'Learning outcomes are here to stay but a lot of work remains to be done'. The latest issue of the magazine includes interesting articles on the ECVET network's life and on the latest developments on ECVET.
ESCO – European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations.
ESCO is the multilingual classification of European Skills, Competences, Quali - fications and Occupations. It identifies and categorises skills and competences, qualifications and occupations relevant for the EU labour market and education and training in 25 European languages. This facilitates cooperation between countries and supports the mobility of learners between countries and systems. The system provides occupational profiles shows links between occupations, skills, competences and qualifications. ESCO has been developed in an open IT format and is available for everyone to use free of charge.
It is an important instrument in the VET European panorama as it bridges the gap between the world of education and training and the labour market by introducing a standard terminology for occupations, skills, competences and qualifications. ESCO, as a standardised terminology, will make it easier to describe how occupations, skills, competences and qualifications are linked and connect to each other. ESCO developments reflect the on-going shift to learning outcomes taking place across Europe. The learning outcomes approach sets out what a jobseeker knows, understands and is able to do on completion of a learning process. It offers an alternative to the traditional emphasis on learning inputs (where a qualification is judged according to time spent in education, subjects studied and the location of the learning). These learning outcomes are commonly defined in terms of knowledge, skills and competences and this creates shared basic terminological principles to underpin ESCO. This shared terminology will facilitate dialogue between labour market and education and training stakeholders. To find out more about ESCO please follow this link: https://ec.europa.eu/esco/home. See more in ECVET Magazine No 18 (March 2014)...