During the recent VET Leaders’ Conference a Fish Bowl Session was held to discuss implications of the Osnabruck Declaration Objectives on VET institutions.
Objective 1 – Resilience and excellence through quality, inclusive and flexible VET:
Good relationships with students, staff and industry are important to build resilience in colleges.
Understanding current and future business partner needs, through technology roadmaps and horizon scanning, helps ensure the offer from VET colleges is of a high quality and aligned to these needs.
In working with municipalities, regional partners and companies, we can think more strategically about how VET provision can become more flexible and resilient.
Some of the biggest challenges facing VET are AI, Emerging Tech and the readiness of staff.
Objective 2 – Establishing a new lifelong learning culture – relevance of CVET and digitalisation:
Life Long Learning (LLL) could be redefined as Continuous Competence Development (CCD), as it is in Finland. The 70-20-10 model is helping to structure CCD:
• 70% is doing the things you’re supposed to be doing?
• 20% you can learn from help of others (e.g. through mentoring), but you must share
• 10% going to courses or formal learning programmes.
Learning should be seen as a skill in itself and defining Life Long Learning across the Networks would be beneficial and maybe more work is needed to learn from each other.
Example of LLL can also be seen in Scotland through the Flexible Workforce Development Fund, which is opening up a more flexible approach to Workforce Development. Furthermore, a flexible system of micro credentials is also helping the LLL culture and the relevance of the CVET offer.
Objective 3 – A Green Link in VET:
We need to be aware of what role VET colleges can and will play in the wider ecosystem within a region. A good example is using colleges (as they do in the Netherlands) as knowledge centres.
Continuous improvement should specifically centre around sustainability, as education is a key tool of transformation, through their work with the future workforce and young people.
Sustainability is a huge subject (nature, environment, and social aspects too), so colleges and development agencies need to shape a common mission for our regions.
Objective 4 – European Education and Training Area and international dimension of VET:
As sustainability becomes ever more prominent, colleges need to integrate actions to offset carbon emissions as a result of mobility’s, e.g. planting trees and/or giving something back
College should ask themselves… Where do mobility’s take place? Perhaps locations can change, the proximity between hosts and participants is shortened, perhaps they occur over different durations
Other obstacles in scaling an inclusive mobility system relate to:
• Commitment of VET Leaders and proving the value of mobility
• If there is commitment from VET Leaders, how is this shared?
• How do sustain funding levels, as well as identifying any new funding streams, to ensure they are maximised.
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