Sei sulla pagina 1di 159

ISSN 0309-0590

Volume 32 Number 2/3 2008

Journal of

European Industrial
Training
A journal for HRD specialists

European vocational education and


training: concepts, experiences
and prospects
Guest Editors: Philipp Grollmann and
Georg Spttl

www.emeraldinsight.com
Journal of European ISSN 0309-0590

Volume 32
Industrial Training Number 2/3
2008

European vocational education and training:


concepts, experiences and prospects
Guest Editors
Philipp Grollmann and Georg Spottl

Access this journal online _______________________________ 79


CONTENTS
Editorial advisory board _________________________________ 80

Guest editorial ____________________________________________ 81

PART ONE: PARADIGMS AND PRINCIPLES OF


EUROPEAN VET
European vocational education and training:
a prerequisite for mobility?
Felix Rauner ___________________________________________________ 85

Can performance-related learning outcomes have


standards?
Michaela Brockmann, Linda Clarke and Christopher Winch _____________ 99

European qualifications framework: weighing some


pros and cons out of a French perspective
Annie Bouder __________________________________________________ 114

Towards a European qualifications framework: some


cautionary observations
Michael Young _________________________________________________ 127

Access this journal electronically


The current and past volumes of this journal are available at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0590.htm
You can also search more than 175 additional Emerald journals in
Emerald Management Xtra (www.emeraldinsight.com)
See page following contents for full details of what your access includes.
Professional competence as a benchmark for a
CONTENTS European space of vocational education and training
continued Philipp Grollmann _______________________________________________ 138

PART TWO: EUROPEAN DESIGN PRINCIPLES PUT


INTO PRACTICE
Ways toward a European vocational education and
training space: a bottom-up approach
Jessica Blings and Georg Spottl ____________________________________ 157

Putting Dreyfus into action: the European credit


transfer system
Jorg Markowitsch, Karin Luomi-Messerer, Matthias Becker
and Georg Spottl________________________________________________ 171

VET in the European aircraft and space industry


Rainer Bremer _________________________________________________ 187

Evaluating progress of European vocational education


and training systems: indicators in education
Uwe Lauterbach ________________________________________________ 201

Vocational education and training in Europe:


an alternative to the European qualifications
framework?
ITB Working Group _____________________________________________ 221
www.emeraldinsight.com/jeit.htm

As a subscriber to this journal, you can benefit from instant, Structured abstracts
electronic access to this title via Emerald Management Xtra. Your Emerald structured abstracts provide consistent, clear and
access includes a variety of features that increase the value of informative summaries of the content of the articles, allowing
your journal subscription. faster evaluation of papers.
How to access this journal electronically Additional complimentary services available
To benefit from electronic access to this journal, please contact Your access includes a variety of features that add to the
support@emeraldinsight.com A set of login details will then be functionality and value of your journal subscription:
provided to you. Should you wish to access via IP, please
provide these details in your e-mail. Once registration is Xtra resources and collections
completed, your institution will have instant access to all articles When you register your journal subscription online you will gain
through the journals Table of Contents page at access to additional resources for Authors and Librarians,
www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0590.htm More information offering key information and support to subscribers. In addition,
about the journal is also available at www.emeraldinsight.com/ our dedicated Research, Teaching and Learning Zones provide
jeit.htm specialist How to guides, case studies and interviews and you
can also access Emerald Collections, including book reviews,
Our liberal institution-wide licence allows everyone within your management interviews and key readings.
institution to access your journal electronically, making your
subscription more cost-effective. Our web site has been E-mail alert services
designed to provide you with a comprehensive, simple system These services allow you to be kept up to date with the latest
that needs only minimum administration. Access is available via additions to the journal via e-mail, as soon as new material
IP authentication or username and password. enters the database. Further information about the services
available can be found at www.emeraldinsight.com/alerts
Emerald online training services Emerald Research Connections
Visit www.emeraldinsight.com/training and take an Emerald An online meeting place for the world-wide research community,
online tour to help you get the most from your subscription. offering an opportunity for researchers to present their own work
and find others to participate in future projects, or simply share
ideas. Register yourself or search our database of researchers at
Key features of Emerald electronic journals www.emeraldinsight.com/connections
Automatic permission to make up to 25 copies of individual Choice of access
articles
Electronic access to this journal is available via a number of
This facility can be used for training purposes, course notes, channels. Our web site www.emeraldinsight.com is the
seminars etc. This only applies to articles of which Emerald owns recommended means of electronic access, as it provides fully
copyright. For further details visit www.emeraldinsight.com/ searchable and value added access to the complete content of
copyright the journal. However, you can also access and search the article
content of this journal through the following journal delivery
Online publishing and archiving services:
As well as current volumes of the journal, you can also gain
access to past volumes on the internet via Emerald Management EBSCOHost Electronic Journals Service
Xtra. You can browse or search these databases for relevant ejournals.ebsco.com
articles. Informatics J-Gate
www.j-gate.informindia.co.in
Key readings Ingenta
This feature provides abstracts of related articles chosen by the www.ingenta.com
journal editor, selected to provide readers with current awareness Minerva Electronic Online Services
of interesting articles from other publications in the field. www.minerva.at
Non-article content OCLC FirstSearch
Material in our journals such as product information, industry www.oclc.org/firstsearch
trends, company news, conferences, etc. is available online and SilverLinker
can be accessed by users. www.ovid.com
SwetsWise
Reference linking www.swetswise.com
Direct links from the journal article references to abstracts of the
most influential articles cited. Where possible, this link is to the Emerald Customer Support
full text of the article. For customer support and technical help contact:
E-mail support@emeraldinsight.com
E-mail an article Web www.emeraldinsight.com/customercharter
Allows users to e-mail links to relevant and interesting articles to Tel +44 (0) 1274 785278
another computer for later use, reference or printing purposes. Fax +44 (0) 1274 785201
JEIT EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
32,2/3 Professor Rona Beattie
Glasgow Caledonian University, UK
Professor Wim Nijhof
University of Twente, The Netherlands
Professor Phillip B. Beaumont Dr Barry Nyhan
Department of Business and Management, University University of Bremen, Germany
of Glasgow, UK David ODonnell
Amanda Cahir-ODonnell Intellectual Capital Research Institute of Ireland,
80 Managing Director, TIO Consulting Ltd, Ireland Ireland
David Collings Dr Rob F. Poell
JE Cairnes School of Business and Public Policy, Department of Human Resource Studies,
National University of Ireland, Ireland Tilburg University, The Netherlands
Maria Cseh Dr Christopher Rees
Oakland University, USA University of Manchester, UK
Professor Donal Dineen Dr Ian Roffe
University of Limerick, Ireland Centre for Enterprise, European & Extension
Catherine Edwards Zara Services, University of Wales, UK
Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Professor Eugene Sadler-Smith
Warwick, UK School of Management, University of Surrey, UK
Dr Stephen Gibb Dr Sally Sambrook
University of Strathclyde, UK University of Wales, Bangor, UK
Dr Jeff Gold Sue Shaw
Leeds Metropolitan University, UK Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Dr John Goodwin Professor Andy Smith
University of Leicester, UK Charles Sturt University, Australia
Dr Jim Grieves Dr Paul Smith
Newcastle Business School, University of University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, UK
Northumbria, UK Professor Jim Stewart
Associate Professor Timothy Hatcher Leeds Business School, UK
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA Dr Adrian Thornhill
Professor Frank Horwitz University of Gloucestershire, UK
Faculty of Management, University of Capetown Dr Massimo Tomassini
Business School, South Africa ISFOL, Italy
Professor Paul Iles Dr Kiran Trehan
Leeds Metropolitan University, UK Lancaster University, UK
Alma McCarthy Dr Mireia Valverde
National University of Galway, Ireland Universitat Roviri I Virgili, Spain
Dr Martin McCracken Professor John S. Walton
University of Ulster, UK London Metropolitan University, UK
Professor Jim McGoldrick Sandra Watson
Dundee Business School, University of Abertay, Napier University, UK
Dundee, UK
Dr John Wilson
Dr David McGuire Department of Continuing Education,
Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, UK Oxford University, UK
Professor Sharon Mavin Professor Jonathan Winterton
Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK Toulouse Business School (ESC Toulouse), France
Dr Michael Morley Dr Roland Yeo
Department of Personnel and Employment Relations, College of Industrial Management, King Fahd
University of Limerick, Ireland University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran,
Professor Dr Martin Mulder Saudi Arabia
Department of Social Sciences, Professor Adrian Ziderman
Wageningen University, The Netherlands Department of Economics,
Dr Fredrick Muyia Nafukho Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Journal of European Industrial Associate Professor & Chair, HRD Program,
Training
Vol. 32 No. 2/3, 2008
Texas A&M University, USA
p. 80
# Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0309-0590
Guest editorial
Guest editorial
The Copenhagen process: concepts, experiences and prospects
On November 15, 2007 the European Council has adopted the European Qualifications
Framework. This is an important step in the process that has started in 2002 when the 81
European Vocational Education Policy was set in motion with the Copenhagen
Declaration (European Commission, 2003). European VET policy has reached new
dynamics and as compared too earlier VET policy phases there is a surprisingly high
commitment through the member states and the different stakeholders.
Since 2002 an intensive discussion on the major instruments particularly EQF
and ECVET took place, which has despite its adoption not been completed yet.
The member states are now challenged in putting in National Qualification
Frameworks, an imperative resulting from the adoption of the EQF. More or less all
representatives of the Vocational Education Research have set this subject on their
agenda in the meantime. Besides few exceptions the different positions vary among
affirmative and descriptive orientation. Only the implementation process can now
show about the real potentials and pitfalls when implementing this concept in different
European VET contexts. This special issue of the Journal of European Industrial
Training is a critical contribution to the debate about the tools adopted by the
European Union. At the same time, it also documents constructive aspects of the
discussion around the increasing Europeanisation of VET and lifelong learning based
on empirical experiences in national and European research and development projects.
The different contributions illustrate the different risks and challenges but also the
chances and prospects of the new commitment to European VET policy that can be
observed.
In this logic, the first volume of this double special issue provides a forum for
conceptual and analytical contributions to the debate whereas the second volume
directs its focus towards empirical experiences that have been gathered from projects
within European VET co-operation.

Concepts in European VET and prospects for their development


The first volume starts out with a contribution by Felix Rauner. His paper a promotes
two main messages: on the one hand criticism can be found as regards to the more
technical aspects of the European Qualifications framework. On the other hand, and
more importantly, the paper of Rauner addresses a fundamental issue: the stark contrast
between the subsidiarity rule that is constitutional for European Co-operation in the field
of VET and the increasingly expanding mandate of European policies in VET. The
solution he derives is an architecture for European VET that workers and employees
as well as business and industry can make use of in order to make the European labour
market reality. At the same time he postulates a workers right to a solid vocational
education in order to make them prepared for the European labour market. Whilst this Journal of European Industrial
contribution challenges the external validity of the EQF approach, the paper of Training
Vol. 32 No. 2/3, 2008
Michaela Brockmann and colleagues argues that there is a need for a proper distinction pp. 81-84
between educational standards and learning outcomes. Hence, his criticism is rather q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0309-0590
looking at the internal consistency of the approach. Winch indicates the multiple DOI 10.1108/03090590810861631
JEIT problems that are associated with applying a learning outcomes approach to a
32,2/3 qualification meta-framework such as the European Qualification Framework or the
emerging national qualification frameworks. There are substantial differences between
learning outcomes and standards with large educational and political implications that
lead Winch to propose a fundamental revision of the current EQF.
Annie Bouder, in her analysis, gives empirical meaning to this critique through
82 looking at the EQF from three different angles, the historical, an analytical and the
French national one.
Bouders contribution is particularly concerned with how the EQF can realise its
desired goal to contribute to promoting the knowledge society. The main conclusions
are, that there is obviously a political will to question the role and the structure of
qualifications in view of an economy and a society of knowledge and that research has
much to contribute as regards to looking at the problem from the various possible
angles. The need for further research is also affirmed by the contributions of Michael
Young and Philipp Grollmann. Youngs analysis of existing qualification frameworks
and their development in South Africa and New Zealand shows that Qualifications
Frameworks are resisted partly from inertia and conservatism and partly because
important educational purposes are being defended. Experiences suggest that hopes
associated with such Frameworks are often unrealistic. The lessons from existing
NQFs, so Young, suggest incrementalism, building blocks, supporting policies,
consensus and staying as close as possible to practice are important.
For the European Union, Grollmann argues, some of the substantive research that is
available on the subject of learning in work processes has not been taken sufficiently
into account within the development of the EQF. At the same time he tracks how the
concept of competence has been changed within the different proposals towards the
EQF. In order to make European VET a direct contribution to the revised Lisbon
agenda, a more concise shared vision with regard to the processes and structures and
outcomes of vocational education might be needed, he concludes. Therefore, research
and development activities in the European Union could be integrated towards an
agenda that covers structures, conditions, processes and their effect on outcomes of
learning for and in the world of work.

Concepts, experiences and further research needs


All the contributions in the first section are emphasising the important part that could
be played by research in future VET policy in Europe. The second volume of this
double special issue elaborates exactly on this topic, in showcasing research results
that are immediately connected to European VET policy.
Based on the developmental work and the experiences with the recycling sector,
Blings and Spottl describe how the whole European VET policies could be turned into
a bottom-up process that builds on sound methodologies of analysing work processes
and the participative engagement of national and practice level actors and
stakeholders.
The following article by Markowitsch, Luomi-Messerer, Becker and Spottl describes
how the still scant knowledge about processes of developing vocational expertise can
be brought together with the aim of establishing a European Credit Transfer System
for Vocational Education. The contribution draws from a project that carried out
extensive work process analysis in the metal engineering sector.
The results presented by Rainer Bremer are based on a project that has been carried Guest editorial
out in the European Aeronautics sector. A comparison is drawn between competence
development in four different VET systems in France, Germany, Spain, and the UK. This
serves as a finding for the evaluation of the EQF and the effects it could have on the
sector of the European aircraft industry. In the three hypotheses Bremer is putting
forward (convergence of skill requirements, divergence of the national VET systems and
structural reference between requirements and the development of competence) he 83
illustrates the complex relationship between individual competence development and the
context of work organisation and training and challenges the linear logic of the EQF.
Whilst the first three empirical contributions in this volume are extremely relevant
to the instruments of the Copenhagen process and the connected instruments EQF and
ECVET, the contribution of Uwe Lauterbach turns the readers attention towards
another significant European educational policy process, i.e. the process Education
2010. Education 2010 takes up the notion of the open method of co-ordination that has
been developed in European employment policy (Leney, 2004). The idea in using this
model for education is that a number of core indicators, benchmarks, can be used for
the goal setting of educational systems without intervening into national policy
contexts. In this regard the quality of an education system or a comparative
international assessment refers more and more to quantitative parameters, i.e.
educational indicators. Lauterbachs contribution introduces the concept of
educational indicators and discusses the question what can educational indicators
achieve? He concludes that the use of indicators needs to be complemented by the use
of qualitative information in order to provide meaningful and valid accounts of how
educational systems are developing. Finally, this sets the context for the embedding
the results and methodologies of the former articles into an appropriate context.
The last contribution in the second part of the special issue falls out of the categories
mentioned above. It constitutes an input into the discussion on the EQF developed by a
group of researchers from ITB. The fundamental difference to the EQF in its existing
form is that it acknowledges the world of vocational education integrating work
experience in its own right. This is based on the plausible assumption that the learning
that takes place in settings of practice leads to fundamentally different results than
learning that happens in more instructionist settings. This challenges the principle
that can be found in the EQF that learning in different contexts could lead to the same
learning outcomes and that those learning outcomes are just a function of
individualised learning trajectories and processes.

Risks and prospects of the Copenhagen process


All the articles in this double special issue pinpoint the potential risks associated with
the instruments of the Copenhagen process and gather conceptual remarks on the
possible re-orientation of the process in the future. It seems to be of particular
importance to highlight that in different European Vocational Education Traditions
empirical experiences with the tools recommended by the EQF and ECVET are
available. In the debate they have been barely taken into account so far. Apart from
few exceptions (e.g. Drexel, 2005) risks and prospects as well as the appliance of the
proposed tools have not been kept in perspective so far. The low consideration of
results of genuine European Vocational Education Research appears to be another gap
in the context of the EQF and the consultation phase. In various programmes of VET
JEIT research and development a number of projects were carried out and findings were
acquired in recent years. The Copenhagen-Process provides a new orientation in
32,2/3 European cooperation in VET and gives an opportunity to adjust programmes and
projects targeted as well as to sharpen the profile of the activities (He and Tutschner,
2003). The further developments should emerge through a dialogue between research,
practice and policy on tasks of VET in Europe. We hope that we can make a
84 contribution to this dialogue by providing a directly relevant composition of findings
and insights into this topic. Eventually, based on such work, alternatives can be
discussed and evaluated with a look at the general aims and goals of the European
Union, such as incorporated within the Lisbon Strategy, and a VET policy that is
acknowledging the specific characteristics of learning for and in work processes.
For us that includes the adherence to the principle of occupations as formal principle
for content and forms of Vocational Education as well as for the corporatist definition
of VET development (see the contribution of ITB-Working Group). We also consider
this double special issue as a contribution to the further development of a deliberative
(Habermas, 1992) European Vocational Education Policy, where arguments and
interests can be exchanged and revealed in a rational manner and contribute to the
public and political process of formation of opinions and decisions.
Philipp Grollmann and Georg Spottl
Guest Editors

References
Drexel, I. (2005), Die Alternative zum Konzept des Berufs: Das Kompetenzkonzept - Intentionen
und Folgeprobleme am Beispiel Frankreichs, in Jakob, M. and Kupka, P. (Eds),
Perspektiven des Berufskonzepts die Bedeutung des Berufs fur Ausbildung,
Erwerbstatigkeit und Arbeitsmarkt, Vol. 297, IAB, Nurnberg, pp. 39-53.
European Commission (2003), Enhanced Cooperation in Vocational Education and Training.
Stocktaking Report of the Copenhagen Coordination Group, Brussels, October 2003.
Habermas, J. (1992), Faktizitat und Geltung: Beitrage zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des
demokratischen Rechtsstaats, 2. Aufl edn, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main.
He, E. and Tutschner, H. (2003), Experiment und Gestaltung. Uber das Wirkungspotential des
Programmes LEONARDO DA VINCI, Kolner Zeitschrift fur Wirtschaft und Padagogik,
Vol. 18 No. 34, pp. 135-50.
Leney, T. (2004), Reflections on the five priority benchmarks, in Standaert, R. (Ed.), Becoming
the Best. Educational Ambitions for Europe. CIDREE Yearbook, Vol. 3, CIDREE, Enschede.

Corresponding author
Philipp Grollmann can be contacted at: grollmann@uni_bremen.de
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0590.htm

PART ONE: PARADIGMS AND PRINCIPLES European VET


OF EUROPEAN VET
European vocational education
and training: a prerequisite for 85
mobility?
Felix Rauner
Institute of Technology & Education, Bremen University, Bremen, Germany

Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the internationalisation of nearly all
spheres of society and the process of European integration will be leading to the development of a
European vocational education and training (VET) architecture.
Design/methodology/approach The analysis of the Copenhagen process is based on the EU
documents on the realisation of a European Qualifications Framework and a credit transfer system.
Findings The result of the study shows that the strategy adopted by the European Union for the
establishment of a European area of vocational education is confronted with a dilemma. The European
Qualifications Framework is highly abstract since any reference to real educational programmes and
qualifications and any concrete provision for the transition and for the transf erability between
educational levels and sectors (vocational and higher education, initial and continuing training) was
avoided in order to adhere to the anti-harmonisation clause. The result is an abstract, hierachically
structured one-dimensional qualifications framework that lacks any reference to existing VET
systems and that contradicts all scientific insights from VET research and knowledge research.
Practical implications The implications for VET policy are far-reaching. A European area of
vocational education can be established only on the basis of European open core occupations and an
open VET architecture, which ensures that vocational education becomes an integral part of national
educational systems. The qualification of employees for the intermediary sector can be realised only as
a European project.
Originality/value There are only a few contributions available that undertake a conceptual
analysis and critique of the European Qualifications Framework.
Keywords Vocational training, Europe, Qualifications, European legislation
Paper type Conceptual paper

Introduction
Following the declaration of the European Parliament in Lisbon in 2000, the goals for
European development were pushed to the forefront: according to this declaration,
Europe should, by the year 2010, develop into a dynamic and competitive,
knowledge-based market in the world. At the same time a high degree of social
cohesion is also highly sought after.
This implies the integration of innovation, occupational, and (vocational) education Journal of European Industrial
politics. For education and training the following agreement from Barcelona was Training
Vol. 32 No. 2/3, 2008
pp. 85-98
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
The author would like to thank Philipp Grollmann for his various suggestions and input in 0309-0590
writing this article. DOI 10.1108/03090590810861640
JEIT added: education and training systems in Europe should become a reference point for
32,2/3 quality throughout the world by 2010. The ministers responsible for vocational
training and the European Commission agreed, in the Copenhagen Declaration of 2002,
on how this goal should be implemented. Vocational training was thus defined as a
connection between initial vocational training and further education within a
framework of life-long learning. The successes which had been achieved during the
86 development of a genuine European labour market and a knowledge-based economy,
the fight against social inequality as well as the realization of an integrated and highly
qualified vocational structure are considered the standards for a successful politics of
vocational training.
The decisions of the European Parliament on the construction of a space for
European higher education (the Bologna Process) and for its quick implementation are,
nowadays, considered to be positive examples, and are also seen as the first step
towards expansion of the educational area of higher education into education in
general. The processes of change set in motion by the Bologna Agreement have
activated a dynamism within the German higher education landscape which eclipses
all the last decades attempts to reform higher education.
Without a discussion on reform that includes higher education, the classical
university, with its course of study ending in a degree, developed at the very latest in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, will be abolished within a few years. Under the
pressure of the setting of time standards through academic politics and administration
the universities are occupied with the operationalization of the structuring of new
Bachelors and Masters Degree programs and the associated modulization of higher
education curricula.
The sheer shortage of time allows no room for a self-determined academia to discuss
the sense of the situation. Success is measured by the speed of implementation of the
political and academic guidelines derived from the Bologna decisions, and the degree of
their progressive establishment. Critical annotation to this process, which has come
from the circles of higher education didacts, and argues that the new higher education
with its offers of polyvalent modules is misleading students, through the collection of
credit points, to give up their search for understanding or expertise-based studies, or
any connection of understanding and social engagement, effects at the most a mere
footnote to the Bologna Process. From this example of the establishment of a European
space for higher education, four lessons can be drawn for the subsequent project of
creating European Vocational Training:
(1) The decisions of the European Parliament on innovation, economic, labor
market, and occupational politics have wide-reaching consequences for the
development of European educational structures.
(2) The veto on harmonization (subsidiarity principle) for the educational system,
which is anchored in European Union law and which seeks a kind of cultural
dignity for the nation-state, has unfolded in competition with other, more
highly-valued legal norms, such as the freedom of movement of workers and the
creation of a real European labour market, which, in fact, has only very
limited effects.
(3) The experiences of the usual speed of reform within the German educational
system (the amendments to the vocational training law in 1969 have been
debated and discussed since the middle of the 1970s) obstruct the view towards European VET
a new pace, in which reforms on the European level are being set out in terms
of years and not decades.
(4) The occurrence, which is unthinkable in the world of German vocational
education and training, that the Copenhagen Process provides structures for
European vocational education and where, within the steps of implementation,
only the question of speed of implementation is still pushed into reachable 87
proximity. (the evaluation project and the report Achieving the Lisbon Goals:
The Contribution of VET Tender No. EAC/84/03)[1]

The strikingly small echo that the Copenhagen Process creation of a European space
for vocational education with an open architecture has, up until now, triggered in the
professional public, certainly has multiple causes about which only mere speculation is
possible. Initially, the parallels with the realm of higher education are conspicuous: the
relative speechlessness of those affected. Here, as there, a reform project of great or
greater range is reduced to the dimension of its administrative operationalization. The
widespread resignation of those responsible for a functioning vocational educational
system, which is related to the problem that all attempts, up until now, to stop the
erosion process of the dual system for vocational education, have not had any lasting
reach, may be a reason for this exhibition of speechlessness. Perhaps, in a clearly stated
bypass, the Copenhagen Process has increased the chances for modernization of
vocational training in Germany, if it must occur through a systemic change, in any
direction whatsoever. The postponement of responsibility which accompanies it on the
European level promises relief.
The economic and social meaning which the realization of a European space for
vocational training and thus also the European vocational training system after the
Copenhagen statement has, results in two-thirds of the employed being assigned to the
mid-skilled level (skilled workers, technicians) (Figure 1). The qualification of skilled
labor below the higher educational level is deemed to be a key question for every
modern economy as well as a central factor for the realization of socially stable and
democratic structures.

