An Act on the integrated qualification system (IQS) came into force in January 2016, covering formal education and supporting raising the quality of non-formal qualifications. It improves access to qualifications by making available information on existing qualifications. More...

In 2016, the Latvian Government approved the Adult education plan 2016-20 to support creating a unified and sustainable national adult education system. More...

A new qualification, ‘freight forwarder’, has been added to the List of professions for vocational education and training (LPVET) in Bulgaria, as maintained by the National Agency for Vocational Education and Training (NAVET). More...

The Vocational training report of 2015 has shown that companies are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit suitable candidates: for the last training year, the number of traineeships left unfilled reached record levels while the number of applicants who did not find a place fell. To compete with the attraction of full-time study, companies offering traineeships and training schools have to meet the challenge of making training courses more appealing: modernising curricula and enriching content. More...

Guidelines for upper secondary VET programmes and Guidelines for higher VET programmes serve as a framework for the development of VET programmes. They define the objectives, curriculum structure, duration, and completion for each education level; they are also the basis for preparing, quality assessment and adoption of new or renewed education programmes. More...

Low skilled adults represent a vulnerable segment of the population. Evidence shows that being low skilled is often associated with a set of negative consequences both at the individual and social level: lower earnings and employment rates, lower quality of health, wellbeing and life satisfaction, lower civic and social engagement, higher probability of involvement in criminal activities, and so forth. More...

Support for young people to gain advanced qualifications (beyond compulsory schooling) has been a key objective of the Austrian youth-related policy agenda since end of the 1990s, starting with the introduction of supra-company apprenticeship training. In mid-2016 the Training up to the age of 18 schemes was adopted, marking a major development. More...

This publication aims to provide key figures on education to stakeholders and the general public: it includes number of teachers and pupils, diplomas and certificates delivered, languages spoken by students, school infrastructure and budget. More...

Wallonia has just approved an occupational integration measure for newly-arrived refugees, with the potential to recognise their skills. In Brussels, an ‘occupational situation’ tool could help them get a ‘ticket to employment’. More...

From the school year 2015/16, all colleges of higher vocational education (BHS, five-year vocational pathway at the upper secondary level) in Austria have been using a new form of the matriculation and diploma exam (Reife- und Diplomprüfung) ([1]). This new form has its legal basis in the 2010 amendment to the School Education Act and in the 2015 amendment to the examination regulation. More...