Torino Process: Figuring with figures

The Torino Process, the ETF’s biannual review of vocational education and training in the partner countries, relies on a set of key indicators – the data which help measure the state of play and progress. How this information was collected and analysed? What are the conclusions? Here is the report.
The evidence assembled through the Torino Process is a barometer for policy development in education and training. If we can map demographic and economic trends, we can adjust human capital development to future needs. And if we can map the consequences of these adjustments we can better calibrate them to optimise education and training to the needs of society and the economy.
It sounds so blatantly obvious, but if gathering this evidence was easy, the Torino Process would not exist, except perhaps to benchmark national achievements against international trends.
Myriad of sources
The reality is that gathering this evidence is hard work. It calls for a lot of capable people who can analyse and translate data compiled by other capable people. This data must in turn be collected from a host of institutions of very different purpose and nature: sector councils, local authorities, employment agencies, schools, tax offices and many others.
At the ETF, the statistical team is the engine of data identification and collection under the Torino Process. Martiño Rubal Maseda was one of the six people involved in the definition and collection of the 2012 key indicators. “For us, the two greatest challenges of the process were first to simply get the data we wanted and second to get data that could be compared across different countries,” Rubal Maseda says. Read more...