1. The instruments of the Copenhagen process


Based on the preliminary work of the European social partners and the Commission,
three key activities have been constructed:
(1) Development of an instrument for the establishment of transparency for
qualifications and competence. (among others the Europass).
(2) Definitions of the criteria for the quality of vocational education offers and
programs.
(3) Implementation of a system for adaptaion and transmission of educational
activities (ECVET, following the example of the European Credit Transfer
System ECTS established within higher education).

The establishment of a European system for credit transfer in vocational training


ECVET seeks to use vocational qualifications as a common currency Europe-wide,
according to political-programmatic formulations. In addition, the agreement on
JEIT
32,2/3

88

Figure 1.
Development of the skilled
labor structure

objectives from Copenhagen is comprised of further points, among others the


validation of non-formal/informal training, the training of trainers and teachers, as well
as the development of inter-disciplinary vocational training. The extensive work
program will be taken care of by the so-called technical work groups, to which the
experts in the commission as well as representatives of the national governments and
the social partners belong. Notable here, is the fact that research on technical and
vocational training and education is, at best, accidentally integrated into this process,
and that this fields exceptional certainty when compared with all other political areas,
results, above all, in the fact that in the majority of European countries, qualification of
employees at the mid-skilled level is only a very limited element of any developed
research on occupational education and training[2].
Two instruments that are still to be realized from the Copenhagen Process shall be
examined below: the European Credit Transfer System for vocational training and the
efforts towards establishment of comparability for occupational training certificates.

2. Transparency versus harmonisation


Of central importance in Germany is vocational training and its federally-recognized
training certificates, which are regulated by vocational training laws and by the crafts
system. A particularity in the process of internationalization, which more or less
encompasses all economic sectors, is that the training of skilled workers is deeply
affected by the national vocational training structures and systems. In contrast with
higher education, therefore, the terms and conditions for the exchange of trainees,
trainers, and teachers is seriously limited. One particular exception consists of crafts
whose roots reach back to the era of development of the European nation-states. Crafts
vocations such as hairdresser, cook, carpenter, and mason are virtually international
occupations. The vocational training Olympics competitions within the crafts, where
the best-trained craftspeople are ascertained, is based on this tradition. For healthcare
and security-related occupations European-Union-wide centralized standards apply. In
the realm of academic occupations as well as in some craft- and healthcare fields there is, European VET
therefore, a high measure of transparency and comparativeness, passed down or agreed
upon internationally through job descriptions or training styles. The early attempts of
the European Community to harmonize vocational training, in order to support the
development of a European labor market were quickly given up[3], as the pressure for
economic harmonization between very diverse occupational training structures was too
little to overcome the great differences. This essentially changed with the acceleration of 89
the internationalization processes within the realms of economics and technology during
the last two decades, which was also accompanied by the international agreements for
liberalization of trade with services (GATS) of 1994. Thus, trade liberalization for
manufactured goods spread into the service sector[4].
From the collapse of the beginning of harmonization in the educational sector, which
eventually ended in an expressed ban on harmonization, vocational training was also
affected, in that this was applied to the system in all countries, which had a school-based
vocational education. In countries where vocational training was assigned more to the
realm of economic and labor law and where such training is organized based on market
structures, the ban on harmonization played, in reality, no real role.
In contrast to the area of higher education with its international Scientific
Communities and the comparable educational structures which have come out of these,
a project seeking to realize a common European space for vocational training faces
disproportionatly high obstacles. Therefore, the duality of on-the-job and school-based
vocational education and differentiated vocational training sorted by type of vocation
are not only the specialty of just a few member countries, but so, too, are the length of
training and educational programs where noncompatible, national rules apply. The
creation of transparency on the basis of European-defined vocational types and
educational structures thus, from the start, separates them from one another[5]. This is
a basic difference between vocational training and education within the higher
educational system. Not only a great amount of academic vocations such as doctor,
lawyer, engineer, natural scientist as well as social scientist, but also internationally
regulated educational areas of three to four years culminating in a degree (Bachelor)
and (circa) five-year-long courses of study ending in a Masters Degree in extensively
comparable fields of study, present, on the whole, a high degree of uniformity and thus
also transparency. Science, in and of itself, is the result of these international processes.
Thus the step which the German higher educational system must take to a reach a
European higher education and scientific realm was great, measured by the traditional
reform pace of German higher education, but small, when compared with the European
project of a European space for vocational education and training.

The way towards creation of transparency in vocational training: a modulized


certification system
In order to create transparency within the impossible to overlook diversity and variety
of vocational training programs and certificates, following the persuasive logic of the
transparency attempts of the European Commision and its need for an alphabet of
skills with which qualifications of workers at the mid-skilled level will be
respresented. Therefore, following the logical argument, the borders between
vocationally-organized work and the incompatibility between very different work
systems which stems from this work permit themselves to be cancelled. Following this
JEIT logic, vocations represent in-company demarcations and limit the flexibility of
32,2/3 in-company organizational development and, finally, the ability to innovate (Kern and
Sabel, 1994). At the level of a European job market, in addition, non-compatible
national vocational structures lead to intransparency and to compartmentalization
between the national skilled labor markets, according to the promoters of the
Copenhagen Process.
90 Formally considered, the degree of modulization increases the possibility of
establishing transparency between different training systems. At the level of each
individual, defined vocational skill, for example autogenous welding, or other clearly
definable skills, the intransparency of national vocational training systems and
traditions are volatilized. Regardless of whatever level of aggregation the skills are also
being defined at, those defined through an alphabet of qualifications and skills are
not related to the context of vocational competence defined through job descriptions
and the vocationalness (German: Beruflichkeit) that has been constituted from them.
The understanding is that a sum of individual vocational skills dramatically
differentiate themselves from vocational competence but remain thus unconsidered
(for critiques, cf. Jager, 1989; Sennett, 1998; Rauner, 1998). Modularly standardized
skills promise the greatest flexibility during the accumulation of marketable skills. The
definition of a minimal amount of time for qualified vocational training, comparable
with the EU regulations for higher educational certificates, can then be eliminated. The
UK System of National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ) with its assessment-suitable
modulization structure is a suitable point of reference. That this open architecture of a
European space for vocational training does not constitute a vocational training
system in the sense of the ban on harmonization, but rather is simply an instrument for
the establishment of transparency, justifies its attractiveness and prominence for
European politics. In the long-term, a benchmark for orientation for national vocational
education and training politics is presented and cancels, in the final consequence,
national jurisdiction on important dimensions of vocational training.

3. European credit transfer system for vocational education and training


ECVET
Naturally, a more exact definition of the criteria with which skills can be mastered
belongs to a complete definition of the transparency of vocational skills. For the
Copenhagen Process it was determined that the European Credit Transfer System
(ECTS), developed for higher education, should be applied to vocational training, and
that the two should be combined. This would become the foundation for an
Assessment System and an Assessment Organization, which, following standarized
criteria, verifies if a skill has been acceptably mastered. This verification takes place on
the level of ability, less so at the level of abstract knowledge, and not at all at the level
of understanding.
The working groups responsible for the ECVET in the realization of the
Copenhagen Process defined the goals of their project in several documents[6]:
.
improved ease of transfer of the results of learning both between and within
national educational systems, as well as between formal, non-formal, and
informal skills adopted at the level of the program, course, module, and unit as a
whole, whereas units represent the smallest possible measurable result of
learning;
.
facilitation of the accumulation of educational, training, and learning units European VET
(modules) or of qualification units and, respectively, program units, which show
a partial or full qualification in their results regardless of the purpose for which
the learning has taken place;
.
encouraging transparency and the mutual recognition between learning
processes and results of learning; and
.
improvement of mobility in educational, training, and learning processes as well
91
as facilitation of vocational mobility.

Alongside ECVET, vocational competency-based qualifications should be included in


the accumulation system, regardless of where and how the qualifications (formal or
informal) defined in the modules were acquired. In the process, compatibility between
ECVET and ECTS will be the goal[7].
If this succeeds, then a central goal of the Copenhagen Declaration can be realized,
namely, the creation of a qualification system which is demand-driven and
market-oriented in its organization, so that every individual has the chance to
assemble his or her own competence and qualification profile in an a la carte manner.
That work-relevant competence is also acquired outside of formal, regulated training
offers and educational courses of study means that a further instrument of the
Copenhagen Process, namely, compilation and certification of informally acquired
skills, only increases in meaning. The more this succeeds, all the more will it soon be
possible to unhinge vocational training from structures of regulated vocational
education and training systems, and to bring responsibility for the qualification of
individuals to the forefront. That, at least, is the central argument of the protagonists.
A modulized certification system creates the foundation for a European market for
continuing education. A system for initial vocational training with defined channels for
training, certificates, and time frames, is then superfluous. A differentiation between
initial vocational training and further education is not applicable. Vocational Colleges
in the UK are therefore, consistently, called Further Educational Colleges. After
completion of general-education schooling the graduates themselves decide which
skills they wish to acquire in order to increase their employability, as well as decide if
they should take courses in a Further Educational College. Here, costs for accreditation
of those institutions offering qualification as well for the certification of the acquired
competence play a role in how much demand comes from graduates and employees.
The evidence, used again and again in the Commissions documentation, that it is
dealing, in the planned ECVET, with the realization of a European currency for
vocational education and training with effects comparable to those attributed to the
introduction of the Euro currency, isnt just misleading as seen in multiple hindsight,
but is also so far removed from reality that the use of this argument in discussions
around educational politics has triggered some surprises.
A currency such as the Euro, which has been referred to here, distinguishes itself
through its exchange value. What is revolutionary about a unified currency is that any
products or services can be measured through their exchange value. Credit points,
which a student or learner gains for a specific educational accomplishment, are
connected to the contents of the training in question and cant directly be exchanged for
other training contents or skills. A learner who is learning the trade of car
mechatronic and completes a part of his or her training in another country, can value
JEIT and assess this part of his or her training through a functioning ECVET System. The
32,2/3 interesting question here for companies conducting training and for learners is if this
part of a training fits in with the contents and time frame of their own course of
training. The number of Credit Points assigned to it is secondary. In any case a ECVET
System presupposes module-based skills defined within a European system of
qualification modules. The currency character of ECVET, which continuously comes
92 to the forefront in discussions of European vocational politics, gains above all
substantial meaning when it is applied to the evaluation of qualification achievements
in a global education market, as the WTO has in mind.
The difficulty in implementing such a system lies in the fact that modules must also
fit into a common frame of reference. Naturally, this would be most quickly ensured
through the implementation of Europe-wide job descriptions. For countries with
developed vocational training systems, the question here arises if the concept of complete
vocational training within accepted jobs that require training should be given up in favor
of earning certified qualifications. Negative consequences of the ECVET system would,
above all, be expected for a regulated vocational initial training probram which is
implemented below the legally-regulated vocational initial training minimum time period
for systems of partial qualification. The concept of vocationality (German:
Beruflichkeit) will lose the constituent meaning it has for vocational training.
Vocational training would not be tied to growing into the vocational community of
practice and the development of vocational identity that is connected to it.
A certain meaning becomes allocated for ECVET for the acceptance of training
records in the framework of initial vocational education for continuing vocational
educational programs. For the acceptance of training records in the framework of a
technical college, for example as a technician or an educational professional at the level
of continuing education such a regulation is quite attractive.
The implementation of the ECVET indeed bears the risk, within the very
heterogenous landscape of European vocational training, that contents of training and
education programs, which are simply not comparable, are being compared with each
other. If, in an assessment procedure, for example, a specific form of acquisition of
vocational competence between in-company and school-based abstracted, then the
credit points lose their force of expression. Looked at in this way the metaphor of credit
points serving as a European currency for vocational training points at a great
educational-political misunderstanding.

4. Common European framework of reference for the recognition of


qualifications
On the recommendation of the European Commission, the European Parliament
decided on a general guideline for the recognition of vocational qualifications[8]. With
it, different general regulations for the recognition of qualifications and those for
regulated vocations (above all in the healthcare field) should be replaced through a
single guideline. At the same time it is a matter of an initiative, that is indeed remotely
relevant for the creation of a European space for vocational training, but which is
however from its start has as a goal the simplification and improvement of the
regulatory field for the European common market. Already so far, for example,
competitors for (construction) projects whose contracts were issued on a Europe-wide
basis have had to account for the qualification potential of those making the offers
under the five-level common framework for the presentation of qualifications, which European VET
has been in place since 1985. The initiative for this regulation emanated from the
Parliamentary Committee for the European common market. Following the first
reading in Parliament and the 125 requests for change presented at it, the European
Commission put forward a revised proposal which provides for the following five
qualification levels[9]. Acceptance from the Council has already taken place[10]. The
second reading in the European Parliament has not yet occurred: 93
[. . .]
Level 1 is equivalent to a competence certificate, is issued from an appropriate agency in a
home member state for either a) a training which is not part of a training or competency
certificate in the sense of Paragraphs 3,4,5, or 6, or a specific test without previous training, or
practicing a vocation as a full-time job in a member state during three consecutive years or
part time during a corresponding time frame within the last ten years; or b) as a certificate for
a general school-based training from the primary or secondary level which certifies that the
bearer possesses general knowledge. [. . .]
Level 2 is equivalent to a test certificate, is issued for the end of a course of study at the
secondary level, which a) either consists of general education, which has been fulfilled
through a vocational training program or another course of study not named in Paragraph 4,
and/or is fulfilled through a vocational internship or practical job experience which is
additional to this course of study, b) or is comprised of a technical training or vocational
training which, as the case may be, is supplemented through a vocational training in the
sense of a) above, and/or through an additional vocational internship or practical job
experience. [. . .]
Level 3 is equivalent to a degree or diploma which is conferred either a) through a
post-secondary education not named in Paragraph 5 or 6 of at least one year in duration or a
post-secondary part-time course of study of at least one year in duration which has admission
requirements counting towards a general secondary school education, which are stipulated
for acceptance at a college or university program, where applicable supplemented through
vocational training undertaken alongside the post-secondary course of study; b) or for a
specially-structured training course, which allows for a comparable vocational ability and
prepares for comparable vocational functions and responsibilities. [. . .]
Level 4 is equivalent to a degree or diploma which confirms that the bearer has
successfully completed a post-secondary course of study, at the equivalent level, of at least
three and no more than four years or a part-time course of equivalent duration at a college or
university as well as, where applicable, completed the appropriate vocational training
alongside study at a college or university. [. . .]
Level 5 is equivalent to a degree or diploma which certifies that the bearer has completed a
post-secondary educational course of study or a part-time course or study of more than four
years at a university or college, or another educational course of study at an equivalent level
as well as, where applicable completed the appropriate vocational training alongside this
course of study (Rauner and Grollmann, 2004).
The transition from the second level to the third is primarily defined through the
transition from a secondary- to a post-secondary educational level. All qualification
forms and courses of study, which elude this classification, cannot be classified
according to this conception of levels. This applies, for example, to dual training. Dual
training is continuously assigned to secondary education, although dual training,
following the description of the five levels, in particular. with regard to the activities
taken within the work process, could be assigned to the the third or even the fourth
level of qualification (Rauner and Grollmann, 2004) Comparative curricular analysis
JEIT can easily make this clear (Frommberger and Reinisch, 1999). In addition, the first
32,2/3 study examined by the author on the competence of bankers in England, in comparison
with those trained in Germany has brought to light the relative undervaluation of the
dual training system (Fulst-Blei, 2003).
A graduate of a vocational high school or of a technical grammar school (with
advanced technical certificate) or of another senior high school level, who has finished a
94 vocational training from three to three-and-a-half years (for example banker,
informational technologist, or process guidance electronics engineer), after his or her
secondary education diploma (German: Sekundarstufe II-Abschluss), and who can
already deal with vocationally-oriented and vocationally-qualifying courses and subjects,
a vocational training, which, in single vocations and depending on configuration of the
training groups approximates the quality of a three-year Bachelors degree program. This
works, above all, when the benchmark applied is not that of the distance from an
academic profession, but rather the quality of the work achieved is compared to the
particular skilled-labor market. If a benchmark for professionality is the vocational
competence of a skilled maintenance worker, who, for example, is responsible for the
maintenance of complicated production equipment, then the academically trained
engineer (for example, in the field of electrical engineering) must, first of all, pass through
a one- to two-year, praxis-oriented training or continuing education, in order to be able to
master these tasks which according to the EU nomenclature are classified according to
Level 2. In addition, in-company trainee programs, which have their origins in the
Anglo-Saxon countries as well as in the French tradition of in-company personnel
development, are, last but not least, based on the certainty that the graduates of pure
academic programs must first acquire a series of vocationally utilizable competence and
skills during practical, hands-on work (Oerter and Horner, 1994).
The training to be a master craftsman (German: Meister) or any comparable,
practice-oriented vocational educational degree, fulfills essential criteria of a training,
which leads to vocational competence. Trained master craftsmen as a rule take over the
leadership of a craft business and train skilled workers. While a trained master
craftsman, who has already undergone considerable vocational experience during his
master craftsman exam, and who is thus capable of running a business without
appreciable adjustment we can think here of a modern car dealership can be a
High School Graduate that is, someone who has 12 years of formal education
behind him while someone who has completed a Bachelors degree would indeed
need at least two to three years to be able to act at the competence level of a Master in
this example. Despite this, the first would be placed at qualification level 3 and the
second at qualification level 4. An educator, who has a technical school education
behind her, and, with this education, is comparable to a master craftsman or a
technician in that she is also able to run a school, would be placed at the third
qualification level, but her colleague, who completed her training at a College and has a
Bachelors degree, would, in contrast, be placed at the fourth level. The difference in
both concepts of qualification lies above all in the fact that with the latter, less practical
competence has been imparted. For this reason we can see, in systems which are more
strongly based on academically-graded degrees, the phenomenon known in the US
literature as reverse transfer, in other words, BA or MA graduates visiting
vocationally-oriented courses at a college or university after they have already earned
their degree, in order to increase their chances of employment. In Annex II of the EU
Regulations on the Recognition of Vocational Degrees according to qualification level 1 European VET
can find countless examples which are dramatically underrated if one follows the logic
of this system of qualification classification. Training for nautical management
personnel for coastal shipping (Captain, Nautical Ship Officer, Ship Equipment and
Installation Technicians, etc.) lasts between 14 and 18 years in Germany. In the
Netherlands the training averages between 13 and 15 years, and in Italy it averages 13
years. One downright classic example of the extreme asymmetry of this arrangement 95
and its uselessness is the training as future master builder or future master
carpenter in Austria. Their training consists of a minimum of at least 18 years. This
particularly long and above all very intensive training, in which phases of practical
experience and phases of theoretical education alternate with one another, does not
lead, according to this qualification level classification, to level 5, where it belongs
without a doubt, but rather according to the logic of academic-oriented education, to
level 3 (!). If you take, instead of academic professionality, the types of competence
which are actually employed within the system, then not much remains from the
European Unions five-level qualification grid.
In the end, if a recognition regulation for vocational qualifications is to be considered,
then it is precisely the classic academic professions and this applies internationally
which have always systematically included learning through vocational experience in
their courses. In an analysis that uses the development of vocational competence as its
starting point, practical work experience takes on a decisive meaning. It is no accident
that all traditional professions include practice phases, seen as of central importance for
the ability to act professionally and competently, during or after the period of formal
training, and which also serve as preconditions for admission into the respective
professions. This applies to doctors and lawyers as well as for civil engineers and
pharmacists. In addition, historically considered, the development of professions on the
basis of the interplay between knowing and being able to do something and the respective
places for further development of both domains can also be thus understood (West, 2000).
This perspective has, in the meantime, an orientation towards a formal, sociological
concept of professionalism within research on the professions, and its orientation towards
status, professional organizations, and similar indicators, has long been replaced.
Professionalism has come, in the meantime, to mean the skill of acting competently and
responsibly in various situations (Eraut, 1994; Gardner et al., 2001). That in this case
useful knowledge may have been acquired in formal educational processes is, above all,
also the product of reflective pratice in contact with situative challenges of vocational
praxis and the growing into so-called communites of vocational practice (Schon, 1983;
Lave and Wenger, 1991). Learning in the working process and learning in academic
settings appear to have more of a complementary than a substitutive relationship. For this
reason the often well-intentioned requirements for improved accreditation systems for
so-called non-formal learning appear to be a blind alley which follows an overall concept
of developing equivalence between different forms of learning, and in which the
non-formal learning is classified into the categories of formal learning, instead of gearing
itself towards the goal of an integration of different, equivalent, complementary forms of
learning with regard to the development of vocational competence.
In total, this leads to a clear undervaluation of dual forms of vocationally-qualifying
educational pathways as well as conversely to a continual over-valuation of
academic as well as school-based learning, which, not infrequently, fall behind dual
JEIT vocational training in their quality. All forms of vocational training, which also base
32,2/3 themselves on reflective work experience, are discriminated against in an image
competition with academic courses of study. The loss of attractiveness for these
courses of study is feared, insofar as the danger lies in the fact that well-meaning
benchmarks for the recognition of so-called non-formal learning tend to concretize the
status quo rather than drawing nearer to the goal of parity between vocational and
96 general education and training.
Considering that the creators of many European architectural masterworks, which
we admire as undying cultural monuments, were not created by academically trained
engineers, but rather by master craftsmen, who above all had a great degree of
practical competence at their disposal, and who could draw upon the experience
gathered over centuries, then, the absurdity of the five-level concept for the recognition
of vocational competence becomes quite clear. These master builders would indeed,
according to the EU regulations as well as the Austrian future master builder
training not just be under-valued, but would, far removed from the reality of their
actual qualifications, be classified as advanced beginners and semi-professionals.

