Final Report to ETF

QUALITY ASSURANCE IN VET

Project: “Dissemination of Information on EU VET Policy and Good Practice”

Regional Event: Quality Assurance in VET: The Way Forward to Achieve the Copenhagen Goals

June 15-16/2006, Belgrade, Serbia.

SYNTHESIS REPORT

Prepared by

EU Expert : Prof. Dr. Efstathios G. Dimitropoulos,

Ref. WP06-21-04

25 June 2006

CoNTENT:

A. ACTIVITY CONTEXT & BACKGROUND 2

B. THE SEMINAR 2

1. The Process 2

Phase 1. Seminar Preparation 3

Phase 2. Seminar Execution 3

Phase 3. Post - Seminar 5

2. Dynamic Monitoring & Evaluation 5

C. GROUP CONCLUSIONS 5

1. The State of Art on QA in the Countries – Current Situation 5

2. Structures and Methodology in Quality Assurance Systems in VET 6

a. Structures 6

b. Methodological Considerations / Tools and Instruments 9

D. OVERALL EVALUATION OF THE SEMINAR 12

E. THE OUTCOMES OF THE SEMINAR 13

F. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POSSIBLE POLICY AND STRATEGY 14

ANNEXES: 16

Annex 1: The Seminar agenda 17

Annex 2: List Of Participants 20

ANNEX 3: List of group distribution 27

Annex 4: Stock tacking activity 29

A. ACTIVITY CONTEXT & BACKGROUND

1. The ETF has been supporting WBA/CC countries on many fields through many activities over a number of years. One area of ETF support is sought through the Project WP06-21-04 (“Dissemination of Information on EU VET Policy and Good Practice”).

The expected results from the above project are the following:

· Candidate countries and Western Balkan Countries are better informed on the development of EU policies concerning VET with the view to helping them to continue implementing systematic VET reforms and have increased their capacity to integrate Copenhagen / Maastricht issues into VET reform initiatives

· Candidate Countries and Western Balkan Countries reinforce cooperation and policy learning through exposure to VET reforms in candidate countries and new Member States.

2. The event in discussion in this report lies within the above project and particularly under the activity “Quality Assurance in VET: The Way Forward to Achieve the Copenhagen Goals”. The certain event is one regional seminar in Beograd on Quality Assurance in VET.

The objectives of the event (seminar) in Beograd are the following:

· To facilitate capacity building of policy makers and key stakeholders to incorporate EU policies in the area of QA into the national VET reform debate;

· To inform about and discuss developments in QA in the EU and the region;

· To stimulate information exchange and linkages between WBA/CC countries and MS regarding Quality Assurance in VET.

3. Participants and Organisation

a. From the side of the ETF: Team leader Karl-Axel Skjolstrup and ETF expert Margareta Nikolovska.

b. The two EU experts, selected through the usual process: Kim Faurshcou, for the position of EU expert 1, (present during first day of the seminar), and Efstathios Dimitropoulos for the position of EU expert 2 (present at both days of the seminar).

c. Participants delegated from the region areas (in parenthesis the number of participants per region area): from Albania 1, BiH 2, Bulgaria 3, Croatia 4, FYRof Macedonia 3, Kosovo 3, Montenegro 1, Romania 3, Serbia 15 (including Trevor Cook, Team Leader of CARDS VET reform programme) 15, and Turkey 2. Final number participating from region : 37.

d. Contracted local organizer was Halifax Consulting, led by David Lythgoe, seated in Beograd.

e. The seminar took place at the venues of hotel M, Bulevar Oslobodjenja number 56a, Beograd.

B. THE SEMINAR

1. The Process

The process followed for the overall organization of the seminar is illustrated on Diagram 1.

Diagram 1

Procedural Configuration of the Seminar

Phase 1. Seminar Preparation

During this phase all preparatory activities took place under responsibility of / and supervision from the ETF in cooperation with AGMIN, the local organizer and in part with the EU experts (indicatively: (planning and scheduling, agenda preparation, EU expert identification and contracting, local organizer identification and contracting, venue identification and relevant preparations, communication between ETF and Experts for finalizing content, delivery of draft presentations from the EU experts etc.).

