield to be reconsidered. It noted that the complicated nominationprocedure and large-scale plenary meetings have reduced itsflexibility and cost-effectiveness.
Within its new mandate, the ETF therefore wants to adapt itsadvisory networks to function flexibly and cost-effectively.
In response, the November Governing Board approved aproposal to focus on three types of network. Two of these, theregularly meeting Editorial Board and ad-hoc institutionalknowledge exchange partnerships with internationalorganisations and Member States exist today. The third, a newInternational Advisory Panel, will replace the Advisory Forum.
The International Advisory Panel will comprise eight to ten topexperts with proven experience and standing in humanresources policy development. They will be selected by the ETFand drawn from the international community, including partnercountries, EU Member States and international organisations.The Governing Board will also be represented on theInternational Advisory Panel.
Members from partner countries will be drawn from the multitudeof current operational regional networks to encourage continuitybetween strategic thinking and operational initiative. Internationalbodies represented will be those with which the ETF has workedintensively. The panel is expected to meet twice or three timesper year.
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The Instrument for Pre-accessionAssistance (IPA)
ETF activities in the programming period will help tolink HRD improvements to economic and socialdevelopment objectives, comprising the role of skillsdevelopment in raising the competitiveness ofenterprises, gender participation and increasedemployability. In this context, the development ofentrepreneurship skills and the anticipation of labourmarket needs are key areas of attention.
The European Neighbourhood andPartnership Instrument (ENPI)
With different degrees of intensity based on thediversified needs of the region, the ETF will supporthuman resource improvements comprising the roleof skills development in raising the competitivenessof enterprises and increased employability. In thiscontext, development of entrepreneurship skills and
anticipation of labour market needs are key areas towork upon. The ETF will also focus on thecontribution that skills development can play ineffective migration policy.
The Development CooperationInstrument (DCI)
Three themes will cut across ETF work in CentralAsia. Gender mainstreaming will be promoted inrelation to comprehensive education and trainingreform, but in particular within the field of skillsdevelopment for poverty reduction. A second issue,migration, will be considered in terms of both adviceon the overall qualification frameworks and skillsdevelopment for poverty reduction. A final theme isschool autonomy which will be addressed throughpolicy dialogue on the skills development for povertyreduction theme.
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Pursuing change through media channels
Investment in capacity building for journalists in the Arab world is aworthy cause. There is a strong potential for change through media inthe region and closer cooperation between schools of journalism inthe EU and training centres in the Mediterranean region can cut bothways, supporting the development of civil society in the region andgenerating a better understanding of Arab culture in Europe.
Both are much needed, which is why the European Commission’sEuromed and the Media initiative, the European Training Foundationand the Hungarian Government co-hosted a one day seminar on therole of Schools of Journalism in learning and living together in thewider European region in Budapest on 5 December.
The 35 seminar participants covered a vast array of topics,ranging from the need to introduce journalism training at amuch earlier stage than is done today and the need tostrengthen and link media NGOs in the region, to thedesperate need for mapping and evaluating the impact of pastand existing training activities.
The discussions were exceptionally free and frank and bothsides participated very actively in the debate. The resultswill be taken back to the Euromed and the Media initiativeby DG External Relations’ Thomas McGrath who called theconcrete proposals that came out of the meeting both anencouragement for the Commission to intensify its activitiesin this field and a direct aid in the programming for the newinstruments that will be launched in 2007.
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ANNEXES
1. Founding regulation andamendments
The European Training Foundation was establishedby Council Regulation No. 1360/90 of 7 May 1990.
The original founding regulation was amended bythe following decisions:
� Council Regulation No. 2063/94 of 27 July 1994,amending the rules on the functions and staffingof the ETF and extending the geographical scopeof the ETF's work to the countries eligible for theTacis Programme;
� Council Regulation No. 1572/98 of 17 July 1998,extending the geographical scope of the ETF'swork to the countries eligible for support from theMEDA Programme;
� Council Regulation No. 2666/2000 of 5 December2000, extending the geographical scope of theETF's work to Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina,Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia andthe Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia;
� Council Regulation No. 1648/2003 of 18 June2003, including rules concerning access todocuments and amending the ETF's budgetaryprocedures.
Consolidated regulation
The consolidated version of the ETF CouncilRegulation CONSLEG: 1990R1360 – 01/10/2003integrates the original founding regulation with thesubsequent amendments.
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2. Budget
2005 2006 2007
Personnel costs 11 942 000 12 238 502 13 819 000
Building, equipment and running costs 1 568 028 1 718 500 1 745 000
Operational costs 4 989 972 5 494 898 4 136 000
Total annual subsidy 18 500 000 19 451 900 19 700 000*
Other funds 8 212 639 7 516 194 Not yet available
Total 26 712 639 26 968 094 Not yet available
* This figure includes the reserve applied by the European Parliament to the agency budgets in 2007.
3. Staffing and organisation charts
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Planning, Monitoring and EvaluationPeter Greenwood
External CommunicationBent Sørensen
OperationsSandra Stefani
AdministrationOlivier Ramsayer
DirectorMuriel Dunbar
TempusMarleen Voordeckers
Nationality of temporary agents
The number of temporary agents foreseen in the establishmentplan for 2006 is 105
ETF staff by level and nationality
Nationality AD AST Grand Total
A 3 1 4
B 2 8 10
BG 1 1
CZ 1 1
D 5 3 8
DK 5 5
E 3 3
EE 1 1
EL 1 1
F 6 4 10
FIN 1 2 3
GB 7 5 12
H 1 1
I 7 34 41
IRL 1 2 3
L 1 1
LV 1 1
NL 5 1 6
P 1 1
RO 2 2
S 1 1
TUN 1 1
Grand Total 51 66 117
4. Key decisions of the ETF statutorybodies
Key decisions of the ETF Governing Board in 2006
The ETF’s Governing Board and observers met on 6 June and21 November 2006. The meetings were chaired by Ms OdileQuintin, Director General for Education and Culture of theEuropean Commission.