5. Conclusion and perspectives


With the creation of a real job market which guarantees the freedom of movement of
workers, Europe faces the question as to whether to decide for or against types of
vocational training which have vocationally-oriented work as their center point. The
Copenhagen Process indeed encourages, with its central instruments such as, for
example, ECVET, the tendency towards a European job market that is based on
modulized and, more or less abstract, qualifications. With the concept of sectoral dialog
the way, however, towards the develoment of core European vocations as the basis for
skilled work-based labor markets is still possible. Above all the possibility of
developing vocational identity in the modern sense of vocationality (German:
Beruflichkeit) and the resulting motivation will be emphasized as decisive
measurements for the ability to be economically competitive and socially stable. The
structuralizing effect that proceeds from a modern vocational and vocational training
and education system for the interaction between the educational sector and the job
sector has numerous advantages compared to other forms of qualification. There is a
lot to be said for pursuing the more difficult, yet more promising, way, for creating a
space for European vocational training, namely, the development of a European
vocational and vocational training system on the basis of open and dynamic core
vocations and on a system of modern apprenticeship, as it has, for example, been
realized in Scotland in the last decade. Instead of a discussion about dynamic core
vocations and their development, the technical agenda of the working groups in the
Copenhagen Process is, however, focusing on work on common reference levels. This
work should later be part of a European Qualifications Framework, in which all
learning achievements of general and vocational training as well as formal and
informal learning processes can be classified. One of the forms of expertise, custom
built by the English Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) (Coles and Oats,
2004) for such a general common frame of reference is arranging for such a system
with eight levels. The experiences with ECVET and the European qualification levels
refer to the great risk of an impending undervaluation of vocational competence.
Notes European VET
1. Tender No. EAC/84/03 Achieving the Lisbon goal: the contribution of vocational education
and training systems. Background study for a ministerial conference on Strengthening
European cooperation on VET under the Dutch presidency, Tender-Nr. EAC/84/03, 2004.
2. The central cause of this is that teachers and lecturers in vocational education and training
are only seldom educated at the University level. Thus, the university-based infrastructure
for qualification of academic new blood as well as university-based research on vocational 97
and technical education and training is lacking in the majority of EU countries.
3. Within the area of vocational training, the European Community agreed on a legal
foundation in Article 128 of the Community Agreement. In 1963 this led to the formulation of
a European vocational training policy. Jurisdiction laid with the Labor and Economic
Ministries not with Educational Ministries. This only changed in the middle of the 1980s
(Sellin, 2002).
4. This agreement specifically includes the market for further education (Kopp, 2003). In the
Anglo-Saxon countries the international commercialization of education on the basis of
modulized certification systems has a long -standing tradition.
5. A case in point was the attempt in the 1980s, on the basis of a job classification system, to
build corresponding job descriptions, which was abandoned (Sellin and Piehl, 1995).
6. Compare, for example, the preliminary report from October 2003, or the Consultation Paper
presented in August 2004.
7. Spontaneousness with reference to participation is designed for ECVET, while participation
in the Bologna Process arises as a voluntary obligation of member states and the responsible
bodies.
8. Compare this, in more detail, with Rauner and Grollmann (2004) and Grollmann in this
volume.
9. Compare with the following document: KOM (2004) 317 endg., Brussels, 20.2.2004; 2002/0061
(COD) Revised Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and the European
Council on the Recognition of Vocational Qualifications (according to Article 250, Paragraph
2 of the EC Treaty, presented by the Commission).
10. Greece and Germany have not endorsed the proposal. Endorsement, in this case, is not
required; a qualified majority is sufficient. The most difficult hurdle for a Directive of the
European Council is decision-making while in session.

References
Coles, M. and Oats, T. (2004), European reference levels for education and training. An
important parameter for promoting credit transfer and mutual trust, unpublished
manuscript, London.
Eraut, M. (1994), Developing Professional Knowledge and Competence, Falmer, London.
Frommberger, D. and Reinisch, H. (1999), Ordnungsschemata zur Kennzeichnung und zum
Vergleich von Berufsbildungssystemen in deutschsprachigen Beitragen zur
international-vergleichenden Berufsbildungsforschung: Methodologische Fragen und
Reflexionen, Zeitschrift fur Berufs- und Wirtschaftspadagogik, Vol. 95 No. 3, pp. 323-43.
Fulst-Blei, S. (2003), Im Spannungsfeld von Modularisierung und Europaisierung: die deutsche
duale Berufsausbildung im Test; ein deutsch-englischer Leistungsvergleich, Hampp,
Munchen.
Gardner, H., Csikszentmihalyi, M. and Damon, W. (2001), Good Work When Excellence and
Ethics Meet, Basic Books, New York, NY.
JEIT Jager, C. (1989), Die kulturelle Einbettung des Europaischen Marktes, in Zapf, W. (Ed.), Kultur
und Gesellschaft, Campus, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 556-74.
32,2/3 Kern, H. and Sabel, Ch.F. (1994), Verblasste Tugenden. Zur Krise des deutschen
Produktionsmodells, in Beckenbach, N. and van Treeck, W. (Eds), Umbruche
gesellschaftlicher Arbeit. Soziale Welt, Sonderband 9, Gottingen, pp. 605-24.
Kopp, B. (2003), von Globalisierung, Liberalisierung, Deregulierung und GATS: Gefahr fur das
98 offentliche Schulwesen?, Tibi, Vol. 1 No. 1.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991), Situated Learning. Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge
University Press, New York, NY.
Oerter, R. and Horner, W. (1994), Frankreich, in Lauterbach, U. (Ed.), Internationales Handbuch
der Berufsbildung, Nomos, Baden-Baden, pp. F13-F131.
Rauner, F. (1998), Moderne Beruflichkeit, in Euler, D. (Ed.), Berufliches Lernen im Wandel
Konsequenzen fur die Lernorte? Dokumentation des 3., Forums Berufsbildungsforschung
1997 an der Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg, Nurnberg, pp. 153-71.
Rauner, F. and Grollmann, Ph. (2004), Einheitlicher Qualifikationsrahmen im
Brugge/Kopenhagen-Prozess zwischen Schulabschluss und Kompetenz, Berufsbildende
Schule, Vol. 56 Nos 7/8, pp. 159-65.
Schon, D.A. (1983), The Reflective Practitioner How Professionals Think in Action, Basic Books,
New York, NY.
Sellin, B. (2002), Bildung in Europa, in Tippelt, R. (Ed.), Handbuch Bildungsforschung, Leske
Budrich, Opladen, pp. 201-16.
Sellin, B. and Piehl, E. (1995), Berufliche Aus- und Weiterbildung in Europa, in Arnold, R. and
Lipsmeier, A. (Eds), Handbuch der Berufsbildung, Leske Budrich, Opladen, pp. 441-54.
Sennett, R. (1998), Der flexible Mensch, Die Kultur des neuen Kapitalismus, Berlin.
Tender-Nr. EAC/84/03 (2004), Achieving the Lisbon goal: the contribution of vocational
education and training systems, background study for a Ministerial Conference on
Strengthening European Cooperation in VET under the Dutch Presidency.
West, J. (2000), Higher education and employment: opportunities and limitations in the
formation of skills in a mass higher education system, Journal of Vocational Education
and Training, Vol. 52 No. 4, pp. 573-88.

Corresponding author
Felix Rauner can be contacted at: felix.rauner@uni-bremen.de

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com


Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0590.htm

Performance-
Can performance-related learning related learning
outcomes have standards?
Michaela Brockmann and Linda Clarke
Westminster University, London, UK, and 99
Christopher Winch
Kings College London, London, UK

Abstract
Purpose This paper aims to explain the distinction between educational standards and learning
outcomes and to indicate the problems that potentially arise when a learning outcomes approach is
applied to a qualification meta-framework like the European Qualification Framework, or indeed to
national qualification frameworks.
Design/methodology/approach The methods used are documentary, political and conceptual
analysis, with some reference to empirical work carried out in relation to other projects.
Findings It is found that there are substantial differences between learning outcomes and
standards with large educational and political implications. Furthermore, the pure form of learning
outcomes approach contains a design flaw, which makes its coherent implementation problematic.
Research limitations/implications The stimulation of further research on learning outcomes
based approaches to qualifications and the problems that arise in their implementation.
Practical implications The EU needs to think carefully about the fitness for purpose of the
current descriptors for EQF and whether or not it is desirable to move away from a pure
outcome-based approach to qualification frameworks and meta-frameworks.
Originality/value As far as the authors are aware, this is the first paper to draw attention to this
distinction.
Keywords Learning, Standards, National vocational qualifications, Europe
Paper type Conceptual paper

Introduction
There is a fundamental design issue in attempts to provide a European Qualifications
Framework (EQF) and on the basis of this to increase the transparency and transferability
of vocational and professional qualifications[1]. This is the adoption of a learning
outcomes (LO) approach to qualification comparators, qualifications and qualification
systems themselves which underlies one of the key instruments of the Lisbon Process,
namely the European Qualification Framework (EQF) due to be adopted by the Council
of Ministers in late 2007. Yet, as we show such an approach may compromise this process
and thereby risks undermining the goal of achieving European comparability.
The EQF is described as a reference tool which allows qualifications from different
educational systems to be compared at a criterion referenced level of equivalence (EU,
2006, p. 8; Coles and Oates, 2003, p. 36, para 6.27). It consists of eight levels comprising Journal of European Industrial
three aspects of outcome: knowledge, skill, competence. The horizontal levels range from Training
Vol. 32 No. 2/3, 2008
primary/low level secondary school completion (level 1) to doctoral (level 8). Each level pp. 99-113
has a descriptor in each of the three vertical categories (Appendix). The EQF is not q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0309-0590
explicitly attached to any curriculum or pedagogic processes. It is designed to be used DOI 10.1108/03090590810861659
JEIT with qualifications gained through APEL (Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning)
32,2/3 as well as through more conventional routes.
The learning outcomes approach is distinct from curricular and qualification
systems that benchmark progress through criterion-referenced standards, as is the
case with the Attainment Targets in the English National Curriculum, which are
essentially waymarks along a progressive programme of study. Learning Outcomes
100 (LO) cannot, of course, be standards in this sense, since the EQF is deliberately
detached from any specific curriculum or pedagogical practice. It is in this sense an
outcomes-based framework par excellence.
But herein lies the problem. The LO approach lacks coherence because it seeks to
fulfil two incompatible functions:
(1) to provide a notional progression in which achievement at each level beyond
level 1 implicitly presupposes achievement at level 1 and all the levels below the
one which is currently being assessed; and
(2) to provide a means of establishing whether someone has satisfied the criteria at
any given level irrespective of their achievements at any other level.

To both implicitly presuppose achievement at a certain level and at the same time to
act as if previous achievements below the level currently being assessed are irrelevant,
within the same instrument, is to produce something that is either of little value or that
is bound to throw up paradoxes that undermine its credibility.
A second problem is to assume that learning outcomes can be devised without an
explicit reference point, whether the curricula or labour market activities. This
stand-alone nature of learning outcomes is a very Anglo-Saxon notion and
inconceivable in most other European countries. Even in Britain it is difficult to
conceive of learning outcomes, occupational standards and curricula as other than
integrated, as somehow distinct from each other certainly at a professional level.
This is because learning outcomes are inevitably the outcome of a specific learning
process which may, in its scope be shallow or deep, broad or narrow, and involve
competences of a qualitatively different nature.
However, in Britain with respect to vocational education and training (VET) the key
reference point for learning outcomes is performance criteria in the workplace related
to particular tasks or functions, to given outputs, such as erecting a masonry structure
in the case of the bricklayer. In Germany, in contrast the key reference point is not the
performance function per se but the development of the individual to become a
bricklayer, as defined through the curriculum. In other words, in Britain the learning
outcome refers to a performance output and in Germany to the Berufsbildung process,
which is built on the attainment of standards at different levels. The assumption in the
British case is that the output of the work process is what represents the learning
process whilst in the German case it is provided through the curriculum, intended to
enhance the value of the labour itself, unattached to a specific output. The question is
whether performance output in the workplace can ever be associated with learning
outcomes in the narrowly defined British sense.

Educational aims, standards and curricula


Learning outcomes therefore in themselves have very different reference points in
different countries, with each country tending to apply its own reference point
without being explicit about this. In the Anglo-Saxon educational as distinct from Performance-
VET debate, certain distinctions are drawn between standards, progression and related learning
levels of achievement. Pring, for instance, distinguishes between standards and
performance, defining a standard as a measure or set of criteria against which the
quality of a performance may be judged (Pring, 1992). Performances may vary
against the standard set to judge them. Superficially, therefore, a standard looks like
what is often called a learning outcome and often the terminology is used 101
interchangeably. Curriculum designers are often invited to state the aims of a
programme of study in terms of learning outcomes to be achieved, when what is
meant is that they provide standards against which performance according to a
curriculum is to be judged. In this educational context therefore performance is
not directly related to a particular function or output in the workplace, but
according to the curriculum.
An educational aim, whether explicitly stated or implicitly followed, gives the
general purposes for which education is being provided, whether this be for liberal,
vocational or civic reasons or a mixture of all of these. By their nature, aims, when they
are stated, are of quite a high degree of generality: for example, to promote autonomy,
employability, civic responsibility. Within such general statements, curriculum
designers are able to develop the content in terms of knowledge, skill, understanding,
attitudes, and virtues that the student is expected to acquire or develop in order to fulfil
those aims. Almost all curricula are progressive, that is to say they move from low
levels of difficulty to higher ones in terms of volume and complexity of what is to be
mastered and they also build content on the presupposition that previously learned
content has been mastered. A curriculum is also a normative instrument it tells
teachers, students and administrators what ought to be taught and what is actually
taught is expected to conform to that pattern.
In order to judge the success of students in following a curriculum it is usual to
assess the extent to which what has been taught has been learned. One can then assign
a students performance in such an assessment to a certain standard of achievement.
Achievement of the standard is often a condition of the achievement of a certain level of
certification that signifies, for example, that one has completed a particular level of
education. This assessment may be undertaken for formative purposes, to enable
further learning to take place through diagnosis of strengths and weaknesses or for
summative purposes, to register progression, to assign a student to a given educational
route, for matriculation into tertiary education or as a labour market sign of
employability.
The English National Curriculum used in schools, for instance, is relatively unusual
as it not only prescribes content in programmes of study, but also sets levels of
attainment, which are standards, in Prings sense, of what should be achieved at
certain levels. These are set out as descriptors or statements of what is expected of a
performance in order for it to be assigned to a particular level. These levels are not
strictly related to age, but are notionally so. They set out the kind of knowledge and
skill required at each level within the curriculum and there are four assessment points
which are age-related, at which students are assigned to a level in each subject.
The idea of a level needs to be explained. The attainment of many kinds of
knowledge, skill and understanding is conditional on the prior mastery of other kinds
of knowledge, skill and understanding. If one knows that p implies that one already
JEIT knows q, then one has to learn q before one can learn p. The hierarchical nature of
32,2/3 much of what is learned is one factor that governs curriculum design and the setting of
standards indicating significant points up the hierarchy of cumulated knowledge.
Grouping qualifications into levels of attainment, as the EQF does, implies that
knowledge, skill and competence are to be considered in this way. Remove this
assumption and much of the justification for organising a qualification system in levels
102 disappears.
The key point about such a system, and it is one that has equivalences in other
European countries, is the internal connection between the different parts of the
conceptual framework. The English education system has aims or general purposes,
although these are generally too vague to give either direction to the system in terms of
a criterion of overall success or to give curriculum designers sufficient guidance
(White, 2007). Be that as it may, the curriculum should be written and taught so as to
fulfil the aims and will be judged as a good curriculum to the extent that it does this.
For example, National Curriculum English (Reading) at level 5 requires that students:
[. . .] show understanding of a range of texts, selecting essential points and using inference
and deduction where appropriate. In their responses, they identify key features, themes and
characters and select sentences, phrases and relevant information to support their views.
They retrieve and collate information from a range of sources (QCA, 2005).
Such a descriptor allows various assessment instruments to be designed in order to
validly assign a student to this level, each selected in the context of the students
progress through the curriculum, bearing in mind what they have already achieved. In
this respect, standards, because they are related to curricula, have to be broad enough
to provide a sufficient interpretation of the curriculum whose waypoints they are
marks on. Any curriculum that is reasonably complex, which seeks to develop abilities,
knowledge, understanding, attitudes and dispositions, is bound to be difficult to
encapsulate in simple, very precise, statements related to highly particular behaviours.
This, however, is precisely what is required of learning outcomes when these are
referred to performance outputs.

The NVQ philosophy as the source of learning outcomes


The UK is unusual in that it has developed a type of vocational qualification that
marks a break with curriculum and assessment design as described above and as
conceived in the wider education system. National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs)
were designed to provide assessment of ability for an individual without that
individual necessarily having followed a curriculum or programme of instruction. This
is achieved by aligning performance not with the curriculum but with the different
functions in the workplace. As a result individuals receive accreditation for what they
can do in the workplace rather than for what course they may have followed (Jessup,
1991). In the sense that performance is work-based, it is also designed to measure
skill rather than underpinning knowledge as it is held that the only relevant property
of the person assessed is h/her performance at work (Jessup, 1991).
In order for such a system to work, a number of crucial assumptions are made:
(1) Credit is given for learning that takes place irrespective of where and when it
occurs, allowing what is usually known in England as APEL.
(2) Skill, related to ability to perform tasks or functions in the workplace, rather Performance-
than knowledge is the main attribute to be accredited. The assumption is that related learning
what is valuable for work purposes is what that person can do rather than what
they know. Even if knowledge is required for such performance, it is not
necessary to assess it as what matters is the ability to perform tasks
irrespective of what knowledge is necessary to perform them.
(3) For skill to be assessed, there needs to be a successful demonstration, as a 103
necessary and sufficient condition for an assessor to know that someone can
perform a particular task. For this demonstration, criteria are required in the
form of descriptors of tasks (called occupational standards), forming the basis
of the descriptors of performance, which provide the assessment instrument for
the qualification. Thus, a qualification can be constructed which draws together
different occupational standards into a job or even an occupational description
at a certain level, which can then be awarded according to successful
performance according to the descriptors set out.
(4) By their nature, such descriptions are precise in their formulation. They are
meant to assess ability to perform a range of tasks in the workplace and it is
assumed that such tasks are relatively restricted in their scope and thus
susceptible of precise formulation in terms of behaviour. Whatever judgment is
assumed for successful completion of the tasks is thought to be implicit in the
behaviour and therefore not requiring assessment.

A learning outcome therefore, in the sense in which that term is used within the NVQ
system is a criterion of performance in the workplace which does not presuppose either
aims or curriculum. This system goes together with a peculiarly Anglo-Saxon and
class-based understanding of vocational as distinct from general education.
In the vocational context, learning outcomes have been adopted as a certification
principle, associated with narrowly defined, task oriented, activities that do not require
significant levels of knowledge or understanding. In effect, it is not a system aimed at
enhancing the value of labour itself but rather at performance output in the workplace.
But, whilst for England and Wales the learning outcomes approach adopted for the
EQF is likely to be interpreted in the NVQ sense, this does not mean that it will or can
be so interpreted in countries that do not use such an LO-based approach and do not
appreciate the important distinction between an LO and an educational standard. For
such countries, the default attitude will be to regard the EQF descriptors as
descriptions of standards rather than LOs.

Educational aims and standards


Educational aims are closely related to general criteria as to whether they have been
achieved (Nuffield Review, 2004). An educational standard, whether academic,
vocational, civic, religious or moral, provides a criterion for assessing whether or not,
or to what extent, educational aims have been achieved. It is, therefore, a precondition
and measuring rod for educational performance (Pring, 1992) and should not be
confused with performance output in the workplace. When politicians say that
standards in education are rising they usually mean that performances are rising
against standards, used as a measuring rod. Since educational standards are set
relative to educational aims, they may vary according to these, and to whether these
JEIT are judged to be appropriate or inappropriate. When the aims of education change, then
32,2/3 judgements are made about which standards are or are not appropriate. These may
change over time in terms of the demands made of students, either in terms of breadth
or depth of knowledge required. Thus, we can make diachronic comparisons of
standards in a particular country and draw some conclusions about whether they have
risen or fallen, always bearing in mind that the aims which govern those standards
104 may themselves have changed over time.
More difficult is the idea of a synchronic comparison of standards, whereby the
standards of different countries are compared with each other. If standards are set
against aims, then one must assume broadly comparable aims in order to determine
whether standards are comparable. Given so many large OECD countries reluctance to
specify educational aims and significant differences between them, such an exercise as
PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is potentially flawed. Pisa is
conducted over the education systems of the OECD countries to measure performances
against a standard that embodies an explicit and implicit aim in terms of the economic
effectiveness of the education system (PISA, 2006). Thus, there might be complaints
raised in Germany that the mathematics curriculum, designed for relatively academic
aims of mathematic education, leads to poor performance when measured against
inappropriate standards.

Learning outcomes
Aims can thus provide guidance for setting appropriate standards and educational
performance may give an indication as to how those aims are being met, indirectly
through using the standards as a benchmark. Learning outcomes in the NVQ sense,
however, purport to act be this inadequately and impossibly as a surrogate both
for aims of education and for standards, as a statement of the knowledge, skills,
attitudes and understanding that a student is expected to have reached at the end of a
vocational programme or when h/she has attained a particular level of certification. In
this respect, LOs represent a statement of the purposes of a vocational programme and
an advance on NVQ descriptors, by measuring a broader range of attributes rather
than just skill. LOs in this sense, however, fail as aims, because they specify these too
narrowly in terms of individual performance-at-work attributes rather than of societys
purposes for vocational education. Neither are they intended to do the job of standards
in the educational sense. Educational standards allow one to devise a range of
assessment instruments and can measure competence and understanding in a broad,
as well as a narrow sense. They also allow one to assess how well someone has met a
standard, not merely whether or not they have done so in a binary sense as the
occupational standards of the NVQ do. Learning outcomes in the NVQ sense, by their
nature, can do neither of these things. Indeed for assessments that are broad and allow
for differentiation, it is educational standards that are needed, not performance-related
learning outcomes.
The difficulty in using LOs in this sense is apparent in the example of truck drivers.
An NVQ for Large Goods Vehicle (LGV) drivers seeks to ensure the safe and efficient
driving of a large goods vehicle and has two levels of qualification, the higher one
demonstrating more advanced driving and vehicle management abilities than the
lower level one. What are the options?
(1) To specify that, at the lower level, the driver can operate the vehicle safely and Performance-
efficiently. Then one has the problem that, at the higher level, this is not a related learning
requirement. One would be in the paradoxical position of stating that a less
qualified driver would have to drive safely and efficiently while the more
qualified driver need not do so.
(2) To specify that, at the higher level, the driver can operate the vehicle safely and
efficiently. Then one has the problem that, at the lower level, this is not a 105
requirement. Yet the driver qualified at the lower level has to be able to do so,
otherwise they would not be allowed to drive at all.

In fact, the National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) for LGV drivers suggests that
drivers only need to drive lorries safely and efficiently at level 3, thus grasping one
horn of this dilemma (Skills for Logistics, 2003). Such a solution is only possible,
however, because all drivers will already have a license, which presupposes that they
can drive safely and efficiently irrespective of whether or not they have achieved any
NVQ (Skills for Logistics, 2003). In effect, the driving license is a safety net, which
saves the NVQ qualification from inoperability. This is the kind of problem that arises
when learning outcomes relate to performance output.
When performance, instead of being related to the carrying out of a particular task
or output is instead attached to the development of the individual, it can be measured
against a progressive and cumulative curriculum, which itself determines not only
whether, but also to what extent, the relevant standards or alternatively which
standards on a progressive scale of standards, as in the English National Curriculum
have been met. Thus, were the NVQ for Large Goods Vehicle Drivers part of a
curriculum to enhance the value of the labour of the lorry driver, driving safely would
be a lower level requirement and any driver taking the higher level qualification would
need to do the lower one as a prerequisite. The problem arises because of the implicit
contradiction in performance-related learning outcomes that are meant to operate
without regard to previous achievements and to rely on implicit cumulation of previous
achievements.
Just as standards can only be really understood in terms of the aims for which they
provide a measure, so they also need to be understood in terms of the curricula that are
designed for the aims to be achieved. The standards not only provide a measure of
whether or not aims are being achieved but they also provide a goal for the curriculum,
a measure of the success or otherwise of following a particular curriculum and, for
students, the extent to which that curriculum in the sense of prescribed content of
education (Barrow, 1976; Winch, 1996) was followed successfully. They thus face
upwards towards aims and downwards towards curricula and failure to refer them
to one or the other is a recipe for confusion. Yet this is what outcome based
approaches to education threaten to do, by detaching criteria of success from any
meaningful educational context.
It is not difficult to find examples of the kind of confusion that learning outcomes
engender, often because they are imported into systems which rely on standards for
their operation. Take the English BTEC National Level 3 in Construction as an
example[2]. Unit 1 covers Health, Safety and Welfare and is prefaced by a number of
learning outcomes, whose content includes:
JEIT .
Accident prevention: risk assessments: items to be assessed, principal hazards,
32,2/3 likely injury outcomes.
.
Use of control measures: use of procedures, substances, lifting assessments and
manual handling assessments, inspection, personal responsibility for health,
safety and welfare.
.
Legal uuties: legal duty of each person to obey safety rules and to use protective
106 equipment, consequences of non-compliance for both the individual and the
company (Edexcel, 2003).