Particular attention was paid to set up a program for the seminar which will include all elements of participative learning. In particular, ETF made clear what participants needed as information as well as where potential for learning exists given the topic of Quality Assurance in VET. During this phase a Team developed a set of activities, assignments, and materials that will help to lead the participants through the topics.

Phase 2. Seminar Execution

The final agenda of the seminar works is included as a Annex 1 at the attachments. All activities included in this agenda were implemented according to schedule.

The two-day Seminar was carried out according to schedule on the 15th & 16th of June, 2006. The names of the participants per country appear in Annex 2, while their distribution in working groups appears in Annex 3.

Only quite a brief outline of the seminar activities per session follows below.

Opening and Welcome Speech

Speech was delivered by Mr. Bogoljub Lazarević, Assistant Minister of the Ministry of Education and Sports.

Session 1: Introduction to the Meeting

Introduction and introductory contributions were made by Karl-Axel Skjolstrup, ETF team leader, Francesco Panzica, ETF Country Manager for Serbia and Radovan Zivković, National Copenhagen Process Coordinator in Serbia.

Session 2: Recent Developments in Quality Assurance in VET in Europe

Two themes were included in this session, both introduced by EU expert 1 Kim Faurshcou. The themes were a) ECQAF and b) the ENQA in VET.

Session 3: EU Survey on Quality Assurance in Seven Member States

A synthesis of the survey was presented by the same EU expert, Kim Faurshcou.

Session 4: Quality Assurance in Accession Countries.

Two accession countries, Romania and Bulgaria, presented their QA systems in VET and their relevant experiences.

Session 5: Tools and Instruments for Quality Assurance

After a short introduction by Margareta Nikolovska in plenary meeting, work in this session was organised in Workshop form. For this purpose the participants were divided into two groups (see Annex 3):

· Group 1: Tools & Instruments for QA at System Level;

· Group 2: Tools & Instruments for QA at Provider Level.

The discussion in the working groups was facilitated by group facilitators, role undertaken by the two international experts (Kim Faurscou for Group 1, Stathis Dimitropoulos for Group 2). One participant for each of the groups was appointed as raporteur (Ana Elena Costin for Group 1, Dana Stroie for Group 2). The two raporteurs reported the conclusions of the groups in the plenary meetings of session 7a and session 8.

Session 6: Figuring up current situation on QA in VET in own country

After a short introduction by EU expert 2 Stathis Dimitropoulos, work in this session was organised in country groups. 10 groups were formed, one per participating country (although from two countries, Albania and Montenegro, there was only one participant, who worked independently). The groups were facilitated by Stathis Dimitropoulos and Margareta Nikolovska, with the coordination, support and assistance from Karl-Axel Skjolstrup.

Each country group prepared a short description of current situation of Quality Assurance in own country on flipchart, which was briefly presented in session 8.

Session 7a – 7b: Future structures in Quality assurance in VET

Session 7 was divided in two parts. The first part included plenary work, where Stathis Dimitropoulos introduced the subject of QA system structures, and the raporteurs from workshops of session 5 provided input to the participants on QA tools and instruments.

The second part was devoted to group work, during which the participant were divided in two groups again, one to work on system level and one to work on provider level. The groups were facilitated by Stathis Dimitropoulos and Margareta Nikolovska. Rapporteurs (same as in session 5), prepared summary reports to be presented in session 8.

Session 8: Feedback from Groups, Conclusions

During this session reporting from all groupwork of the seminar was done, while final conclusions from the overall work of the seminar were drawn by Karl-Axel Skjolstrup, the ETF Project Director. A final intervention was made by Margareta Nikolovska, ETF. Additionally, a questionnaire was distributed by ETF to the participants, to be filled on a voluntary basis and returned to ETF within a month’ time.

Phase 3. Post - Seminar

Right after the seminar a meeting was held with the participation of the EU expert Stathis Dimitropoulos, Karl-Axel Skjolstrup and Margareta Nikolovska, ETF, in order to discuss the works of the seminar, carry out an initial, informal assessment of the seminar and draw introductory conclusions.