At the meeting of 6 June, the Governing Board:
� adopted the Annual Activity Report 2005 and its ownanalysis and assessment of it;
� adopted the Implementing Rules to the Staff Regulations;
� adopted the General Implementing Provisions on theprocedures governing the engagement and the use ofContract Staff at the ETF.
On 21 November 2006 in Brussels, the Board:
� adopted the ETF’s 2007 Work Programme modified to takeinto account the comments of the members;
� adopted the 2007 ETF Budget;
� adopted in principle the draft Mid-term Perspectives 2007-10subject to confirmation by written procedure following thepublication by the Commission of its Communication on theETF’s External Evaluation.
Advisory Forum
The Advisory Forum is a statutory body [CR Art 6] comprisingover 130 vocational training experts. Members of the AdvisoryForum are drawn from Member States, the partner countries,
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social partners and international organisations. The main roleof the Forum is to provide advice to the ETF and its GoverningBoard on the ETF’s annual Work Programme. The Forum alsoserves as an exchange network, enabling good practice onvocational training policies and reform to be shared betweenthe countries involved. In 2007 the Advisory Forum met in
Torino from 5 to 7 June under the Austrian Presidency todiscuss the theme of Skills for Progress and to reflect on ETF’spriorities for the period 2007-10. The Forum also provided theBoard with an opinion on the 2007 Work Programme for themeeting of 21 November.
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ETF Governing Board members 2006
MEMBER ALTERNATE
European Commission Odile QUINTIN (Chair)DG Education and Culture
David LIPMANDG External Relations
Dirk MEGANCKDG Enlargement
Austria Karl WIECZOREKFederal Ministry for Economic Affairsand Labour
Reinhard NÖBAUERFederal Ministry for Education, Scienceand Culture
Belgium Micheline SCHEYSMinistry of the Flemish CommunityDepartment of Education
Cyprus Charalambos CONSTANTINOUMinistry of Education and Culture
Elias MARGADJISMinistry of Education and Culture
Czech Republic Helena ÚLOVCOVÁNational Institute of Technical andVocational Education
Igor KRUPKAMinistry of Education, Youth and Sport
Jana KASALOVAPermanent Representation of theCzech Republic to the EU
Denmark Roland Svarrer ØSTERLUNDMinistry of Education
Merete PEDERSENMinistry of Education
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MEMBER ALTERNATE
Estonia Külli ALLMinistry of Education and Research
Finland Timo LANKINENMinistry of Education
Ossi V. LINDQVISTUniversity of Kuopio
France Agnès LECLERCMinistry of Employment and Health
Jacques MAZERANMinistry of National Education, HigherEducation and Research
Germany Stefan SCHNEIDERMinistry for Education and Research
Klaus ILLERHAUSStanding Conference of the Ministers ofEducation and Cultural Affairs of theLänder in the Federal Republic ofGermany
Esther SENGMinistry for Education and Research
Greece Kostantinos MARGARITISOrganisation for Vocational Educationand Training
Vasiliki KANELLOPOULOUOrganisation for Vocational Educationand Training
Hungary György SZENT-LÉLEKYMinistry of Social Affairs and Labour
Ireland Padraig CULLINANEDepartment of Enterprise, Trade andEmployment
Niall MONKSDepartment of Enterprise, Trade andEmployment
Italy Andrea PERUGINIMinistry of Foreign Affairs
Luigi GUIDOBONO CAVALCHINIUniCredit Private Banking
Latvia Lauma SIKAMinistry of Education and Science
Dita TRAIDASAgency for Vocational EducationDevelopment programmes
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MEMBER ALTERNATE
Lithuania Romualdas PUSVASKISMinistry of Education and Science
Giedre BELECKIENEMethodical Centre for VocationalEducation and Training
Luxembourg Gilbert ENGELMinistry of Education and VocationalTraining
Edith STEINChamber of Commerce of the GrandDuchy of Luxembourg
Malta Cecilia BORGMinistry of Education
Anthony DEGIOVANNIMinistry of Education
Netherlands Peter VAN IJSSELMUIDENMinistry of Education, Culture andScience
Poland Danuta CZARNECKAMinistry of Science and HigherEducation
Ewa RUDOMINOMinistry of Science and HigherEducation
Portugal Cândida MEDEIROS SOARESMinistry for Social Security and Labour
Maria Teresa PEREIRA PAIXÃOInstitute for Quality in Training
Slovak Republic Juraj VANTÚCHComenius University
Slovenia Elido BANDELJMinistry of Education, Science andSport
Jelka ARHMinistry of Education, Science andSport
Spain Rosario ESTEBAN BLASCOMinistry of Education and Science
Sweden Erik HENRIKSMinistry of Education and Science
Hans-Åke ÖSTRÖMMinistry of Education, Research andCulture
United Kingdom Rosalind LESTERDepartment for Education and Skills
EUROPEAN TRAINING FOUNDATION
HIGHLIGHTSTHE ETF IN 2006
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HIGHLIGHTS
THE ETF IN 2006