This content is preceded by a statement of learning outcomes which, if taken seriously


as assessment instruments, would not be capable of covering the stated content. For
example: Evaluate his or her role in accident prevention and the avoidance of
dangerous conditions. This hardly seems sufficient to assess the complex and
extensive material covered in the course content, unless interpreted very broadly
(contrary to the intended philosophy underlying learning outcomes). On the continent,
in contrast LOs are interpreted as broad outcomes or competences, implicitly linked to
curricula in the context of a broad occupational field. They are not intended as
standards but as competence in the workplace What is expected of a person with
qualification X? in terms of knowledge, skills and competencies.
Performance-related learning outcomes in the Anglo-Saxon sense are not assessment
instruments as such, as grading criteria allow one to distinguish between a pass, merit
and distinction in this unit. A distinction in the BTEC Level 3 Construction example
requires that one analyse accident trends in the construction industry and calculate the
cost of an accident in the workplace (Edexcel, 2003), which clearly represents a standard
and can be interpreted in different ways in different assessment instruments. Learning
outcomes themselves cannot serve as assessment instruments in this sense.

The breadth of standards, the narrowness of outcomes


The Anglo-Saxon LO approach was originally designed for lower level tasks
assumed to require little applied knowledge or understanding and little or no
workplace responsibility (Raggatt and Williams, 1999). Since learning outcomes are,
by their nature, narrowly conceived, what they measure is also narrowly conceived. It
follows that there are difficulties in specifying learning outcomes for activities that, by
their nature, are broad in scope, require underpinning knowledge for their performance
and more complex personal characteristics than simple, visually observable, skills.
Indeed, the inadequacy of a learning outcome approach is apparent in the example of
the level 3 BTEC National in Construction.
The EQF is however a framework for the organisation of learning outcomes of a
different order because it is itself an umbrella for all outcomes at all levels and
necessarily consists of broad descriptors of knowledge, skill and competence at each
level. It is thus misleading as a template for learning outcomes, which, as Coles (2007) has
pointed out, differ from standards in being narrow descriptors whose satisfaction can be
judged through relatively homogenous performances. Indeed, Coles (2007) uses the term
learning objectives to mean what we call standards in the Anglo-Saxon sense:
For example a module of learning on Roman history will include many objectives concerned
with timelines, major events, significant rulers, transport systems, social developments and
so on. Assessment may sample across these aspects and will allow a general judgement of the Performance-
level of knowledge of the Roman era to be made. On the other hand, the assessment of
learning outcomes will usually be inclusive of all outcomes and will be based on assessment related learning
criteria relating to each outcome, for example the ability to describe the advance of the Roman
army in Europe, or the ability to identify the distinguishing characteristics of the architecture
of Roman public buildings (13).
The comprehensiveness of an overarching framework masks the narrowness of the 107
outcomes that are the subject of assessment. The EQF, or indeed any qualification
framework, cannot be used to assess any particular workplace-based performance, but
is a template for schemata, which are used to classify performances of a different order.
It follows that there must be a structural symmetry between the design of the EQF and
the national qualifications for which it is meant to act as a comparator. Currently,
however, the EQF retains an ambiguity that different countries may interpret in
different ways with some, like Germany regarding it as a comparator of standards and
others, like England regarding it as a comparator of learning outcomes. This very
ambiguity belies the difficulties inherent in operating such a system when performance
is assessed not just according to output in the workplace but according to the
development of individual labour through a curriculum and, where something more
than narrow task-related skills and basic knowledge is required. In order to appreciate
this point, it may perhaps be useful to look at EQF level 4 (lowest post baccalaureate
level) (Table I).
As apparent from Table I, knowledge in the EQF sense has to be located in broad
contexts within a field[3]. In order to assess such knowledge one needs to specify the
range of contexts. Likewise, the field is likely to be occupational rather than related to
a job or task context and hence presupposes a broad scope of activity in itself,
particularly where occupations are broadly conceived, as are German Berufe. If
Wissen, as well as Kenntnis is to be assessed at this level, namely systematically
organised knowledge, it is difficult to see how this can be achieved through narrowly
specifiable performance-based learning outcomes in the Anglo-Saxon sense. What is
required is to specify a range of learning outcomes without destroying the holistic or
integrated nature of the occupational knowledge.
In the Anglo-Saxon NVQ system, however, this is no easy task. In terms of skills
for instance, a term that does not easily translate into other languages, questions arise

Knowledge Skill Competence

Factual and theoretical A range of cognitive and Exercise self-management


knowledge within broad practical skills required to within the guidelines of work or
contexts within a field of work generate solutions to specific study context that are usually
or study problems within a field of work predictable but are subject to
or study change
Supervise the routine work of
others, taking some
responsibility for the evaluation
and improvement of work or
study activities
Table I.
Source: EU (2006) EQF level 4
JEIT such as: how large is a range of cognitive and practical skills and how large is the range
32,2/3 of problems to which they might be applied? In terms of competences, too, how is
self-management and supervisory capacity to be assessed within broadly conceived
contexts subject to change, given difficulties related to the sheer number of learning
outcomes and the way in which they are jointly integrated. Assessing through learning
outcomes at this level is a formidable task, even within the relatively narrowly
108 conceived fields of operation characteristic of the British workplace context. For
example NVQs above level three are suitable, by their nature, to accredit individuals
who have detailed specialist knowledge, a range of related skills integrated with that
knowledge and a considerable degree of operational responsibility. To accommodate
this has required the development of range statements or statements, making clear
the scope of the field to which learning outcomes apply. However, this modification
makes the assessment system unwieldy and places a great deal of weight on the
interpretation both of the outcomes and of the range over which they are applicable.
Nor is the problem really solved by the specification of range statements, since the
problem is to do with the narrowness of learning outcomes themselves and not with the
broad range of circumstances in which narrowly conceived skills can be deployed. The
apparent simplicity and intuitive nature of outcomes-based assessment is thereby lost
at the higher levels and this, in large measure, accounts for the relatively unpopularity
of higher levels of NVQ, as opposed to broadly standards-based assessment systems
such as BTEC certificates and diplomas, HNDs (Higher National Diplomas) and
Foundation Degrees.
While such problems exist within the English context, they are very different in
other countries, with implications for how the EQF is transposed. For instance, in the
German context, in terms of the skills dimension the German version of EQF refers to
Fertigkeiten at level 4, suggesting narrow skills. But if a level 4 is a higher Facharbeiter
or occupational qualification, it will presuppose Fahigkeit or holistic and integrated
capacity for occupational performance, which, by its nature, will be difficult, if not
impossible, to assess by learning outcomes.
For the EQF, all national qualifications need to be reconfigured in terms of learning
outcomes, as has already been achieved in relation to many dual systems qualifications
such as in Germany (as competencies), and in France and The Netherlands which
have adopted outcomes-based approaches. This reconfiguration is totally different in
those work environments that presuppose broad occupational tasks in complex and
changing environments in which self-management and the assumption of
responsibility are key features of successful performance. Here learning outcomes no
longer delimit narrow and specific behaviours and items of knowledge but become
broad descriptors, as with the referentiels de competences in France, able to
accommodate change. It is a key feature of high-level occupational performance that
knowledge, skill and competence are integrated and that a field of knowledge not
only the items within it but also the central propositions and concepts local
inferential warrants and procedures for developing and testing new knowledge is
understood (Hirst, 1974; Toulmin, 1957). In occupationally-oriented VET systems, it is
the integration of specific narrow task-related abilities (Fertigkeiten) within broader
occupational capacities (Fahigkeiten) that is the issue of interest for the assessor and
their clients.
Policy consequences Performance-
The very feature of EQF that makes it inappropriate as a learning outcomes template in related learning
the Anglo-Saxon sense of an exhaustive list of tasks (rather than broad indicators of
Kompetenz in an occupational field), namely its breadth, is also what makes it useful in
relation to educational inputs: curricular and pedagogic processes, albeit in modified form.
From interviews we have conducted as part of a research project for the Nuffield
Foundation[4], it is evident that recruiting employers are interested in curricula, the nature 109
of workplace experience and the relatedness of competencies and knowledge, rather than
in specifications of learning outcomes per se. They are even prepared to commission
research into specific qualifications and their national and contextual background in order
to obtain information for recruitment purposes. The EQF needs to be supplemented by
curricular, pedagogical, assessment and contextual information that allows an employer
or a trade union to make a judgment as to what level any given qualification might be set
within the overall framework. Sectoral social partners could then work out which
qualifications belonged at which level of the EQF, serving as a preliminary indicator of
the kind of qualification. In this way the EQF could be considered as a standards
framework and treated accordingly, with modifications at lower levels where its
specifications are unreasonably low. Both systematic knowledge and broad occupational
abilities are presupposed for level 3 qualifications in occupations across many European
countries. However, as currently conceived, the EQF systematically downplays these
features, perhaps in order to accommodate British sensibilities. What needs to be brought
to the fore is the continental interpretation of learning outcomes, as indicative outcomes of
comprehensive VET systems leading to comprehensive qualifications.
A system like EQF cannot be used to support both learning outcomes and standards
across a set of countries that use either one or the other of these organising concepts for
their qualification systems. This is because they are incompatible. Standards
presuppose curricula and pedagogical processes, learning outcomes do not. Since
standards at levels beyond the base explicitly presuppose cumulated knowledge, skill
and understanding and learning outcomes do not, then they are incompatible with each
other as they do not compare like with like. One cannot, for example, have a situation
where a qualification for a lorry driver in one country at a given level explicitly
presupposes the ability to drive safely and efficiently and the nominally equivalent
qualification at the same level in another country does not. However, the problem with
LOs attached to the performance of activities in the workplace is more radical than
mere incompatibility with standards. LOs in this sense implicitly presuppose
cumulated knowledge, skill and understanding in the assignment of an individual to a
given level and explicitly deny that they dos so. Once the implicit is made explicit, the
contradiction is apparent. Since anything follows from a contradiction (ex falso
quodlibet, as mediaeval logicians put it), then the performance-based LO approach is
fatally flawed.. It is also flawed because it refers to output in the workplace and not to
the development of labour Instead of being based on LOs in this narrow sense because
it refers to output in the workplace and not to the development of labour, to the
development of the individual. Instead of being based on LOs in this sense, the EQF
needs to act as a standards-based system and to supplement the broad categories that
it covers with detailed information concerning the curricula, pedagogies and modes of
assessment that underlie each qualification. Only then can it provide an indicator of the
different values of labour in different countries.
JEIT Notes
32,2/3 1. This process is known as ECVET and presupposes the successful development of the EQF.
2. Originally qualifications offered by the well known and respected Business and Technical
Education Council, BTEC now functions as a brand name for a particular type of
qualification.
3. Knowledge is translated as Kenntnisse in the German version. However, it may be
110 doubted whether we are dealing exclusively with Kenntnisse (contingent propositional
knowledge) rather than Wissen (systematic propositional knowledge) at this level and
beyond. Indeed this is admitted in the German version, where the knowledge section refers to
breites Spektrum an Theorie und Faktenwissen in einem Arbeits- oder Lernbereich.
4. Cross-national equivalence of vocational skills and qualifications.

References
Barrow, R. (1976), Common Sense and the Curriculum, David Elgar, Cheltenham.
Coles, M. (2007), Qualifications Frameworks in Europe Platforms for Qualifications, Integration
and Reform, EU Education and Culture DG, Brussels.
Coles, M. and Oates, T. (2003), European Reference Levels for Education and Training, QCA,
London.
Edexcel (2003), Edexcel Level 3, BTEC Nationals in Construction, Edexcel, London.
EU (European Union) (2006), Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council for
the Establishment of a European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning,
European Commission, Brussels, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/educ/
eqf/com_2006_0479_en.pdf (accessed 23 July 2007).
Hirst, P.H. (1974), Knowledge and the Curriculum, Routledge, London.
Jessup, G. (1991), Outcomes: NVQs and the Emerging Model of Education and Training, Falmer
Press, London.
Nuffield Review (2004), The Nuffield Review of 14-19 Education in England and Wales 1st Annual
Report, available at: www.nuffield14-19review.org.uk/files/documents36-1.pdf (accessed
23 July 2007).
PISA (2006), OECD Programme for International Student Assessment, available at: www.pisa.
oecd.org/pages/0,2987,en_32252351_32235731_1_1_1_1_1,00.html (accessed 23 July 2007).
Pring, R. (1992), Standards and quality in education, British Journal of Educational Studies,
Vol. XXXX No. 1.
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) (2005), English in the National Curriculum, QCA,
London.
Raggatt, P. and Williams, S. (1999), Government, Markets and Vocational Qualifications: An
Anatomy of Policy, Falmer, London.
Skills for Logistics (2003), Skills for Logistics Industry Qualifications: Driving Goods Vehicles,
Skills for Logistics, Milton Keynes.
Toulmin, S. (1957), The Uses of Argument, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
White, J.P. (2007), What Schools Are for and Why, Philosophy of Education Society of Great
Britain.
Winch, C. (1996), Quality and Education, Blackwell, Oxford.
Appendix Performance-
related learning
Kenntnisse Fertigkeiten Kompetenz

Niveau 1 Grundlegendes Grundlegende Arbeiten oder Lernen unter


Fertigkeiten, die zur direkter
Zur Erreichung Allgemeinwissen Ausfuhrung einfacher Anleitung in einem
von Aufgaben vorstrukturierten 111
Niveau 1 erforderlich sind Kontext
erforderliche
Lernergebnisse
Niveau 2 Grundlegendes Grundlegende kognitive Arbeiten oder Lernen unter
Zur Erreichung Faktenwissen in und praktische Anleitung mit
von einem Arbeits- oder Fertigkeiten, die zur einem gewissen Ma an
Niveau 2 Lernbereich Nutzung relevanter Selbststandigkeit
erforderliche Informationen
Lernergebnisse erforderlich sind, um
Aufgaben auszufuhren
und
Routineprobleme unter
Verwendung
einfacher Regeln und
Werkzeuge zu
losen
Niveau 3 Kenntnisse von Fakten Eine Reihe von Verantwortung fur die
Zur Erreichung Grundsatzen, Verfahren kognitiven und Erledigung von
von und praktischen Arbeits- oder Lernaufgaben
Niveau 3 allgemeinen Begriffen Fertigkeiten zur ubernehmen
erforderliche in einem Arbeits- oder Erledigung bei der Losung von
Lernergebnisse Lernbereich von Aufgaben und zur Problemen das eigene
Losung von Problemen, Verhalten an die jeweiligen
wobei grundlegende Umstande
Methoden, Werkzeuge, anpassen
Materialien und
Informationen
ausgewahlt und
angewandt werden
Niveau 4 Breites Spektrum an Eine Reihe kognitiver Selbststandiges
Theorie und und praktischer Tatigwerden innerhalb
Zur Erreichung Faktenwissen in einem Fertigkeiten, um der Handlungsparameter
von Arbeits- oder Losungen fur spezielle von Arbeits- oder
Niveau 4 Lernbereich Probleme in einem Lernkontexten, die in der
erforderliche Arbeits- oder Regel
Lernergebnisse Lernbereich zu finden bekannt sind, sich jedoch
andern konnen
Beaufsichtigung der
Routinearbeit
anderer Personen, wobei eine
gewisse
Verantwortung fur die Table AI.
Bewertung und The European
(continued) Qualification Framework
JEIT Kenntnisse Fertigkeiten Kompetenz
32,2/3
Verbesserung der Arbeits-
oder
Lernaktivitaten
ubernommen wird
112 Niveau 5 Umfassendes, Umfassende kognitive Leiten und Beaufsichtigen in
Zur Erreichung spezialisiertes und praktische Arbeits- oder
von Theorie- und Fertigkeiten die Lernkontexten, in denen
Niveau 5 Faktenwissen in erforderlich sind, um nicht
erforderliche einem Arbeits- oder kreative Losungen fur vorhersehbare Anderungen
Lernergebnisse Lernbereich sowie abstrakte auftreten Uberprufung und
Bewusstsein fur die Probleme zu erarbeiten Entwicklung
Grenzen der eigenen Leistung und der
dieser Kenntnisse Leistung
anderer Personen

Niveau 6 Fortgeschrittene Fortgeschrittene Leitung komplexer


Zur Erreichung Kenntnisse in Fertigkeiten, die die fachlicher oder
von einem Arbeits- oder Beherrschung des beruflicher Tatigkeiten oder
Niveau 6 Lernbereich unter Faches sowie Projekte und
erforderliche Einsatz Innovationsfahigkeit Ubernahme von
Lernergebnisse eines kritischen erkennen lassen, Entscheidungs-
Verstandnisses und zur Losung verantwortung in nicht
von Theorien und komplexer und nicht vorhersagbaren Arbeits-
Grundsatzen vorhersehbarer oder
Probleme in einem Lernkontexten
spezialisierten Arbeits- Ubernahme der
oder Verantwortung fur die
Lernbereich notig sind berufliche Entwicklung von
Einzelpersonen und
Gruppen

Niveau 7 Hoch spezialisiertes Spezialisierte Leitung und Gestaltung


Zur Erreichung Wissen, das zum Teil Problemlosungsfertig- komplexer, sich
von an neueste keiten im Bereich verandernder Arbeits- oder
Niveau 7 Erkenntnisse in einem Forschung und/oder Lernkontexte
erforderliche Arbeits- oder Innovation, um die neue strategische
Lernergebnisse Lernbereich anknupft, neue Kenntnisse zu Ansatze erfordern
als gewinnen und neue Ubernahme von
Grundlage fur Verfahren zu Verantwortung fur
innovative entwickeln sowie um Beitrage zum Fachwissen
Denkansatze Wissen aus und zur
kritisches Bewusstsein verschiedenen Berufspraxis und/oder fur
fur Bereichen zu die
Wissensfragen in einem integrieren Uberprufung der
Bereich und an der strategischen Leistung
Schnittstelle zwischen von Teams
verschiedenen
Bereichen

Table AI. (continued)


Kenntnisse Fertigkeiten Kompetenz
Performance-
related learning
Niveau 8 Spitzenkenntnisse in Die am weitesten Namhafte Autoritat,
Zur Erreichung einem entwickelten und Innovationsfahigkeit,
von Arbeits- oder spezialisierten Selbststandigkeit,
Niveau 8 Lernbereich und Fertigkeiten und wissenschaftliche und
erforderliche an der Schnittstelle Methoden, berufliche Integritat und 113
Lernergebnisse zwischen einschlielich nachhaltiges
verschiedenen Synthese und Engagement bei der
Bereichen Evaluierung, zur Entwicklung neuer
Losung zentraler Ideen oder Verfahren in
Fragestellungen in den fuhrenden
Bereichen Arbeits- oder Lernkontexten,
Forschung und/oder einschlielich
Innovation und zur der Forschung
Erweiterung oder
Neudefinition
vorhandener
Kenntnisse oder
beruflicher Praxis Table AI.

About the authors


Michaela Brockmann is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Westminster, London. She
is currently working on the Nuffield-funded study Cross-national equivalence of qualifications
and skills which examines key concepts underpinning vocational education and training
systems across Europe. She is a member of the Core Group of the Nuffield 14-19 Review of
Education in England. Recent publications include Knowledge, skills, competence: European
divergences in vocational education and training (VET): the English, German and Dutch cases,
Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 34 No. 5, (with L. Clarke and C. Winch).
Linda Clarke is Professor of European Industrial Relations in the Westminster Business
School, University of Westminster and has long experience of comparative research on training
and skills, as well as on recruitment, wage relations, social protection, gender and labour
organisation in a range of European countries, east and west. She has particular expertise in the
construction sector in Europe and is on the board of the European Institute for Construction
Labour Research. Her recent research projects include: a Nuffield Foundation project on
Cross-national equivalence of vocational skills and qualifications in Germany, France and the
Netherlands and an European Commission Framework 5 project, Overcoming marginalisation:
structural obstacles and openings to integration in strongly segregated sectors, examining
gender and ethnic minority participation in the ICT, construction, printing and health sectors.
Lindas key book publications include: (2007), Vocational Education: International Approaches,
Developments and Systems, co-editor, Routledge; and (1992) Building Capitalism: Historical
Change and the Labour Process in the Production of the Built Environment, Routledge.
Christopher Winch is Professor of Educational Philosophy and Policy in the Department of
Education and Professional Studies at Kings College, London. He is, with Linda Clarke,
co-director on the Nuffield Project on EQF and transnational vocational qualifications. His
interests lie in Philosophy of Education, Education Policy and Vocational Education. He recently
edited, with Linda Clarke, a collection entitled Vocational Education: International Approaches,
Developments and Systems (Routledge, 2007). He is a member of the core group of the Nuffield
14-19 Review of education in England. Recent publications include Education, Autonomy and
Critical Thinking (Routledge, 2005) and A Guide to Vocational Education and Training with
Terry Hyland (Continuum, 2007). Christopher Winch is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: christopherwinch@kal.ac.uk

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com


Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0590.htm

JEIT
32,2/3 European qualifications
framework
Weighing some pros and cons out of a French
114 perspective
Annie Bouder
Centre dEtudes et de Recherches sur les Qualifications, Marseille, France

Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to question the appropriateness of a proposal for a new
European Qualifications Framework. The framework has three perspectives: historical; analytical; and
national.
Design/methodology/approach The approaches are diverse since the first insists on the
institutional and decision-making processes at European level questioning the impact that could have
on the recently formalised Open Method of Coordination. The second goes into more detailed analyses
of the instrument itself and of its shortcomings both in conceptual terms and on its pragmatic ones.
The last approach is a comparative one by which the French system is benchmarked against EQF
guidelines.
Findings The main conclusion is that there is obviously a political will to question the role and the
structure of qualifications in view of an economy and a society of knowledge and that research has
much to contribute on very different levels like the three chosen for this article.
Research limitations/implications Choosing to mix three quite different approaches in one
short text is an attempt to be valued since it shows the different aspects under which a so-called
neutral instrument needs to be regarded.
Practical implications Practically, this speaks for the further involvement of research in the
present, very institutional and organisational discussions on European qualifications.
Originality/value In terms of research, it is seldom that these various levels are considered
together. The article proves that there is a case to do so.
Keywords Qualifications, Decision making, Comparative tests, Vocational training,
European directives, France
Paper type Conceptual paper