EU expert 2 Stathis Dimitropoulos collected up relative materials (flipchart sheets, reports from raporteurs, notes taken, presentations, agenda, lists of participants, distributed printed materials and CD etc.) to be used as input materials for writing the synthesis report.

2. Dynamic Monitoring & Evaluation

Continuous feedback from all three phases of the seminar organization and execution was secured, through direct observation, continuous discussions and meetings of the group (ETF and the EU experts) after each session so that direct sensing on possible needs was immediately transformed into changes for improvements. For final and summative evaluation remarks see sections that follow. Communication and exchange of information and ideas was also continuous even during the phase of writing the synthesis report.

C. GROUP CONCLUSIONS

The conclusions outlined below are those reached by the working groups during the seminar. For reasons of coherence, the presentation of these conclusions is organized in two parts. The first refers to the state of the art regarding QA in VET in the region countries. The second to possibilities of future structures for QA systems in VET in combination with methodological aspects (including tools & instruments) in VET QA systems.

1. The State of Art on QA in the Countries – Current Situation

On the basis of specific instructions and guidance given by the EU expert, the overall picture given, on the basis of the reports of the country groups, is summarized below.

Q1. What is the state of the art in your country regarding QA in VET? What aspects of QA are visible?

A general conclusion is that there is a very high disparity among the participating countries regarding the developments in QA in VET. The distance actually among countries is huge, given that in some countries the discussion on QA in VET is only now beginning while in others (as is the case in Romania and Bulgaria) an almost complete national QA system is in place and in function. The other countries are placed at positions in between at this continuum. Yet in the first category of countries there are fragmented aspects of QA are already visible, particularly in the form of legislative actions framing up a legal context for QA or relative policy papers or decisions stating intentions, but great effort is required and a long way needs to be run for developing an organized entity which can be called “a system” or even “a framework” of quality assurance. In many cases the achievements of pilot projects run by donors were reported as the main progress in QA. It appears, though, that the developments on QA is at impetus of today, mainly owing to the support and driving incentives from the EU.

Q2. What are the structural elements / functions comprising your QA system in VET? Clarify first which are the VET providers in your country for formal, non formal and informal training.

The same picture is drawn concerning the concrete elements and the relative functions in the QA total. Although different structures of VET are in place for formal, non-formal and informal VET provision, it is almost in every country that the best structures were met in formal education sector, while practices within the non-formal and informal sectors were placed at very diverse points of the continuum. With the exception of 2-3 cases, in the majority of countries the bulk of any QA effort is focused in the IVET area.

Q3. Do the necessary conditions for implementing a good QA system exist in your country?

As to the existence of necessary conditions, as perceived and presented by the country participants, the picture is again that of irregular disparity and inequality. Some of the defined terms and conditions are secured in a number of the countries but in different degrees, while others are inaccessible to almost all. Resources, mainly financial, appear a common difficulty in securing these conditions, while organization, awareness and positive attitude are a wish for most of the cases.

Q4. What appears best and feasible to do next for QA in VET in your country? List concrete measures and actions, in priority order. (if the state of art is as you have outlined it)

Regarding actions perceived as next steps, different activities and measures and in different priorities are proposed by delegates of different countries, depending on the current situation in each country. Indicatively, almost all place emphasis on funding and generally resources, others on QA awareness, others on legal frames, others on methodological aspects, etc.

Q5. What are possible difficulties for achieving these? How can these difficulties be overcome?

As to difficulties for progress on QA, as expected the stated degree of difficulty varies greatly per country. A common denominator, although of varied gravity, is securing resources, mainly financial, for funding the development and implementation of QA. In other countries there are greater difficulties owing to state idiosyncratic peculiarities, as in the case o BiH with the 14 ministries.

2. Structures and Methodology in Quality Assurance Systems in VET

a. Structures

Following specific instructions and guidance given by the EU expert 2, two working groups were involved in active discussion activites. The main findings-conclusions by the working groups and reported are summarized below. The conclusions of the workshops at both levels (system and provider level) are combined in one synthesis.

Q1: What would you consider as a minimum structure of QA in VET? (Refer to concrete structural elements and functions, and correspond them with methodological elements). Identify characteristics and features of the proposed structure.