Iceland : Continuing vocational education and training (CVET) for adults

Access to lifelong learning has seen a colossal expansion in the past decades. Numerous private education and training institutions have been established, aiming specifically at adults and the state co-finances nine Regional Centres for Lifelong Learning, which offer a wide scope of training possibilities. In many cases they e.g. offer the possibility of adding on to qualifications through distance learning and a combination of on campus and distance learning. Many universities also offer similar possibilities and use both e-learning and more traditional approaches.
The nine Regional Centres for Lifelong Learning (Símenntunarmiðstöðvar) are the cornerstone of the government's continuous education and training programme.
In 2007 two institutions owned by social partners (Fræðslumiðstöð atvinnulífsins – the Education and Training Service Centre (http://frae.is) and Iðan fræðslusetur – the Vocational Education and Training Centre (http://idan.is) were working with the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (menntamálaráðuneyti) in the establishment of quality assurance mechanism for all adult education and training, as a part of a contract involving also “real competence” assessments and training for people with little or no formal skills.
The main providers are private companies that sell their services to whoever wants to pay. In recent years, there has been a great emphasis on teaching Icelandic to immigrants and it has proven difficult to get enough teachers for the subject, especially because many of the immigrants speak no other language than their own.
Training of any kind has been very popular in recent years. Even though specific information is not available for this completely unregulated field, it appears that the biggest group seeks general education rather than VET. Re-education courses at the universities expand rapidly and every type of language course seems to be very popular. The offer of vocational courses is much smaller and there the aim seems to be towards increased specialisation or re-training at special schools.

2007年2つの機関の社会的パートナー（ Fræðslumiðstöð atvinnulífsins -教育およびトレーニングサービスセンター（ http://frae.is ）とIðan fræðslusetur -職業教育訓練センター（ http://idan.is ）の所有では、との仕事をしていた契約も" "の評価をほとんどあるいは全く正式なスキルを持つ人々に真の能力に関する研修の一環として、すべての成人教育と訓練の品質保証機構の設立に文部科学省、科学と文化（ menntamálaráðuneyti ） 、 。