Since the Lisbon summit in 2000 and its follow-up both in the Education Training
2010 programme and in the working groups attached to the Bruges/Copenhagen
process, many stakeholders of vocational training in the member states envisage that
important changes could be brought to traditional processes and principles in their
respective fields, at European but also at national levels. Levers for these changes
should be new European instruments for the definition and the legibility of formal
qualifications. In 2004 a proposal for the implementation of a European Qualifications
Framework (EQF) was put to a Europe-wide consultation and in 2006 the same was
Journal of European Industrial
done for a proposal designing an ECVET system (European Credits for VET).
Training Mobilisation of stakeholders has been high and many papers, articles, comments have
Vol. 32 No. 2/3, 2008
pp. 114-126 circulated. With this book, the editors want to bring these debates further. The
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0309-0590
contribution of this article will be at three levels: the first section contextualises the
DOI 10.1108/03090590810861668 above mentioned developments in the overall Europe-and-qualifications-history;
with the second one, some aspects related to the proposed design for an EQF are European
discussed; the last section focuses on the French system looking at its potential in view qualifications
of the European challenges.
framework
Part 1. Europe and qualifications: what is new?
When faced with a debate placed at such a high political level, it is always useful to
look back on history to help clarifying the terms of the present debate[1]. Doing so, one 115
can see that since its inception the EC and then the EU has had to deal with the issue of
qualifications.
The very first Community intervention in the field dates all the way back to the
Rome Treaty in 1957. Its purpose then was to eliminate barriers to the freedom of
establishment and concerned, to start with, regulated professions since these may only
be carried out by people having the appropriate qualification/credential. In this field, it
was considered necessary to intervene through the legal compelling tool of the
Directives. It obliges national Laws to comply with the set objectives, leaving the
achievement means to national choice. However, these achievement means have
been largely pre-defined, mostly in terms of contents and of length of the education and
training programmes leading to the attribution of the qualification. While the Directive
provides for the recognition of work experience (Title 2, Chapter 2), the main elements
defining qualifications are input-orientated: content and length of learning are
ultimate indicators for quality, together with the notoriety of the organisation
delivering the document. The credential (the certificate) conveys the qualification,
but based on the input-elements that it represents.
As a whole, some 15 Directives concerning, with various importance, several
hundreds of qualifications have been enacted, all of them being consolidated into one
single one in September 2005[2]. Nowadays, the European obligations created by the
Directive have been largely integrated by national systems. It appears somehow
normal that its provisions partly influence their understanding of a qualification.
Further Community incursions into the field, addressed the correspondence of
qualifications. The operation started in 1985, under the direction of CEDEFOP. It
compared the nature of the work tasks expected in the various countries from those
holding a similar qualification. To this end, groups of professional experts were asked
to extract these joint core contents out of their respective qualifications. With this
operation, training contents are ignored: only work tasks and activity do matter (the
practical professional requirements for a vocation or a group of vocations[3]). In the
various countries, it proved that these requirements are largely dependent on the
modes of work organisation, the development of technologies, the outcomes of
collective bargaining and the resulting classifications: labour market orientation for
the joint definition of qualifications proved to be quite difficult. The operation rose
however a lot of expectations but also pretty much controversy: it has proved to be
very lengthy and to bear little results at practical level. The common cores arrived had
to be the smallest common denominator (Merle and Bertrand, 1993), giving them
little meaning both for a European and for national labour markets. As it was
voluntary, the operation was stopped after a few years, having concerned occupations
at qualified worker[4] level in 19 sectors[5].
It appears that its promoters in CEDEFOP made use of the earlier lessons, to set-up
in 1998 the European Forum on Transparency of Qualifications. Aiming still at making
JEIT understandable to outsiders the content of vocational qualifications, several
32,2/3 documents were developed by a group of experts representing social partners, national
authorities in charge of education and training and researchers. These documents were
gathered in a Portfolio named Europass, whose content was extended after 2002. In its
December 2004 version, Europass gathers up to five kinds of documents: the European
CV, the Certificate Supplement and/or the Diploma Supplement, the language passport
116 and the Europass Traineeship certificate. Finalised as a Decision of the European
Parliament and Council, it has created a legal obligation to every member states to
foster its use, setting-up specific structures to this end.
Qualifications and the organisation of learning pathways have also played a crucial
role in the higher education area. Starting 1988, the Universities envisage a closer
organisational structure, in which qualifications play a major role: Bachelor, Master
and Doctorate qualifications should become the common currency, and a credit and
transfer system (ECTS) should facilitate both mobility between universities and
ultimately the integration of different learning environments such as work or other
learning situations. In this context, qualifications are mainly related to education and
training, the credit units being defined in terms of length of study time needed to
acquire it.
It is interesting to note that no legal text is underpinning these developments in the
higher education area. The texts of the various Communiques are morally binding,
not legally. But their impact does not seem to be weakened. Motivation for higher
education institutions to follow the Bologna process comes from a well understood
self-interest: comparability standards, competition at European and international
levels . . . Universities were the initiators of this process and the way they moved
towards a joint and closer process makes them one of the precursors of the Open
Method of Coordination (OMC), as it was formally adopted at the Lisbon Summit in
2000.
For the time being, the most recent developments in the field of qualifications fall
under this new decision-making process that provides for the cases (in terms of policy
fields) when the EU institutions have no formal right to intervene, whereas member
states governments do want to bring their policies closer[6]. To this end, governments
state some general policy guidelines that are then detailed in more precise objectives
foreseen with indicators of achievements and a calendar. When it comes to the area of
qualifications, the stated goal of developing the European society towards a
knowledge society gave rise after 2002 to the proposals for both a European
Qualifications Framework (EQF) and a European system of credits for VET
(ECVET)[7].
Putting the proposal for a European Qualifications Framework on the table has
stirred much discussion among stakeholders in VET. The very high political relevance
given to the proposal through its inclusion in the Lisbon process towards a knowledge
society, and the high pressure that the OMC procedures may give rise to (in terms of
evaluation and benchmarking), overcomes the fact that its legal basis is only a
recommendation. Administrations, mostly in charge of managing national
qualifications and national qualifications frameworks where they exist, have to
perform something in the set direction.
To come back to the question raised by the title of this first section what is new?
one must say for first that EQF and ECVET add an other layer to quite a long list of
European initiatives in the field. While it is to be admitted that they are of different European
character and could also find their place amongst cooperation instruments between qualifications
member states, it is also clear that the other initiatives will not resume. This gives a
sense of scattering of efforts. framework
There is however a resolute new element in the debate, that has to do with the
inclusion of education, training and qualifications in the recent OMC procedure. The
application of this mode of cooperation to employment policies and services (Barbier, 117
2004) shows how far non-legal decisions can influence organisational and structural
operative modes.
Apart from decision-making considerations, the launching of an EQF raises the
question as to whether it will constitute a real contribution towards a knowledge
society. Final answers to this issue are yet to be found. But several issues can be raised
that could support one or the other kind of arguments. Some of those relate to the very
instrument itself, the present EQF proposal. Others can be drawn from one national
experience, the French one.

Part II. The EQF as a policy guideline: some shortcomings


In view of what has been presented above, the EQF intends to be an instrument that
wants to set out a new perspective for the future; to do so it does need to transform but
also to reject elements from the past, largely arbitrarily, expecting in this way to
contribute to the irreversibility of change. It does so for example, in taking no account
of previous scales of levels set-up with the different instruments described above; also,
it ignores largely the incremental processes that led to the higher education framework.
But there are four important issues that raise questions concerning the appropriateness
of the instrument:
(1) the standardisation of the concepts of systems and frameworks of
qualifications and of the relations between them;
(2) the deliberate choice to distance itself from training provision, relying only on
certification/credentials to regulate the relations between employment and
training on the labour market;
(3) the disputable conception of vocational knowledge it conveys through its
eight-level grid; and
(4) the coexistence between this instrument and the others described above.

2.1. The imposition of a conceptual tool: the framework


The distinction between systems and frameworks of qualifications seems to have
taken shape gradually. It has been largely taken over from the work of the OECD.
In June 2005, the working document of the European Commission Towards a
European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning (Commission of the
European Communities, 2005) defined it as follows:
[. . .] a qualifications framework is an instrument for the development and classification of
qualifications according to a set of criteria for levels of learning achieved. This set of criteria
may be implicit in the qualifications descriptors themselves or made explicit in the form of a
set of level descriptors. The scope of frameworks may be comprehensive of all learning
achievement and pathways or may be confined to a particular sector, for example initial
education, adult education and training or an occupational area. Some frameworks may have
JEIT more design elements and a tighter structure than others; some may have a legal basis
whereas others represent a consensus of views of social partners. All qualifications
32,2/3 frameworks, however, establish a basis for improving the quality, accessibility, linkages and
public or labour market recognition of qualifications within a country and internationally
(Commission of the European Communities, 2005, p. 12).
This definition is word for word the same as the one to be found in the OECD (2005,
118 p. 18) report.
The OECD however adds a definition of what is to be understood with
qualifications systems, to contrast it with the framework:
Qualifications systems include all aspects of a countrys activity that result in the recognition
of learning. These systems include the means of developing and operationalising national or
regional policy on qualifications, institutional arrangements, quality assurance processes,
assessment and awarding processes, skills recognition and other mechanisms that link
education and training to the labour market and civil society. Qualifications systems may be
more or less integrated and coherent. One feature of a qualifications system may be an
explicit framework of qualifications (OECD, 2005a, p. 17).
Other authors have put in their own words what they have understood of what the new
tool is meant to be. At the end of 2005, Michael Young (2005) recaps the distinction
between system and framework:
[. . .] the main features that distinguish National Qualification Frameworks from existing
qualifications systems can be summarised as follows. All qualifications are described in
terms of a single set of criteria, ranked on a single hierarchy of levels, classified in terms of a
single set of occupational fields, described in terms of learning outcomes (that are expressed
independently of the site, institution and form of pedagogy curriculum), defined in terms of
elements (sometimes referred to as units or unit standards) and ascribed a volume in terms of
credit expressed as notional learning hours (Young, 2005, pp. 40-41).
The proposal made by Anneke Westerhuis in 2001 was again different:
The scope of a classification system for qualifications can be described using three criteria:
whether or not the application and use of the system is broader than purely for the
identification and regulation of curricula and diplomas of formal vocational education and
training programmes; whether or not a system is a comprehensive framework, incorporating
qualifications of different levels while these levels are defined in a coherent way; whether or
not the system is monopolistic in the sense of comprising all obtainable qualifications and
that no other system is being used (Westerhuis, 2001, p. 17).
Qualifications frameworks are, by definition, reference systems. Frameworks establish
relationships between teaching and learning outcomes and performances demanded by
business and industry, on the one hand, and general or vocational qualifications and
diplomas delivered by a given education or training system on the other (Westerhuis, 2001,
p. 91).
It should be clear that the concept is far from being clarified. In the Commission
definition for example, why should one distinguish frameworks that have a legal basis
from those that rest on a consensus between social partners? The next developments
about the French situation will show the limits of such a distinction: there exists a legal
national framework in form of a Directory that has been designed and is managed with
the social partners. Also, out of the OECD definitions, would a framework be such an
independent and ethereal object that it would not need to face the same contingencies
as systems?: develop and implement national and regional qualifications policies . . . European
institutional procedures, quality assurance procedures, processes for the assessment qualifications
and the delivery of titles, recognition of competences. A European framework will
necessarily have to confront, solve and organise the solutions to all these issues. Will it framework
then become a system?
In these days, stakeholders in most of the member countries are being asked to
apply this different conceptual tool to their usual proceedings, while its validity 119
remains largely unclear and still argued[8]. Somehow, this adds to the sense of
dispersion and the question remains of what it will bring more to the Europe of
knowledge?

2.2. The links between qualifications framework and training system


The European proposal for a qualifications framework insists deliberately on keeping
references to education and training away from the definition of qualifications. An
earlier version of the proposal still had references either to the ISCED levels or to those
of the 2005 Directive. They have disappeared in the final one. The argument for such a
separation is that the evaluation of individuals qualities should solely be made
towards criteria of relevance for the labour market. This presents some important
risks:
.
Economic analyses do question the model of a single labour market. They agree
to say that nationally labour markets are already segmented, a reality that the
principle of the European Directives does confirm. In these various segments,
qualifications can play the role of a filter, a signal or play no role at all.
.
Present evolutions in work activity are marked by dematerialisation and
tertiarisation. They are becoming more and more difficult to define other than
thanks to the knowledge they require.
.
Users might be destabilised by this change in reference, even so more that no
transitional key is available between former and new system. This runs a risk of
diverting the tool (building despite it all, correspondences between new and old
categories) or of making no use of the tool.

The challenge is big to take the global labour market as the dominating reference, since
it is itself very much subject to drastic changes that might become even greater in a
knowledge economy. The capacity for change of vocational training systems is being
largely under-estimated, privileging the labour market as the main innovating factor
and increasing in this way a gap that a knowledge society should to the contrary
contribute to fill.

2.3. A disputable conception of vocational knowledge


The proposed eight levels of the EQF take over the familiar distinction between
knowledge, know-how and know-how-to-be[9]. There have been a lot of debates around
these categories and the way they relate to one another remains very formal. Then, one
may suppose that the highest the level of knowledge, the more is the acquisition of
skills facilitated as does the capacity of adaptation, responsibility, autonomy . . . in
other words, the competence. This is largely the choice made for the EQF categories.
However, it is difficult to envisage that skills and competence are independent from one
another. Also, the didactics of vocations insists specifically on how skills are
JEIT transformed into knowledge (Savoyant, 1996). In a way, this means that the shift from
32,2/3 one level to the next, for each of the criteria, will remain quite small. This is reassuring
concerning the workability of the EQF, while it probably implies that there might not
be the need for that many levels. One might ask whether it was necessary to go
through all this process to arrive at results relatively close to the present situation.
Moreover, the grid does not refer to vocational fields or specialities when classing
120 qualifications. This is, however, one of the main concern of stakeholders when they
discuss the European area of qualifications[10]. Very often, they wished for qualifications
directories, for discussions about needs for specialisation or for transversality, for
working out common core of qualifications together with accompanying modules of
specialisation. The present framework has remained voluntarily theoretical, leaving to
end-users the task of filling it with their own respective technical specificities. In doing so,
doesnt it miss its stated objectives of facilitating mobility and establishing connections
between qualifications to help going from one the other one?
In other words, the European framework of qualifications proposes as a strong
hypothesis that proximity between qualifications rather rest on their proximity of
classification in a very theoretically defined hierarchical grid, than on proximity in
terms of content of work activities organised in professions or in sectors. While this in
itself remains largely controversial, it is worth discussing since a certain mismatch
does exist between the qualification held and the occupied employment. But the
existing inadequacies do not imply that anyone can work anywhere. Theoretical
research has thrown light on the transferable skills specific to certain qualifications
(Bruyere and Lemistre, 2006). They are largely ignored from the EQF descriptors.

2.4. Coexistence between the European instruments


As the previous section 1 has shown, the relationship between qualifications and
Europe is a relatively unstable and moving field. EQF has been developed as a
resolute new way of considering legibility between national qualifications. Several
scenarios for its evolution can be envisaged, since the quality of a new instrument lies
also in its capacity for tolerating others, even when they might seem overtaken or of
least importance. When considering the earlier instruments presented above:
.
Compatibility between the EQF and the arrangements of the Directives ask for
an harmonisation of the levels used by both processes.
.
EQF appears compatible with the development of multi-national, European
standards in as far as those agree to take it into consideration in their
development.
.
EQF can co-exist with Europass without altering its nature since qualifications
are only one element of the portfolio.
.
EQF might however run contrary to the setting-up of sectorial or branch
frameworks, especially when those have already international recognition
thanks to the European social dialogue. As examples, one can consider
qualifications in the field of transports or of sports that have their own
regulations for recognition and for progression based on a worldwide relevance.

Since 2004 the situation has evolved and much experimentation is on their way that
will or not comfort the feasibility for an EQF. As for now, it appears important to
accept that the contradictions and hesitations described above reflect a reality still in European
construction that does have contradictions and hesitations. In periods of change, clarity qualifications
is difficult to gain. But will it be change or agitation?
Questions remain as to why it was necessary to launch both the EQF and the framework
ECVET in the name of the knowledge society? Being purposefully polemic, it seems
that they would rather prove being important steps towards a European market for
awarding and accrediting bodies! 121
But to come back to sensible arguments, it is to be regretted that national systems
have not been more trusted in their capacity to adjust to new developments. The
following short example of the French system is meant to give insights into what could
be relied upon to construct the changes.

Part III. French ways and European guidelines


Since several years, the French system of national qualifications functions according to
principles and models that are very close to those recommended at European level[11].
It should therefore be expected to have reached several of the objectives set to the EQF.
Some issues will be raised showing that this is obviously not always so and that it
needs to be reflected.

3.1. Complying ahead of time?


Since the beginning of the 1970s the French system has worked towards:
.
the setting-up of a national framework of qualifications that integrates general
and vocational education, initial and continuing training; and
.
a definition of qualifications through standards of occupations expressed in
terms of learning outcomes and relying on competences to describe these
learning outcomes.

This process has been taking place in a context in which since the 1950s the
schooling of learning was favoured: whereas at that time vocational learning mainly
took place on the job, it was then progressively transferred to the schools, aiming in
doing so at an evolution towards a parity of esteem between the two tracks, general
and vocational education. A recurrent debate followed through: are vocational
education and training primarily an answer to the immediate needs of the economy or
do they participate of a more general objective to build both the worker and the citizen?
On several occasion in its history, the French system has decided for the latter. Its
national qualifications are organised with this perspective. For example, they are
designed so as to allow for both further education and entrance to the labour market.
The main instrument that served as a spine for what was to become a national
framework has been the scale of qualifications levels defined in 1969 by the body in
charge of planning the economy[12]. Its launching was meant to help a better match
between education and training for young people and the recruitments needs of the
economy. It concerned therefore qualifications of initial VET. These needs were
defined with a certain distance from the immediate, observable needs and more in
terms of desirable ones.
A couple of years later, when the Law organising the right to further vocational
training for employees was passed (1971) it could have given rise to a parallel totally
different system for validating qualifications. This did not happen and in the name of
JEIT equal dignity, qualifications delivered by both systems were put in correspondence to
32,2/3 one another and validated thanks to the same scale of levels and fields of economic
activity. A specific commission was set-up in 1972, which was in charge of the
accreditation of those qualifications[13] that were not delivered by the Ministry of
Education.
Progressively since then, qualifications from initial and continuing general and
122 vocational training have been organised in a joint national framework structured
around this scale of levels. In 2002, the National Accreditation Commission (CTH) was
replaced by the National Commission for Vocational Qualifications[14], which
increased the unification of the system in two ways:
(1) in enforcing the accreditation of prior experience (APE); it became conditional
for a qualification wanting to be included in the national framework to provide
for an APE procedure; and
(2) in opening the framework to the sectors qualifications (CQP[15]) that are
designed and managed by the social partners of the economic sectors.

These developments devote an increasing importance to qualifications/credentials.


They cease being the end product of a training/teaching process to become the mirror
of the individual competences. But this is not only thanks to the existence of a national
framework. Of as much importance is the designing mode of these qualifications,
outcome orientated and competence based.
With the creation in 1985 of the Baccalaureat Professionnel (vocational
baccalaureate) a new engineering method to design qualifications was implemented,
the activity-based terms of reference (referentiels dactivite), that are possible cousins of
the outcome orientation of the EQF. For the first time the learning potential of work
situations was very officially recognised and validated: compulsory learning periods in
enterprise became parts of the final assessment towards the qualification. Culturally,
an important step was taken.
This new engineering method was extended to all vocational qualifications
concerning both initial and continuing training. Nowadays, qualifications wanting to
be included in the national framework must prove that they have been designed by a
special commission where social partners have agreed on the occupational profile at
which the qualification is targeted, with the help of an activity-based term of reference
(referentiel dactivite). To design these terms of reference it is not referred to the
activities of a beginner, but to a larger occupational target taking account of
foreseeable development and adaptation processes.
Together with the referentiels dactivite was introduced the notion of
competence. The former relates qualifications to the production process of goods
or services while the latter reflects the particular input of individuals in this process.
Definitions of competence are many but when they refer to training and qualifications
they always include elements of contextualisation for its implementation as well as of
distinction between three components: knowledge, know-how and know-how-to-be. In
the French frames-of-reference competences are spelled out from the list of tasks
belonging to the activity profile of the qualification. They are used to work out both the
assessment referential and the training curriculum. The similarities with the EQF and
the ECVET concept are quite obvious.
3.2. Compliance does not do it European
There is therefore a range of arguments showing how European recommendations are qualifications
already reflected in the French system. Since it dates back to some years now, a short
overview of some of its results could nurture the European debate on these issues. framework
Several of these results are extensively developed elsewhere[16]. They concern the
way in which frameworks do or not support a shift from a system led by training offer
to one led by the demand of the economy; how they do or not increase the coherence of 123
national systems; and how they do or not increase legibility for users. For the sake of
this article, we will leave these arguments out and will mention only a few others,
likewise important. While they do reflect the French situation, the following statements
would need to be argued in more details. It is, however, sometimes useful to be
relatively categorical:
The French framework includes general as well as vocational qualifications and this
comprehensive approach encouraged at European level is meant to generate mobility
between qualifications as well as parity of esteem between both. The observation of young
peoples careers in the French education and training system shows that those wanting to
change to the general tracks from the vocational ones encounter many difficulties as they
suffer from a lack of knowledge-based background.
Despite all efforts made to formally organise the parity of esteem, the vocational tracks are
mainly chosen by those pupils who do not perform well in general education. The elite
building remains with the general or technological tracks, not with the vocational.
The French framework provides for the possibility with a vocational Baccalaureat to enter
higher education and therefore Universities. Those who chose to do so encounter great many
difficulties and most of them fail completing.
While all qualifications may be obtained through continuing training it is only a very tiny
part of continuing training activities that aim at qualifications. Moreover, take-up of
continuing training benefit more to those with highest qualifications than to others.
On the other hand, the accreditation of prior experience is developing very fast and benefits
largely those without any qualifications. But it is not so much the existence of the national
framework that supports this evolution than the activity based frames of reference.
What has been described above is a homemade (in France) recipe. It shows that there is
a long way between the fork and the mouth that is to say between advocating
principles, implementing NQF or EQF and reach the set objectives. Formalisation of
frameworks will not do it, it will take more than that and this is where the different
national contexts do matter. Despite the shortcomings of the instruments put on the
European table (EQF and ECVET), the discussions they stir are a good occasion to
discuss all of these issues. As long as the political agenda provides for time to do so . . .

Notes
1. A more detailed and encompassing article on the same subject will next be published in the
fourth European research report of CEDEFOP.
2. Directive 2005/36, published in the Community Official Journal L255 from 30 September
2005, p. 22.
3. Community Official Journal L199 from 31 July 1985.
4. ISCED 2 level.
JEIT 5. The corresponding qualifications profiles have been published in the EC-Official Journal.
32,2/3 6. More details and analyses of the OMC can be found in Georgopoulos (2005).
7. Resolution of the European Council to promote the reinforcement of European cooperation in
VET, from 19 December 2002.
8. For detailed comments refer to (Young, 2005) and (Tuck, 2007).
9. Savoir-etre.
124
10. We refer here to the answers to the questionnaire used for the Maastricht middle-term
evaluation of progress towards the Lisbon goals (cf. Leney et al., 2004).
11. More detailed developments of the following are to be found in Kirsch, J.-L. and Bouder, A.
The French system for vocational training: an unappreciated prototype? to be published in
the European Journal of Education.
12. Commissariat General du Plan.
13. The Commission Technique dHomologation des titres et diplomes (CTH) the National
Accrediting Commission.
14. The Commission Nationale de Certification Professionnelle CNCP.
15. Certificats de Qualifications Professionnelles.
16. Kirsch, J.-L. and Bouder, A. The French system for vocational training: an unappreciated
prototype? to be published in the European Journal of Education.

References
Barbier, J.-C. and [with the contribution of Samba Sylla, N.] (2004), La strategie europeenne pour
lemploi: genese, coordination communautaire et diversite natinale, Rapport de recherche
pour la DARES, Centre dEtudes de lEmploi, Paris.
Bruyere, M. and Lemistre, P. (2006), La specialite de formation: un signal de competences
specifiques et generales, working paper, Note LIRHE 430, Toulouse.
Commission of the European Communities (2005), Towards a European qualifications
framework for lifelong learning, Commission Staff Working Document SEC (2005) 957,
Brussels.
Georgopoulos, T. (2005), La Methode ouverte de coordination europeenne: en attendant Godot ?,
Note de recherche No. 01/05, Institut dEtudes Europeennes, Universite de Montreal,
Montreal, p. l.
Leney, T. (2004), Achieving the Lisbon Goal: The Contribution of VET, European Commission,
Brussels.
Merle, V. and Bertrand, O. (1993), Comparabilite et reconnaissance des qualifications en Europe.
Instruments et enjeux, Formation Emploi, Vol. 43, pp. 41-56.
OECD (2005), Moving Mountains How Can Qualifications Systems Promote Lifelong Learning?,
OECD, Paris.
Savoyant, A. (1996), Une approche cognitive de lalternance, Cereq BREF No. 118, March.
Tuck, R. (2007), An Introductory Guide to National Qualifications Frameworks: Conceptual and
Practical Issues for Policy Makers, Skills and Employability Department, ILO, Geneva.
Westerhuis, A. (2001), European Structures of Qualification Levels, Volume 1-3, CEDEFOP,
Thessalonique.
Young, M. (2005), National qualifications frameworks: their feasibility for effective
implementation in developing countries, Skills Working Paper 22., International
Labour Office, Geneva.
Further reading European
Bertrand, O. (1996), Comparabilite et reconnaissance des qualifications: lexperience qualifications
europeenne, in OCDE, (Ed.) (Ed.), Qualifications et competences professionnelles dans
lenseignement technique et la formation professionnelle Evaluation et certification, framework
OECD, Paris, pp. 73-91.
Bouder, A. (2005), La transparence des qualifications et son articulation avec la construction des
diplomes en France et en Europe, CPC Info 40 Le point sur . . . la formation professionnelle 125
et la mobilite en Europe, MEN-DESCO, Paris, pp. 33-6.
Bouder, A., Dauty, F., Kirsch, J.-L. and Lemistre, P. (2006), Legibility of qualifications: an issue
as long-standing as Europe, in Descy, P. and Tessaring, M. (Eds), Modernising Vocational
Education and Training. Fourth Report on Vocational Training Research in Europe:
Background Report, CEDEFOP reference series, EUR-OP, Luxembourg.
Bouder, A., Coutrot, L., Kirsch, E., Kirsch, J.-L., Paddeu, J., Savoyant, A. and Sulzer, E. (2001),
Certification and legibility of competence, in Descy, P. and Tessaring, M. (Eds), Training
in Europe, Second Report on Vocational Training Research in Europe 2000: Background
Report, Vol. 2, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg,
pp. 169-212.
Coles, M. and Oates, T. (2004), European Reference Levels for Education and Training An
Important Parameter for Promoting Credit Transfer and Mutual Trust, CEDEFOP,
Thessalonique.
Commissariat General du Plan Secretariat dEtat a la Recherche (1996), Le service public en
recherche. Quelle modernisation?, La Documentation francaise, Paris.
Conference internationale du travail, 91eme session (2003), Rapport IV Apprendre et se former
pour travailler dans la societe du savoir, Bureau International du Travail, Geneve.
Gremion, C. (1996), Crise des moyens ou crise des fins ? Quelques enseignements dun seminaire
in: Commissariat General du Plan, in Secretariat dEtat a la Recherche (Ed.), Le service
public en recherche. Quelle modernisation?, a Documentation francaise, Paris, pp. 385-96.
Le Mouillour, I. and Teichler, U. (2004), Making European Credit Transfer Work ECTS and
ECVET, Actes du symposium Construction des qualifications europeennes, Beta-Cereq,
Strasbourg, pp. 93-102.
OCDE (1996), Qualifications et competences professionnelles dans lenseignement technique et la
formation professionnelle evaluation et certification, OECD, Paris.
OCDE (2005), Promouvoir la formation des adultes, OCDE, Paris.
Sellin, B. (1999), Les programmes deducation et de formation professionnelle de la CE et de lUE
de 1975 a 1999 ebauche dun bilan historique critique, Formation Professionnelle, No. 18,
septembre-decembre, pp. 17-28.
Teissier, J. and Rose, J. (2006), La certification, nouvel instrument de la relation formation-emploi
un enjeu francais et europeen, Relief 16, Cereq, Marseille.
Winterton, J., Delamare-Le Deist, F. and Stringfellow, E. (2005), Typology of Knowledge, Skills and
Competences: Clarification of the Concept and Prototype, Roneo, Toulouse.
Young, M. (2003), National qualifications frameworks: an international and comparative
approach, Journal of Education and Work, Special Issue, 3 September.
Young, M. (2004), Towards a European Qualifications Framework: Some cautionary
observations, Actes du symposium Construction des qualifications europeennes,
Beta-Cereq, Strasbourg, pp. 40-5.
JEIT Corresponding author
Annie Bouder was trained as a sociologist at the University of Hamburg (Germany) and
32,2/3 completed her education with a post-graduate degree of the College of Europe in Bruges
(Belgium). She joined Cereq (the French Centre for Research on Qualifications www.
cerequation fr) in Marseille in 1992, a public centre working to both the education and labour
national ministries but also for social partners, enterprises, regional governments. She is one of
the Executive Officers for International Relations. Her present research interests are:
126 qualifications, education and training regimes, iterative relationship between employment and
training, knowledge creation. Annie Bouder can be contacted at: bouder@cerequation fr

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com


Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0590.htm

Towards a
Towards a European qualifications
qualifications framework: framework
some cautionary observations
127
Michael Young
Institute of Education, London, UK

Abstract
Purpose This paper aims to provide a critical analysis of the European Commissions and the
member states attempts to introduce a European Qualifications Framework and national frameworks
respectively.
Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a review of policies and substantive desk
research in countries that have applied a qualification framework approach.
Findings The analysis shows that qualifications frameworks (QFs) are resisted partly from inertia
and conservatism and partly because important educational purposes are being defended. NQF
experiences suggest that hopes associated with QFs are unrealistic (e.g. accreditation of prior
learning).
Research limitations/implications The paper draws mainly on conceptual and secondary
analysis. In future primary empirical analysis would be desirable.
Practical implications The findings are extremely relevant to policy makers on the European
and national levels. The lessons from NQFs suggest incrementalism, building blocks, supporting
policies, consensus and staying as close as possible to practice are important.
Originality/value This paper is one of the few attempts to evaluate current initiatives based on
prior experiences.
Keywords Europe, Qualifications, Vocational training, New Zealand, South Africa
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
A recent CEDEFOP paper concluded that:
The creation of a European Qualifications Framework is essential to . . . improv(ing) the
quality of vocational education and training . . . and for further developments in
transparency, recognition of qualifications, credit transfer systems and quality assurance.
A number of things can be noted about these goals for a European Qualifications
Framework (EQF):
.
They are very similar to those found in proposals for national frameworks.
.
Although there have been many proposals for NQFs, no fully comprehensive
national frameworks yet exist.
.
All attempts to implement an NQF have been faced with considerable difficulties.
Journal of European Industrial
.
NQFs have been the subject of considerable debate. They have been criticised as Training
Vol. 32 No. 2/3, 2008
being part of neo-liberal and market oriented approaches to the economy, for pp. 127-137
having an instrumentalist view of educational policy and for, undermining some q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0309-0590
of the most basic educational goals. DOI 10.1108/03090590810861677
JEIT What is striking about the recent proposals for NQFs is that while they have borrowed
32,2/3 from earlier examples, none have explicitly considered the actual experience of
introducing an NQF. As a result the difficulties faced by the first phase NQFs have by
and large been reproduced in the second phase. These observations form the
background to the rest of my paper.
The paper is based on two assumptions. First, I start by accepting the long-term
128 goals of a Europe-wide qualifications framework as summarised in the CEDEFOP
document (CEDEFOP, 2004). Second, I argue that implementing an EQF will inevitably
face the same problems, but in an exaggerated form, that have been faced by countries
introducing NQFs. It follows that unless lessons are learned from the experience of
introducing national frameworks, a Europe-wide qualifications framework will get
similarly bogged down in jargon, bureaucracy and even active opposition and stands
no chance of achieving its goals.
What then are the assumptions made by NQFs that have created such difficulties?
And how might an EQF strategy avoid or at least minimise them?

2. What is distinctive about a qualifications framework?


The main features that distinguish National Qualification Frameworks from existing
qualification systems can be summarised as follows:
All qualifications are:
.
described in terms of a single set of criteria;
.
ranked on a single hierarchy of levels;
. classified in terms of a single set of occupational fields;
.
described in terms of learning outcomes (that are expressed independently of the
site, institution and form of pedagogy or curriculum);
.
defined in terms of elements (sometimes referred to as units or unit standards);
and
.
ascribed a volume in terms of credit expressed as notional learning hours.

Not all NQFs have adopted all these criteria. However, they provide the basis for
claiming that, in principle, an NQF allows qualifications to be:
.
achieved by accumulation over time (credit accumulation and transfer);
.
transportable units of one qualification can be used for other qualifications;
and
.
transparent learners know precisely what learning outcomes they are required
to demonstrate.

It is these features that make clear the sharp differences between NQFs and most
existing qualification systems. I find it useful to express the differences in terms of a
tension between two pairs of principles. The Principle of Difference and the Principle of
Equivalence and the Principle of Inputs and the Principle of Outcomes.
Existing qualification systems are organised around the principles of equivalence
and inputs. They assume that different qualifications (e.g academic and vocational,
university and non-university, and vocational qualifications for different occupational
sectors) relate to fundamentally different types of learning and the acquisition of
different types of knowledge. Furthermore they will differ in the extent to which they Towards a
depend on periods of study (in a college, a school or a university) following specific qualifications
syllabuses and periods of work experience (as in work-based vocational qualifications).
In contrast, qualification frameworks give priority to stipulating that all framework
qualifications have similar features and that outcomes can be separated from the
way in which they are achieved.
The issue of validation or accreditation of informal or experiential learning highlights 129
the problems of applying the Principle of Equivalence to qualifications. No one doubts
the importance of the informal learning. However, assuming that common criteria can be
identified for recognising formal and informal learning creates a number of problems. If
the criteria stress evidence of codified or disciplinary knowledge, validation of informal
learning will in most cases be impossible. If, however, criteria emphasise practical
problem solving in specific contexts it will be treating the knowledge component of
vocational competence as less important at a time when the knowledge economy thesis
argues it should be more not less important. A further problem is that in accrediting
informal learning in its own terms denies the learner access to the knowledge he/she is
likely to need to progress to further or higher education.
These differences between existing qualification systems and qualification
frameworks are not small. They imply different notions of learning and knowledge, of
expertise and experience, and different approaches to assessment. One example of the
difference is that outcomes stress general criteria of achievement or performance
whereas input approaches stress knowledge content. The point here is that given these
differences, it is not surprising that implementing NQFs has come up against difficulties.

3. The variability of NQFs


One important finding from comparative research on NQFs is how much they vary.
There is no one model. Some are more and some less prescriptive; some put more
emphasise on regulation, others on guidance and mapping; some are comprehensive,
others partial (including only some types of qualifications); some are based on whole
qualifications and some on the units that make up qualifications. The differences
reflect in part the starting point, in part the prevailing philosophy of the government, in
part the primary purpose of the framework and in part the relative power of the state
vis-a-vis the private sector. There is a tension between strong and weak frameworks.
The former offer better guarantees about portability and transferability but are likely
to face the biggest implementation problems.

Frameworks of communication (sometimes described as enabling frameworks) and


regulatory frameworks
This distinction refers to the different goals or purposes that an NQF is designed to
achieve rather than its strength (or its capacity to achieve these goals). All NQFs have a
communication role, in the sense that they provide a map of qualifications; they give
some indication of progression routes between levels and, at least in principle, across
sectors. The communication potential of an NQF means that at a minimum it can assist
both learners and those involved in career and training guidance in making choices. For
this reason frameworks with this more limited role can be described as enabling
frameworks to distinguish them from frameworks with a more overt regulatory role.
Because enabling frameworks rely on agreement and their level of prescription is low,
JEIT they are far less problematic to introduce[1]. On the other hand, with very limited
prescription, the potential use of a framework is also limited; its success in achieving its
32,2/3 goals depends entirely on voluntary cooperation. No sanctions are imposed on the
providers of qualifications who do not comply with common design criteria. As a result,
with a limit to its communication role, many of the old barriers to progression are likely
to continue. Likewise, qualifications outside the framework can still continue to be used.
130
Weak and strong frameworks
This distinction refers to the strength or the capacity of a framework to achieve the
goals set out by government. It is best understood in terms of the features of a
framework referred to in section 2. It refers both to the number of criteria that are listed
in defining a framework and the degree of prescription that is used. It allows us to
distinguish between strong frameworks like the NVQ framework in the UK[2], the NZQF
New Zealand, as well as the NQF being developed in South Africa. In strong frameworks
strict requirements are laid down for including a qualification on the framework,
whereas in weak frameworks the requirements are less demanding[3]. Again, the
Australian framework (the AQF) is an example of a weak (or loose) framework.
Governments tend to want to move towards strong frameworks as they provide
greater potential leverage both in relations to coordination and accountability.
However, the stronger the framework, the less likely it will be to achieve agreement,
and for the framework to be able to include a wide diversity of learning needs.

Partial and comprehensive frameworks


This distinction refers to the scope of an NQF and is a recognition that only in some
countries does the NQF include all qualifications that are available. Scope may refer to:
.
Qualification type e.g. academic or vocational or those that are publicly or
privately owned.
.
Qualification level many NQFs exclude university qualifications, and there are
countries like england which have specific frameworks limited to higher
education qualifications.
.
Qualification sector a framework could be specific to one occupational sector
(for example, engineering), as in many cases in Latin America countries (Vargas,
2005). It could also be developed by a subnational region, especially in a country
with a federal government.

Unit-based and qualification-based frameworks


NQFs vary in terms of how qualifications are registered on the framework. The
starting assumption, shared by most initial proposals or NQFs, is that qualifications
should be unit-based; in other words the learning outcomes assumed to be necessary
for a particular qualification are divided up into their basic elements or units. This
process of unitization draws on a familiar analytical type of methodology and derives
from the functional analysis that was common to much occupational psychology in the
USA (Callaghan, 1962).
The idea is that this approach to qualification design maximizes flexibility and
choice for learners and employers to put together units in ways that suit their interests.
In practice, the unitization model has created as many problems as it solves. Employers
and employees (or students) invariably have different interests and the latter
frequently lack the knowledge to make reliable choices. As a result the NQFs in both Towards a
New Zealand and South Africa have moved away from registering units and the NQF qualifications
is increasingly based on whole qualifications with only limited opportunities for
learners to choose individual units. However, despite the trend to whole framework
qualifications-based frameworks, the idea of unitization remains extremely attractive
to policy-makers as the recent proposals by the QCA (2004) in England indicate.
The variability among NQFs has, I suspect, important implications for the kind of 131
EQF that might be developed.

4. What problems have NQFs faced?


They can usefully be divided into three types; political, administrative and educational.
(1) Political problems have arisen from the fact that responsibility for an NQF is not
easily located within one government Department. The Departments of
Education, Labour and Industry and Trade are likely to be involved and may
have different agendas on how an NQF should develop. Inter-departmental
tensions have caused particular and as yet unresolved difficulties in
implementing an NQF in South Africa and various types of compromise have
been proposed. In the case of New Zealand, the body responsible for the NZQF,
(the NZQA) was itself seen as having too much power relative to the Department
of Education especially in the politically sensitive area of the school curriculum.
This almost led to the collapse of the whole initiative. This was avoided by power
over the school curriculum and general qualifications being returned from the
NZQA to the Department. The decision to develop distinct academic
achievement standards for the school curriculum in New Zealand were based
on their own criteria (Philipps, 2003); in other words there was a recognition that
the principle of similarity could not be extended to all types of learning and some
differentiation was necessary. A broader political lesson from the New Zealand
case is that the more an NQF seeks to be comprehensive the more it can pose a
threat to the very government departments which launched it.
(2) Administrative problems are expressed in the proliferation of new agencies and
committees concerned with quality assurance, standard setting and assessment
that NQFs invariably generate. Ambiguity and uncertainty about the
responsibilities of these new agencies is almost inevitable. Bureaucratic
procedures for the registration of qualifications can easily become a substitute
for a more direct focus on quality and the assessment of specific skills and
knowledge and generate a lack of confidence in the new qualifications. In the
worst cases it leads to little more than ritual compliance with NQF criteria and
what has become known in the UK as box ticking by providers of
qualifications.
(3) Educational problems in the sense used here refer primarily to issues concerning
assessment. pedagogy and curriculum. In traditional systems assessment takes
the form of setting and marking examinations. NQF assessment involves both
the training of assessors to apply criteria to diverse sources of evidence and the
training of verifiers to check comparability of assessor judgements. Research
has suggested that both processes are fraught with difficulties.
JEIT In relation to curriculum, in most systems teachers rely on syllabuses; However, in
32,2/3 NQF-type frameworks have the difficult task of converting outcomes into teaching
programmes. Again, research has demonstrated that the reliable generation of a
syllabus from occupational standards is almost impossible. Furthermore, a new
language of standards, units and levels has to be developed to describe what is
common about the outcomes of very different qualifications. This standards or
132 outcomes language is inevitably experienced as jargon by vocational specialists and
who find it difficult to relate the new terms to the skills and knowledge with which they
are familiar.
A general point that applies to all the difficulties faced in introducing NQFs is that
in an outcomes-based framework the processes involved such as standard setting
inevitably lose contact with the practices of those involved in teaching, training,
selecting and assessing. This separation poses real problems because the processes
involved (such as standard setting) rely on trust but have been separated from the very
practices on which the trust would need to be based.

5. What can we learn from the success stories?


I want to mention four features of what I identify as NQF success stories (Scotland,
New Zealand, and Ireland). The term success must be treated with caution. None of
these NQFs are without problems: New Zealand has the oldest NQF but, as mentioned
earlier, it almost collapsed after the first five years; Ireland is still in the early stages of
implementation (Granville, 2003); Scotland has an NQF (the SCQF), but one which still
operates largely as two separate frameworks for HE and the rest of education and
training. Raffe (2003) indicates that for all the progress in developing the Scottish NQF,
its future is by no means guaranteed; it has up to now relied on establishing, and not
going beyond, a wide stakeholder consensus. As he points out, this consensus could be
threatened if either the government decided to link the SCQF to funding, or a stronger
regulatory element was introduced in a top down way. With these reservations in
mind, Scotland, New Zealand and Ireland provide valuable insights into the
implementation process which no country thinking about introducing an NQF can
afford to ignore.
Although the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) postdates the
NZQF, its forerunner the National Certificate Framework for vocational qualifications
(Raffe, 2003) remains in many ways the parent framework which other countries look
to taking features which they like and sometimes neglecting the lessons that can be
learned. Selective interpretations and borrowing have been an understandable, though
highly problematic, feature of the spread of NQFs.
The most significant lesson from the Scottish experience is the importance of
continuity and building on past experience. The SCQF was not a single radical
innovation and a break from the past, but a development which built upon a
succession of partial framework innovations. These were the 16 Action Plan for
non academic learners, the reform of Higher National Diplomas for those seeking to
progress to higher education via a vocational route, the Credit Accumulation and
Transfer scheme (SCOTCAT) for linking higher education in different institutions and
the Higher Still reform of upper secondary education. In other words, many of the
building blocks for a comprehensive NQF were in place before the SCQF was launched.
Three general features of the Scottish approach to implementation are worth
mentioning. First, it was an incrementalist approach. An important aspect of Scottish Towards a
incrementalism has been the long time sequence (at least 15 years) that led to the SCQF qualifications
involving a series of linked reforms. This has meant that the introduction of the SCQF
has not involved any complex standard-setting procedures, or the development of new framework
qualifications. Second, the Scottish approach has recognized the importance of what
Raffe (2003) refers to as policy breadth; this meant that the introduction of the SCQF
depended on a number of other changes such as staff development programmes that 133
had nothing directly to do with the NCQF itself, but which it depended on. Third, what
stands out as distinctive about the Scottish case is that in its later stages, the SCQF
developments were led by universities. As a result and unlike New Zealand and South
Africa, the SCQF has generated no great cleavages and more important still, has not
been associated only with slow learners and low achievers. Fourth, most of the work
involved in establishing the SCQF has involved a range of different organizations that
have been willing to collaborate with each other without losing their own autonomy.
As a result the SCQF has no bureaucracy. It was therefore almost impossible for the
SCQF to take on a life of its own.
The second success story, the NZQA, is a very different case with very different
lessons. When it was first established it was undoubtedly the most comprehensive
example of an NQF. Like other NQFs, the roots of the NZQF can be found in
behavioural learning theory and in the neo-liberal economics that was popular in the
1980s. Unlike the early development of an outcome-based framework in Scotland
which began as an attempt to reform the vocational curriculum for lower achieving 16
year olds, it was economic factors that drove the introduction of the NZQF (Phillips,
2003). Not surprisingly, this led to a very different kind of framework and a very
different strategy to that adopted in Scotland. Instead of starting with a specific
problem, the New Zealand policy-makers started with a grand design; only later did
they find that the grand design had to be rolled back.
An important lesson from the New Zealand example is the political nature of any
NQF, especially in cases where a new and powerful national organization such as a
national qualifications authority is established (in this case the NZQA). Furthermore,
early developments were characterized by head-on confrontations between the NZQA
and its opponents in the schools and universities. This led to significant compromises
and the recognition of the specific needs of different sectors. The New Zealand case
brings out the key stakeholder role of upper secondary schools in any system of
education and training as a result of their role in providing access to the universities.
One evaluation of the NZQF (Phillips, 2003) suggested that the gains (in terms of
opening opportunities for disadvantaged young people) are significant, but more
modest, than the ambitious goals with which it began.
The Irish NQF is one of the most recent and shares a number of common features
with other national frameworks. Like others, it is based on outcomes and qualifications
are defined independently of any specific sites of learning. On the other hand, it was
not initially based on units and credit and its remit does not include schools or
universities. Like other frameworks, its origins lie in the expanding (and in Ireland
relatively new) and increasingly differentiated vocational, further and adult education
sectors. In its policy process, the Irish framework also has similarities with the
development of the SCQF in Scotland. It is incrementalist; it builds on previous
developments and its introduction has been consultative, not directive. It is clear that
JEIT there has been an attempt in Ireland to strike a balance between being too weak and
32,2/3 hence not stimulating innovation, and being over-prescriptive and hence undermining
local initiative. The Irish NQF has the clear intention of promoting a broad view of
lifelong learning and includes learning to learn and insight in its definition of learning
outcomes. The Irish NQF does not represent a dramatic break with the past. It seems to
reflect a consensual approach that works in a society with a relatively small and well
134 educated population without fundamental inequalities or large political cleavages.
There are some general implementation principles that emerge from these three
cases which minimize the conflict and antagonism that has been a feature of NQF
reform. It stresses incrementalism, consensus and compromise, necessary building
blocks and policy breadth. I will comment briefly on each of these points.

An incremental approach
The countries that have tried to make a radical one-off break with their previous
qualifications systems have had the most acute difficulties. A radical break gives
neither practitioners nor other stakeholders any bench marks to test the new ideas
about outcomes and levels against their experience. Incremental approaches minimise
the likelihood that polarised positions are established.

Consensus and compromise


Consensus is the bedrock of trust and all qualifications depend on trust between
providers and users that is built up over time. Qualifications always claim to represent
more than they can demonstrate and therefore can only work on the basis of trust. This
is the important point stressed in the CEDEFOP paper by Mike Coles and Tim Oates
on Zones of Mutual Trust. What I do not think they emphasise enough is the time and
experience that is required to develop trust in new criteria such as level descriptors that
go beyond experience. Genuine consultation processes such as those that have been a
feature of the Irish NQF are crucial and a principled compromise such as that reached
over the relations between the upper secondary schools and universities and the NQF
in the New Zealand case are important.
A less satisfactory alternative is the pragmatic compromise typified by the
experience of NVQs in England when the original design was subject to successive
small modifications. This may have contributed to the idea of an NQF losing public
and professional credibility. As a result, and despite being one of the earliest countries
to introduce a vocational qualification framework, England is still a long way from a
broader national framework.

Building blocks
Scotland demonstrates very well the importance of the building blocks of a framework
being in place. Only when there were separate frameworks for upper secondary
schools, vocational education and universities in place was the overarching Scottish
Credit and Qualifications Framework introduced. It was the existence of these
building blocks that established both the confidence in and the practicality of a
broader more comprehensive framework.
Supporting policies Towards a
Qualifications frameworks are sometimes seen as separate instruments of education qualifications
reform which will themselves ensure portability, transparency and quality. The
lessons from the successful countries such as Scotland, New Zealand, Ireland and to a framework
lesser extent Australia is that an NQF is only one element in what must be a much
broader strategy that includes staff and curriculum development, a review of funding,
institutional improvement and developing a new assessment infrastructure. In the case 135
of an EQF staff development in European languages is likely to be a crucial supporting
policy.

6. Implications for a European Qualifications Framework


I have concentrated on the experience of national rather than international
qualifications frameworks for a number of reasons.
First, there is very little actual experience of the latter. Second, likely models for an
EQF appear to be based on existing NQF models. Third, it seems inconceivable that an
EQF could be developed other than on the basis of existiing or emerging National
Qualifications Frameworks. The Interim Report Education and Training 2010,
comments that progress nationally among member states is rather slow. This slow
progress reflects two important realities. First, it refers to the very real difficulties that
I have referred to and the radical nature of the changes involved. Second, it arises from
the fact that, as far as I am aware, not all EU countries have adopted what I refer to as a
qualifications-led approach to the reform of education and training. Many of the
countries in continental Europe follow what I have described elsewhere as an
institution-led approach to reform, where qualifications are not treated as separate
policy instruments. It is by no means clear that a qualifications-led approach is
superior to the latter in promoting higher quality VET.

What therefore can we conclude from the NQF experience?


It is important to recognise that the emphasis on outcomes in NQFs derives via
competence-based approaches to VET, from industrial models for measuring the
quality of products. However education and even VET is not a product in that sense.
VET and education generally, involves processes of teaching and learning and the
acquisition of skills and knowledge. It is invariably associated with periods of
institution-based study and work experience. The focus on outcomes independently of
their institutional context must therefore be treated with great caution. Either it will
become over-prescriptive like the UKs NVQs and be resisted or it will be vacuous and
undermine the trust and credibility that a new EQF needs.

7. Four final points


Purposes and type
An EQF is unlikely to be able to follow a strongly prescriptive model, given the power
of national systems. It is likely to have an enabling more than a regulatory role and
need to build on cross national experience of shared practice. In that sense it has to
recognise that it is an important but relatively weak reform instrument at least on its
own.
JEIT Overcoming problems
32,2/3 Qualifications frameworks are resisted partly from inertia and conservatism and
partly because important educational purposes are being defended. The problems of
curriculum, teaching and learning and assessment are real and not easily addressed by
qualifications alone. They will be overcome only if they are taken seriously. It is
creating new opportunities for cross-sector and multi-disciplinary programmes that
136 will establish the trust in the common levels and criteria that a more flexible
framework needs.

Links to institutions
The primary rationale for an NQF or an EQF that separates qualifications from
educational institutions is so that it can accredit non-formal or informal learning. The
NQF experience suggests that this is an unrealistic hope. A far more realistic approach
is to link institutions to informal learners through supporting alternative access
programmes. It is difficult to see who would value qualifications achieved by
accreditation alone. The policy priority that arises from the logic of the knowledge
economy is not to accredit existing informal learning but to use that informal learning
to provide new forms of progression into further and higher education.

Implementation strategy
The lessons from NQFs suggest incrementalism, building blocks, supporting policies,
consensus and staying as close as possible to practice are important. This inevitably
means it will be a slower process than the Commission appears to hope when it argues
that an EQF should be established by 2005. Work can begin on an Europe-wide level
but the framework design operation should not rush ahead of the trust and new
practices on which the framework must be based. If the new EQF moves too far from
practice it will inevitably repeat the problems of the NQFs and have many new criteria
but little actual mobility or progression.

Notes
1. Two senses of the term prescription need to be distinguished. One refers to the degree of
specification required for a qualification to be registered on the framework. Typical
examples are. (i) whether a qualification is required to be available via the accreditation of
prior learning; and (ii) whether a qualification has to be expressed in a specific number of
units to which credit is assigned. The second meaning of prescription refers to the role of the
State and whether the registration of qualifications is a legal requirement.
2. However, as was mentioned earlier, while the NVQ framework was strong in terms of its
requirements, government did not make it a legal requirement for all those using or
providing qualifications.
3. The term weak is not used in an evaluative sense and for this reason some people have found
the distinction between tight and loose frameworks more useful. It is important to stress that
my typology of frameworks is itself open to debate and discussion. The only question is
whether it is useful in clarifying issues.

References
Callaghan, R. (1962), Education and the Cult of Efficiency, The University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, IL.
CEDEFOP (2004), European Reference Levels for Education and Training An Important Towards a
Parameter for Promoting Credit Transfer and Mutual Trust, Office for Official
Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. qualifications
Granville, G. (2003), Stop making sense: chaos and coherence in the formulation of the Irish framework
qualifications framework, Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 259-70.
Phillips, D. (2003), Lessons from the New Zealand qualifications framework, Journal of
Education and Work, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 289-304. 137
QCA (2004), Thinking on Reform, Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, London.
Raffe, D. (2003), Simplicity itself: the creation of the Scottish Credit and Qualifications
Framework, Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 239-57.
Vargas, F.Z. (2005), Key Competencies and Lifelong Learning: Three Perspectives on these Subjects
in Latin America and the Caribbean, Skills and Employability Department/CINTERFOR,
ILO, Montevideo.

About the author


Michael Young joined the Institute of Educations staff in 1967 as Lecturer in Sociology of
Education. In 1998 the University conferred on Michael Young the title of Professor. On his
retirement from his full-time post in September 1999, Michael Young became a member of the
Lifelong Learning Group. Since October 2001 he has been Emeritus Professor of Education.
Michael Young can be contacted at: m_young@ioe.ac.uk

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com


Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0590.htm

JEIT
32,2/3 Professional competence as a
benchmark for a European space
of vocational education and
138
training
Philipp Grollmann
Institute of Technology & Education, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
Abstract
Purpose The papers aim is to present a critical review of the current European process of
co-operation in VET with a special view to the European Qualification Framework and its competence
orientation.
Design/methodology/approach The approach reviews the official documentation and the
consultation process and a contrastive analysis of the state of the art of research and developments in VET.
Findings In order to make European VET a direct contribution to the revised Lisbon agenda, a
more concise shared vision with regard to the processes and structures of vocational education might
be needed.
Research limitations/implications It does not seem possible logically and pragmatically to
fully abstract from the processes in which competence is acquired and in which it is going to be used.
Practical implications Research and development activities in the European Union should be
integrated towards an agenda that covers structures, conditions and processes of learning for the
world of work.
Originality/value Apart from a few other contributions, critical accounts of current policies and
its implications for research and practice are scarce.
Keywords European legislation, Vocational training, Qualifications, Competences
Paper type Conceptual paper

Introduction: Bologna, Lisbon, Copenhagen the new commitment to


European co-operation in education
The commitment to European co-operation in education has increased massively in the
past two years. Whilst the discussion on vocational training used to automatically defer to
the subsidiarity principle outlined in the treaties of Rome and Maastricht extolling the
variety of vocational training in Europe the Copenhagen Process heralds in a new era:
.
The objective of incorporating competitiveness, dynamics and innovation with
simultaneous social cohesion, as outlined by the European Councils Lisbon
Strategy, provides a model for the continued development and reform of national
qualification strategies along the lines of a European Social Model (cf. the
contributions in Grollmann et al., 2005).
.
The sub-policies derived from the Lisbon Strategy entail considerably more
Journal of European Industrial commitment than previously the case. The open method of coordination has
Training been introduced as a very effective tool. This method was tested in the European
Vol. 32 No. 2/3, 2008
pp. 138-156 employment policy, requiring the member states to agree on highly concrete key
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited data (so called benchmarks), which have to be attained within a given timeframe
0309-0590
DOI 10.1108/03090590810861686 (Leney, 2004).
.
A further reason for the massive interventions in comparison to the past might Professional
be traced to the experiences of success on a European level with the so-called competence as a
Bologna Process. In only a short time it has been possible to introduce the
two-stage Bachelor-Master model in conjunction with a credit points system benchmark
within the European environment of higher education. Dispensing with a trial
period, this process was advanced at a speed hitherto unknown in the history of
European educational policy. 139
Although on the one hand the new commitment to European co-operation in vocational
education is to be welcomed, the question arises as to whether the ongoing processes
are sufficiently adequate for achieving the aims of the Lisbon Strategy.

Copenhagen-process
Within the framework of the Copenhagen Process, the ministers of education of the EU
member states have agreed to re-align their vocational education policies to encompass
common aims and provisions. Especially since the follow-up conference to evaluate the
progress of the Copenhagen Process held under the Dutch presidency in Maastricht in
December 2004, the provisions for the drafting of a European credit system for
vocational education and training (ECVET) and the European qualification framework
(EQF) have assumed a special significance (Europaische Kommission.
Generaldirektion Bildung und Kultur, 2004). This European qualification is planned
to become approved by the council and the parliament during the second half of the
year 2007 and European countries are already preparing the setup of national
qualification frameworks. The earlier agenda of increasing the transparency of VET
in Europe (Sellin and Piehl, 1995) is given away to a more binding agenda.
The consultation phase prescribed by the Commission, within it was possible for
member states to respond to proposals presented by the Commission, expired at the
end of December 2006. The proposal made by the English education authority QCA in
co-operation with the Commission provides a basis for the realisation of a European
vocational education area (Commission of the European Communities, 2005).
At this point I would like to subject the proposal for an EQF to a critical analysis but
also point out the prospects that could arise from a competence-orientation as it is
envisaged by the EQF. We have already submitted the more fundamental orientations
and procedures of the Copenhagen Process to a critical analysis at different locations
(Grollmann and Ruth, 2007). First, the proposal for an EQF, the consultation process
and the results (Commission of the European Communities, 2006) will be described and
assessed (partly based on Grollmann and Rauner, 2004). In a second step the
consequences of an orientation towards professional competences as an option for
European VET policies and research will be outlined.

Competence and qualification framework


The development of a European qualification framework calls for:
.
an agreement on equal standards for qualifications and entitlements;
.
the recognition of competencies within the system of education and studies and
vocational career development respectively, and
.
the configuration of transitions from one level of qualification to another and
from one subject-specific or vocational domain to another.
JEIT The European Qualification framework (EQF) basically differentiates between eight
32,2/3 qualification levels. Horizontally, these levels are more closely defined by three and six
qualification descriptors. After the revision of the EQF, now there are descriptors for
each level on the three dimensions knowledge, skills and competencies.
The use of this grid is to ascertain the educational results and pathways whether
formal of informal during the process of lifelong learning. The EQF concept
140 prescribes that educational results should progress from the lowest towards the
highest qualification level. Someone attributed with the proficiency ascertained by a
certain level must also dispose of the attributes defined by the other two dimensions
and its descriptors for that particular level. The possibility that someone like a
goldsmith, for instance may dispose of a high level of creative and artistic
competence (supposedly to be categorised in the skills dimension in this grid), yet
requires rather less theoretical knowledge is completely left out of the equation. Even
the definition of learning as a cumulative process (Commission of the European
Communities, 2005, p. 10) does not correspond to generally accepted concepts of
educational theory and empirical learning research. Indeed, these emphasise rather the
qualitative differences between different developmental levels (cf. Bransford, 2004;
Eraut, 1994). This has partly been recognised through the amended proposal for the
council and the parliament (Commission of the European Communities, 2006).
Within the consultation process the European Commission had raised, amongst
other things, two questions the answers to which will determine the future of the
framework:
(1) Does the structure of the European Qualification Framework, described by the
reference levels reflect the complexity of life-long learning?
(2) Do the descriptors define the levels of learning progress and the differences
between different levels?

Of course, when evaluating these two questions one must take account of the fact that
the process of life-long learning takes place in different professions, (occupational)
domains and vocational fields, and that within their careers some people attain
successive qualification levels, but may also change profession or vocational field.
Either way, the vocationally determined structures of work and the related vocational
training are of crucial importance.

The structure of lifelong learning and its outcomes


Regarding the learning levels or better, qualification levels two aspects have to be
differentiated. First, clarification is required concerning whether qualification levels
can be aligned on a gradually increasing scale when they are supposed to be
representing the gradual development of competence. Ultimately, such a synchronicity
of development in various competence areas puts into question the
multi-dimensionality of the framework itself. By logical consequence this provokes
the question whether it might be possible to describe the competence levels on the basis
of a single factor. This would be close to suggesting that general intelligence should
become the crucial characteristic for the attribution of competence levels. The critique
of the general intelligence concept and the often inferred correlation with
psychologically defined and measurable intelligence and the social and professional
status highlights the ethical explosiveness that lies at the core of the conceptual design
of the EQF (Carson, 2001). When considering a comparison between the vocational Professional
career of a tradesman who runs a small business in the crafts industry, and a graduate competence as a
with a bachelor degree who has been taught the scientific fundamentals of his subject
area, it becomes clear that both learning pathways and their outcomes are very benchmark
hard to incorporate within a single, ultimately one-dimensional EQF-grid. Above all, it
begs the question as to who should benefit from such a classification.
With the examination for master craftsman diploma the master tradesman (owner) 141
has generally completed a pathway that encompasses the following stages:
.
secondary school leaving certificate;
.
vocational training in the dual system;
.
several years of professional experience as well as;
.
the gradual assumption of managerial tasks in the business;
.
part-time preparation for the examination for master craftsman diploma; and
.
examination for master craftsman diploma (on average at the age of 30).

After graduating from school, a three-year Bachelors degree generally provides the
foundation for a subsequent masters. Simultaneously, internships convey vocational
competences. The classification of graduates from such degree courses is complicated
by the fact that degrees in further education prepare for a vocational career path, but
do not provide vocational skills such as those provided by the training of skilled
workers and master craftsmen, for instance. We could estimate that graduates from a
Bachelors degree require a further two years to familiarise themselves with vocational
tasks (i.e. the usual trainee programmes). If a graduate with a Bachelors degree wanted
to pursue a master craftsman career, he would practically have to start from scratch if
he has no previous vocational training. Parts of his theoretical knowledge could
certainly apply to the new career. This would be no different for the master craftsman
wanting to embark on an academic degree. More generally, this means that
knowledge acquired during ones learning pathway is by no means necessarily the
knowledge required for a different pathway. Whilst a subject-specific degree course
conveys the closely defined fundamental scientific knowledge and methods of that
particular field, the master craftsman must have a command of comprehensive
expertise, entrepreneurial, practical and educational competences, which might be in
big parts rather acquired through work experiences than in formalised learning
processes.

Levels of learning or levels of hierarchy and remuneration at work?


The second part of the question relating to the meaningfulness of an eight-level
qualification framework for the ranking of educational progress first requires
clarification of the useful purpose this ranking of competences seeks to fulfil. When
considering an educational system which aims at the support of the development of
vocational competence, then, depending on the perspective employed, three levels
become apparent:
(1) skilled personnel on the level of qualified employees and specialised workers;
(2) operative professionals; and
(3) strategic professionals.
JEIT This is also supported by modern labour market classifications such as the Canadian
32,2/3 National occupational Classification (NOC) or the American O *Net database of
occupations. The NOC even sates that on the upper end of the scale:
Management occupations are not assigned to a skill level category. Factors other than
education and training (e.g. previous experience), ownership of real property and capital,
ownership of intellectual property, inherent decision-making skills and organisational
142 capabilities are often more significant determinants for employment in management
occupations (Human Resources Development Canada, 2006).
A differentiation in a higher number of levels such as proposed by the EQF most
probably results from the multitude of educational qualifications to be found in
Europe. In the reality of qualification frameworks the ordering of qualifications often
resembles a sandwich principle, where general or academic degrees are enclosing
the more applied or vocational qualifications usually culminating in the highest
scientific postgraduate degree (cf. the examples in Coles et al., 2007; New Zealand
Qualifications Authority, 2005). In reality the logic of meritocracy with its bias on
academic achievements (Young, 1958) has found entrance into a system which aims at
the abandonment of such bias (see also Guile, 2003).
If interpreted as a way of structuring work large number of levels often corresponds
to rather Tayloristic forms of work organisation (Drexel, 2005). This surely can not be
in the interest of the European Commission, which postulates a Europe of more and
better jobs and a knowldege-based economy (Europaischer Rat, 2000). In an
alternative proposal (see annex of this special edition) made by researchers from the
Institute Technology and Education we have distinguished between four levels of
qualifications. Each of the levels could be reached through a more experience-based
learning pathway and a more academically oriented learning pathway but they are
recognised equally in one framework. A special qualification level for unskilled or
semi-skilled does seem of much added value. Job-market research categorises
approximately 10 percent of those in employment as unskilled or semi-skilled,
tendency falling. A standardisation of the extremely different competences on the level
of unskilled and semi-skilled workers is hardly possible. On the one hand, the area of
the unskilled and semi-skilled encompasses everymans qualifications as well as on
the other hand the great diversity of extremely job-specific qualification profiles. Very
often, these jobs fall victim to streamlining or rationalisation measures. On the other
hand, these everyman-qualifications do not entail any specific knowledge or skill.

Interim summary competence and qualification frameworks


A linear grading concept does not depict the reality of vocational career paths and
lifelong learning across different areas and domains of learning. Related degrees (e.g.
natural sciences) in formal learning settings might be comparable in terms of their
content as it might be the case for experiences made in work-based learning settings
across similar work environments. It seems as if the question of similarity in content is
mixed with equivalence. It is an extremely desirable goal to make the transition from
one learning pathway into another as uncomplicated and effective as possible.
However, the objectively required knowledge in its widest sense for a transition
between different careers cannot be simply waived aside by means of orientation to a
one-dimensional grid. If a mason wishes to become a banker because the demand for
masons is reduced on the labour market, he has to learn the new profession from
scratch. If he wishes to enrol for a degree, the college or department will check if he Professional
fulfils all the relevant requirements. Even the extensive competencies of a master are competence as a
of little relevance for academic studies and cannot count as such. In practice it would
already represent a big step if the master craftsman were to have general access to benchmark
higher education. Equally, the competences acquired by a graduate from a masters
degree in shipbuilding is not comparable to the breadth and depth of expertise and skill
required for a ships captain on the high seas. Without the relevant expertise it becomes 143
impossible to appreciate which educational level is to be ranked higher: that of the
experienced captain who is first allowed to command a ship at the age of 35, or that of a
graduate from a Masters degree who goes on to submit a doctoral thesis on the
speciality of hydrodynamics. Discrepancies, for instance in remuneration, are just as
relevant to competencies as are other factors born from their learning biographies. It
seems impossible to incorporate both learning paths in a manner that would do justice
to one persons scientific competences and the others theoretical and practical
competences.
Of course, rankings of levels can be structured with many more competency levels
than three. This is particularly apparent in tariff agreements and respective
remuneration rankings. It would be exceedingly difficult, though, to translate
classification criteria for wage agreements into valid criteria for the determination of
training and educational levels in accordance with the individual courses of learning.
Finally, the differentiation of competence levels according to the above mentioned
three qualification categories simplifies company structuring, which since the 1980s
and under pressure from international quality competition has called for the
introduction of flat hierarchies.

Competence and learning outcomes: an example for the


Lisbon-Copenhagen dilemma
Some of the abovementioned issues have been addressed within the consultation
period. All in all the process can be described as a disenchantment. The purpose of the
EQF is described now as a:
[. . .] neutral [sic!] reference point for comparing qualifications across different education and
training systems and to strengthen co-operation and mutual trust between the relevant
stakeholders. This will increase transparency, facilitate the transfer and use of qualifications
across different education and training systems and levels (Commission of the European
Communities, 2006, p. 3).
It can be questioned if it can be a neutral reference point at all. The decision to
introduce national qualification frameworks shows that the neutrality will have its
limitations, since members states will make use of the EQF as a practical reference
point within the construction of their frameworks. Despite the neutrality the EQF
brings with it manifest repercussions for the design of national qualifications systems.
E.g. in Germany the EQF discourse and process can be used in order to enforce certain
issues which have been on the agenda for a long time, but could not get accepted
against opposition from major stakeholders such as two-year occupations or
modularisation (see Martens and Wolf, 2006; Weymann and Martens, 2005 for other
examples of this use of international organisations influence on national educational
policy).
JEIT A good example to illustrate the process of disenchantment is the sections on
32,2/3 competence in the two documents from 2005 to 2006 (cf. Table I). In the proposal
made through the Commission significant emphasis was paid to competence as the
major category of describing and assessing learning outcomes. Competence was seen
as an integrated concept of abilities enabling learners to cope with certain challenges in
particular contexts. In the final proposal to the parliament and the council what
144 remains is largely a description of the range of responsibilities and scope for
decision-making. The concept in use on the original proposal could be categorised as
having a strong subjective orientation, whilst the remaining concept largely describes
workplaces and some of their attributes. In this last section of this article I will defend
taking up the subjective orientation again, but less as a concept which can be fully and
operationally used in a mechanism of accrediting equivalencies and similarities, than
more as an aspiration and a benchmark for national and sectoral policies of education
and training the workers in a Europe in line with the Lisbon goals.

Professional competence as a benchmark and a way out of the


Lisbon-Copenhagen-dilemma
It could be shown in the preceding section that attempts to achieve better
comparability of qualifications by means of instruments such as a qualification
framework are always connected with a permeation of national competencies in
educational policy. The claim of being neutral cannot be sustained (see also the
contribution of Winch and Bouder in this edition). Ultimately, the non-neutrality of

Competence in the proposal to the parliament and


Competence in the staff working document of the the council (Commission of the European
European Commission (2005, p. 11) Communities, 2006, pp. 16-7)

Based on the examination of published literature Competence means the proven ability to use
from France, the United Kingdom, Germany and knowledge, skills and personal, social and/or
the United States of America, the following methodological abilities, in work or study
composite definition of competence is offered. situations and in professional and/or personal
Competence includes: i) cognitive competence development. In the European Qualifications
involving the use of theory and concepts, as well as Framework, competence is described in terms of
informal tacit knowledge gained experientially; ii) responsibility and autonomy
functional competence (skills or know-how), those
things that a person should be able to do when they
are functioning in a given area of work, learning or
social activity; iii) personal competence involving
knowing how to conduct oneself in a specific
situation; and iv) ethical competence involving the
possession of certain personal and professional
values. [. . .] This understanding of competences
will be reflected in the EQF reference levels
described in this document where a distinction
will be made between knowledge (reflecting
Table I. element (i) of the above definition), skills
The development of the (reflecting element (ii) of the above definition and,
use of competence in finally, wider competences (reflecting elements
the EQF (iii) and (iv) of the above definition)
such frameworks rests with some of the natural features of learning. The framework in Professional
its current form tries to separate the learning process from its outcomes. It seems to be competence as a
illogical to make this distinction since there are no starting or ending points of a
learning process as such (apart from birth and death). Human beings learn constantly benchmark
and do not just stop learning, as if they were finished or complete. The content of this
learning might be deemed useful or detrimental. This is basically dependent on the
subject of evaluating the content and results learning (might be the individual itself, a 145
teacher, a societal institution such as an examination board, a psychologist interested
in the nature of learning etc.). When doing this evaluation based on certain criterions
considerations will be playing a role implicitly or explicitly what could have been
learned at all after a certain process. This will entail certain ideas about the context of
learning. For example, you would not assume the ability to swim from someone who
has never jumped himself or been tossed into water. That context is a fundamental
variable in shaping learning apart from individual dispositions has been stressed by
several approaches looking at the situatedness of learning and cognition (Brown et al.,
1989; Lave and Wenger, 1991)
In that regard, the emphasis on competence as a learning outcome could be turned
into a useful and stimulating concept giving direction to the European dialogue on
VET and its development on a European scale. This dialogue would have to focus
around the nature of professional competence as an educational end and the conditions
for its development and use at work, i.e. the learning processes. In this section a
strategy which puts professional competence at its centre will be discussed in its
consequences for the European VET agenda. First some remarks will be made on the
macro-level of such considerations.

VET as a feature of a European tradition of education and the labour market


Lower secondary education constitutes an important interface across the variety of
educational systems in the worlds, because after this phase students are usually sorted
into different streams or leave school. Despite all criticism the OECD-PISA study has
managed to become an important benchmark and indicator for the achievements of
educational systems at this level. The feasibility of the PISA study and the legitimacy
of such indicators is based on the wide international consensus about what such
systems have to achieve and on a longstanding tradition of test development. It is one
the main features of PISA as opposed to earlier studies that it is oriented towards
competence. In terms of quality criterions it could be formulated that curricular
validity was exchanged against ecological validity. The tests in use are based on the
assumption that the challenges faced by adolescents in modern societies are similar
and can be described in the individual ability to solve certain problems that can be
arranged according to domains such as mathematical literacy, reading and writing
literacy and so on. Two conditions are of importance with regard to its successful
implementation: a long-lasting history of such large-scale tests in the academic
domains, which provides test items that have been tested and improved over years and
a corresponding educational-didactical discussion about learning goals in certain
domains or subjects.
It is exceedingly more complex to achieve consensus about performance and
achievement indicators across countries after this level of educational systems, before
which there exists a more or less universal world-curriculum.
JEIT In this section the argument will be maintained that it would be a worthwhile effort
32,2/3 to develop a strategy which supports the development of a coherent occupational or
professional competence since it is in principle backed up by common European
traditions, is justifiable in light of the Lisbon strategy and goes in line with what we
know tentatively about learning in settings other than schools.
Different educational traditions are competing with each other and put emphasis on
146 different concepts of competence. However a strong vocational education route
constitutes a common feature of the majority of European systems of education.
Based on the work in the Maastricht-Study we can point out certain potentials for
linking up national policies and practices as regards to a VET policy aiming at
professional competence. This relates to the process and conditions of its development
as well as to the outcomes that can be achieved but also to some macro-conditions of
vocational education in the European member states.
First, it is a common feature of many educational systems in Europe that a significant
portion of learners in secondary education is enrolled into vocational education
programmes. In 25 countries the share of students of an age-cohort enrolled into
vocational education programmes exceeds 30 percent and in 16 members states the share
exceeds 50 percent (Leney and The Leney, 2005, p. 28). A strong vocational route in the
educational system constitutes a common European tradition. Increasingly, targeting
education and learning to occupational and professional profiles is also seen as an option
for higher education (West, 2000). Comparisons show that this can produce favourable
labour market outcomes in terms of the Lisbon Agenda (Brzinsky-Fay, 2007; Leuze,
2007). i.e. smooth transitions from school/university to work that avoid youth
unemployment (one of the priority benchmarks in the process Education 2010).
Very broadly clustered two ways of looking at competences can be distinguished in
secondary education, mainly associated with the respective historical configuration of the
educational system its relation to the labour market. Anglo-saxon models of education lay
their main emphasis on rather generic competencies that finally enable students to make
their way on the labour market and in higher education. Competencies are seen as a
generic cognitive resource. In many European countries the concept of a direct
relationship between and education and the labour market goes in hand with a notion of
competence that sees competence as domain-specific. Competence, then, is a cognitive
resource that can be applied to a number of similar situations (e.g. in an occupation). For
the former model the importance of specific context or work processes in which the
learning takes place or to which it is geared to is emphasised. Real-work experiences are
then a vital component of vocational education, leading to occupational competences
stemming from learners engagement with occupational core problems (Onstenk, 2000).
Some competences, for example, cannot be learnt in school-based settings, since they are
bound to the specific environment and constraints of work in a specific field (Figure 1).
As an intentional enterprise VET as part of public education is not only shaped by
the needs and demands of production and human resource development, but embedded
into the contexts of general education and citizenship. Thus, VET also presupposes
some normative orientations such as educating responsible citizens that can
participate in and contribute to economic and societal change and success.
In many countries this also reflected in regulatory statements for VET that can for
example be found as parts or preambles of VET legislation. For instance the Dutch
country report in the project Achieving the Lisbon goal stated that:
Professional
competence as a
benchmark

147

Figure 1.
Concepts of VET and
competence

[. . .] two things are essential: Competence based education is explicitly aimed at the key
issues or problems in professions and careers, and prepares the learner to deal with them; the
accent is put on an optimal competence development of the learners, tailored to their personal
wishes and possibilities. The aim of competence-based education is to train people to become
competent citizens and professionals. Competences and competence development are the
pivot around which content, programming, organisation and pedagogic-didactical design of
the educational process should be developed.
The table provides an idealised view of conceptions of competence development and
education. In the table, educational ends lie on the continuum between liberal education
and targeted vocational or technical instruction (the horizontal axis). Pure liberal
education aims at the development of the cultured and educated person/citizen and
targeted vocational or technical instruction aims at the development of the qualified
worker. The vertical axis is a continuum ranging from adaptive and reproductive ways
of learning towards innovative and proactive orientations to learning processes.
Looking at a the emerging quadrants of the matrix we find four types of competence:
(1) An adaptive competence building favouring learning contents primarily
derived from external (technological and labour market) demands and focusing
on qualified workers rather than on educated citizens.
(2) An explanatory knowledge and competence, emerging as a result of adaptive
competence building and an orientation towards the educated citizen.
(3) An emphasis on innovative and proactive competence formation, combined
with an orientation towards the qualified, specialist worker. This is often
associated with the characteristics of high performance work systems.
JEIT (4) Finally, the orientation towards innovative and active workers (learners) in
32,2/3 combination with the educated citizen perspective results in a reflective shaping
competence.
It can be argued that different European systems place emphasis on different parts of the
matrix. An example on the European level, fitting into the two upper quadrants is the
148 European occupational profile Car-Mechatronic, combining sophisticated technical,
service and business competences. Whether the implementation of the profile tends more
towards participative human resource development or reflective shaping competence
depends mainly on the national way of organising the connection between IVET and
CVT. Reflective shaping competence is a goal that is pursued in many VET systems,
that locate VET in the secondary educational system but that is not always achieved.
Despite the differences illustrated in this section there seem to be sufficient commonalities
within the variety of VET-Systems in Europe to carry out a discussion on such strategic
orientations. In addition, it is a big task for research to develop an understanding how
vocational competences develop and what circumstances influence their growing.

The structures and content of competence a big task for research and development
It is only with difficulty that the dimensions at the core of the EQF could be assigned to
the theories and concepts of competence research (see also Haahr and Hansen, 2006).
E.g. since the reform of large occupational fields at the end of the 1980s, the traditional
division into knowledge and skills shared by the planning and research of
vocational training in Germany, has been abandoned in favour of the qualifications
category. This was to support vocational education that would emphasise the relaying
of practical vocational competences. This entailed among other things the concept of
comprehensive work activity (vollstandige Arbeitshandlung, Hacker, 1998) as a full
feedback circle (Miller et al., 1973). From this perspective a renewed division of
professional competence (qualification) into knowledge and skills would spell a
qualitative step backwards for vocational education (Table II).
The term qualifications is used because the usual way of developing vocational
training regulations is rather based on an objectivist conception of work processes
instead of profiles of vocational competences that are built on the subjective basis of
coping with the tasks and challenges of work. Terminological accuracy is needed in
this regard, since there is a longstanding discussion on the different terms for quite
some time in different research traditions (Erpenbeck and Rosenstiel, 2003; Hartig and
Klieme, 2006) that is partly backed up by empirical research.
As the table shows competence in this understanding is an intermediate concept
between an objectivist view on tasks and the abilities needed in order to fulfil this task
(qualifications) and a fully subjectivist view on individual intelligence as a stable and
more or less unmodifiable cognitive resource. The draft of the EQF was strongly
driven by such notion of competence whereas the current version has turned back to a
description of competence by the degree of autonomy, i.e. a more objectivist feature.
However, the current version is not fully consistent in this more qualification driven
perspective since it still mentions knowledge, skills and personal, social and/or
methodological abilities as major dimensions. Those dimensions are closely rooted in
curricular input considerations and the structuring of learning content (Reetz, 1999;
Roth, 1971). They are not necessarily empirically valid accounts of the structure of
professional competences in domains of skilful work. Since autonomy is now the
Professional
Qualification Competence Intelligence
competence as a
Derived from tasks and Individual abilities to solve Generalisable, ability to solve benchmark
challenges in work situations certain problems in specific new problems in any context
situations and contexts
Can be adjusted through Can be learned in formal settings Stable trait, determined to a
changing the organisation and or through experience (with such large extent by biophysical 149
distribution of work specific situations and contexts) potentials over time
Structure is mainly subject to Structure is mainly subject to Structure is subject to general
the way work is organised intra-individual ways of cognitive processes
organising cognitive resources
Often broken down into a large Coherence between subjective One-dimensional, few
number of tasks abilities and cognitive resources dimensions
and external challenges
Industrial sociology, work Vocational and work psychology Differential cognitive
Table II.
science and educational research; HRD psychology
The concepts
Descriptions, task and job Methodological vacuum Psychometric testing qualification, competence
analysis, etc. and intelligence

major descriptor for the achieved level within the EQF, the respective hierarchy of
work organisation gets much more weight then the actual ability or disposition of
someone to cope with tasks on a specific level of job performance. Research would be
needed in order to find out systematically about the specific challenges and tasks in
domains of work as well as about the development of the individual dispositions to
cope with such challenges.
For the concept of intelligence, Howard Gardner points to the roles and professions
respected in different cultures, such as hunter, farmer, shaman, psychiatrist,
sportsmen, artists and scientists. The attempt to trace the variegated capabilities
embodied in these roles and professions to a universal intelligence does not do justice
to the variety of capabilities that people may possess or acquire (Gardner, 1993). This
critique can even more be applied to the use of a universal term of competence, since
competence in the cognitive psychological does not even presuppose a bio-physical
potential, as it is claimed by Gardner and his colleagues for their notion of multiple
intelligence. Competence as opposed to intelligence can be acquired, whereas
intelligence by definition remains more or less stable. If, in accordance with Gardner, a
multiple notion of intelligence is applied, it becomes obvious that individual
competence profiles can only be adequately represented if they are conceived
multi-dimensionally. Competence profiles can be described in analogy to tasks and
situations within the corresponding image or profile of a profession. Competence in this
regard is an intermediate concept between individual cognitive resources and the
challenges in the outer world the individual has to cope with (Connell et al., 2003).
In empirical educational research competence would be described as a as an
individual disposition that can be acquired by processes of formal learning and
through experiences and that puts the individual into the position to solve problems
and tasks in a specific domain (Hartig and Klieme, 2006). Up to now this concept has
not sufficiently found entrance into research on professional and vocational
JEIT competence development. A research agenda looking at this concept of vocational
32,2/3 competence would take a close look at the knowledge and skills dimensions on which
those processes could be described (Fischer, 2000), the different stages this process
would go through (Eraut, 1994), the methodologies how this can be identified and
assessed (Stenstrom and Laine, 2006a, b) and the conditions under which vocational
competence can develop.
150
Conditions for the development of competence and its use
There is an ongoing debate among industrial sociologists on the polarity between a
trend to an increasing taylorisation of work on the one hand and an increasing
complexity of job-profiles on the other hand. The diagnosis of a renaissance of
Taylorisation (Springer, 1999) stands vis-a-vis the emergence of new work systems that
are labelled as high-performance work systems:
The core of a high-performance work system (HPWS) . . . is that work is organised to permit
front-line workers to participate in decisions that alter organisational routines. This may be
achieved by using shop-floor production teams or through employee participation in problem
solving or quality improvement teams and statistical process control. Workers in an HPWS
experience greater autonomy over their job tasks and methods of work and have higher levels
of communication about work matters with other workers, managers, experts . . . and, in some
instances, with vendors or customers. Work organisation practices in an HPWS require
front-line workers to gather information, process it, and act on it (Appelbaum et al., 2000,
pp. 7-8).
In a global context of high economic competition it is difficult to make projections
about the relative strengths of the two polar trends. However, based on the findings of
European studies on the development of national systems of developing qualifications
and vocational education as well as based on insights on learning in work processes,
some desirable initiatives of research and development can be outlined.
Increasingly, no matter if in systems with a strong vocational tradition of systems
with a traditional academic orientation, work experiences are integrated formally into
the upper-secondary and post-secondary curricula (Griffiths and Guile, 2004; Leney
and The Lisbon-to-Copenhagen-to-Maastricht Consortium Partners, 2005, p. 122). In a
recent report for the European Commission features of workplaces providing learning
opportunities have been identified. The report also postulates instruments and tools to
be developed by European initiatives in order to tap the potentials for learning at work
through integrating work and education. According to the report such instruments
should help to secure for the following elements:
The completeness of a job. A complete/holistic job offers learning opportunities because it
allows workers to prepare and support work autonomously.
The number of short-cycle tasks in a job. Acquiring occupational qualifications requires that
the job has a variety of tasks that belong to this occupation.
Difficulty. A confrontation with problems is a prerogative for an opportunity to learn.
Autonomy, or regulation capacities in a job.
Contact opportunities. Social contacts allow one to learn from others and to solve difficulties
together with others and learn from these solutions. It thereby allows for the development of
social-communicative qualifications.
Organisational tasks. Insight into the functional interdependence between workers in Professional
organisations helps to reveal the innovative potential of workers.
competence as a
Information supply. Without information and feedback on ones own work it is difficult to benchmark
learn from work and mistakes made (Huys et al., 2005, p. 5).
Other studies come to similar conclusions with regard to learning in work processes
(Boreham et al., 2002; Eraut, 2004; Skule and Reichborn, 2002). Competence-building 151
processes are often highly contextualised and vary with sectors, business processes
and use of technologies. In this respect, the contribution of VET to the development of
of competences in the workplace is highly context dependent. In this regard VET can
be seen as a partly independent variable that has to be taken into account as a variable
shaping work processes. On the other hand, the way work is being organised is a
crucial feature, which needs to be taken into account when looking at the possibilities
of development of competences within work processes.
In addition to a purely company and production-based view of competence building
there is also a societal and macro-economic level that is important to consider. Research
of a Danish group of researchers has found that there is a close connection between
how people work and learn in a country and the way firms innovate. Discretion in
organising individual work and job profiles and work that involves problem-solving
and learning correlates positively with a type of innovation labelled as endogenous
innovation. Interestingly, other forms of work enrichment do not correlate positively
with this type of innovation, but are rather associated with incremental innovation,
such as for example in Japan (Arundel et al., 2006).

Conclusions
It is hoped that this contribution has achieved the following goals:
.
Illustrate the dilemma in which the current process of European co-operation in
VET is by the example of the development of EQF and the use of the term
competence in particular.
.
Pointing out a possible way out of this dilemma by sketching a strategy
focussing on the development of professional competence as point of orientation
fro European VET research, development and policy.
.
Indicating what further steps would be required in order to implement a strategy
that is conducive to developing professional competence as a benchmark for
VET on its different levels of realisation.

The Lisbon-Copenhagen-dilemma and competence


The commitment to European co-operation in education has increased massively in the
past two years in contrast to earlier attempts to co-ordinate European education and
training policies. Main elements of this new agenda of co-operation are the so-called
open method of coordination and the proposal for introducing a European
Qualification Framework (EQF). The priority benchmarks of the strategy Education
and Training 2010 constitute and interesting way of formalising objectives between
member states without interfering to strongly into national educational policies. They
can be seen as a way of managing European co-operation in Education and Training
by objectives.
JEIT However, the indicators being in use as priority benchmarks do provide only
32,2/3 relatively weak signals with regard to the question of effectiveness of VET structures
and outcomes of the member states (see also Lauterbach in this issue). The European
Qualification Framework is closer to the content of VET. Based on a several expertises
a sophisticated concept of professional competence found entrance into the discussion
on the establishment of a European Qualification Framework. This had to suffer from
152 the partly incoherent way of using the term between different languages, disciplines
and research approaches. In the meantime more emphasis is put on the term learning
outcomes, since this appears to be less sophisticated than competence. The emphatic
use of the competence concept is given away to a pragmatic version that equals
competence with responsibility and autonomy at work. Many of the aspirations
embodied in the earlier proposals of the EQF have been abandoned in the most recent
version pointing to a political compromise.
In substance the EQF has moved back into the direction of an objectivist conception
of qualifications and former policies of transparency. All in all the aspirations of the
EQF have been moderated throughout the consultation phase. The use of the term
competence carries major implications for individual processes of learning as well as
for the organisation of work and occupational profiles.
On the political level this orientation demands an extremely high co-ordination
between different realms of European and national policies (employment, labour market,
education and innovation) that has not been achieved, yet. This is more so the case, when
trying to align VET policies with the comprehensive set of objectives formulated
through the Lisbon strategy. Partly, this lack can be ascribed to constitutional features of
the European Union and the way of governance those promote.

Professional competence as possible way out of this dilemma and an intermediate


concept between an objectivist and a subjectivist view on VET
Despite those shortcomings, the general notion of introducing competence as a major
hinge on which European co-operation could rest on is to be welcomed from the
perspective on research and development in VET. It puts individual learning processes
and the individuals actual capabilities at the centre of considerations on co-operation
in European VET.
Different traditions and strands of research provide anchors for the clarification and
operationalisation of the term competence. In principle two ways of looking at it can be
distinguished: one is equalling competence with observable performance, the other one
conceptualises competence as an individual psychological disposition that is acquired
through learning and experience and relates to limited number of situations. In both
cases a linear grading concept does not depict the reality of solving tasks and coping
with challenges in vocational education and the world of work. There is also doubt in
how far one generic framework can actually be applied to the variety of contexts and
sectors of education and work. The subjective dimensions and the graduation of levels
on which such knowledge and skills are being developed would need to come under
scrutiny in relation to the settings in which that learning is taking place.
Another problem is there are no instruments that up to now of assessing such
competences in a way that would fulfil the international standards that are set through
certain recognised bodies of quality assurance (such as the Standards for educational
and psychological testing of the American Educational Research Association, AERA).
Perspectives Professional
If it were the aim that European VET contributes directly to the reaching the objectives competence as a
of the revised Lisbon agenda, then, a more concise shared vision with regard to the
processes and structures of vocational education would be needed than it is in place benchmark
now. This would not necessarily affect the outcome orientation of the current
processes. However, it does not seem possible logically and pragmatically to fully
abstract from the processes in which competence is acquired and in which they are 153
going to be used. Therefore, research and development activities in the European
Union should be integrated towards an agenda that covers structures, conditions and
processes of learning for the world of work (professional competence).
Due to the multidisciplinarity of the topic and different national research traditions
there is huge body of research and amount of findings available that have not been
sufficiently synthesised. A research and development programme targeted at the role
of VET in reaching the Lisbon objectives would look at the structural, economic and
national pre-requisites as well as the outcomes of learning processes. Professional
competence and the way that it is developed would be at the heart of such initiative.
Finally, this activity could have benefits on a number practical levels: such knowledge
and the developed diagnostic instruments could be used by stakeholders in order to get
an impression on the quality of the learning which is taking place in their
environments (schools, companies etc), the real capabilities of individuals would be
weight stronger than through certificates and degrees, which could enhance social and
economic mobility and finally such instruments could be used in indicator based
reporting activities on different levels (institutional, national, European).

References
Appelbaum, E., Bailey, T., Berg, P. and Kalleberg, A.L. (2000), Manufacturing Advantage. Why
High-Performance Work Systems Pay Off, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London.
Arundel, A., Lorenz, E., Lundvall, B.-A. and Valeyre, A. (2006), The Organisation of Work and
Innovative Performance: A Comparison of the EU-15 By DRUID, University of Aalborg,
Aalborg.
Boreham, N., Fischer, M. and Samurcay, R. (2002), Work Process Knowledge, Routledge, London.
Bransford, J.D. (2004), How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, expanded ed.,
National Academy Press, Washington, DC.
Brown, J.S., Collins, A. and Duguid, P. (1989), Situated cognition and the culture of learning,
Educational Researcher, Vol. 1989, January-February, pp. 32-42.
Brzinsky-Fay, C. (2007), Lost in transition? Labour market entry sequences of school leavers in
Europe, European Sociological Review, p. jcm011.
Carson, J. (2001), Defining and selecting competencies: historical reflections on the case of IQ, in
Rychen, S. and Hersh Salganik, L. (Eds), Defining and Selecting Key Competencies, Hogrefe
& Huber Publishers, Cambridge, MA.
Coles, M. and Werquin, P. (2007), Qualifications Systems: Bridges to Lifelong Learning, Education
and Training Policy, OECD, Paris.
Commission of the European Communities (2005), Commission staff working document.
Towards a European qualifications framework for lifelong learning, paper presented at
the SEC (2005) 957 Conference, Brussels.
JEIT Commission of the European Communities (2006), Proposal for a recommendation of the
European parliament and of the council on the establishment of the European
32,2/3 Qualifications Framework for lifelong learning, COM(2006) 479 final, Commission of the
European Communities, Brussels, 5. September.
Connell, M.W., Sheridan, K. and Gardner, H. (2003), On abilities and domains, in Sternberg, R.J.
and Grigorenko, E.L. (Eds), The Psychology of Abilities, Competences and Expertise,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 126-55.
154
Drexel, I. (2005), in Jakob, M. and Kupka, P. (Eds), Die Alternative zum Konzept des Berufs: Das
Kompetenzkonzept Intentionen und Folgeprobleme am Beispiel Frankreichs,
in Perspektiven des Berufskonzepts die Bedeutung des Berufs fur Ausbildung, Vol. 297,
Erwerbstatigkeit und Arbeitsmarkt, IAB, Nurnberg, pp. 39-53.
Eraut, M. (1994), Developing Professional Knowledge and Competence, Falmer, London.
Eraut, M. (2004), Deconstructing apprenticeship learning: what factors affect its quality?, in
Mulder, R. and Sloane, P.F.E. (Eds), New Approaches to Vocational Education in Europe:
The Construction of Complex Learning-Teaching Arrangements, Symposium, Oxford,
pp. 45-57.
Erpenbeck, J. and Rosenstiel, L.V. (2003), Handbuch Kompetenzmessung, Schaffer-Poeschel,
Stuttgart.
Europaische Kommission. Generaldirektion Bildung und Kultur (2004), Kommunique von
Maastricht zu den kunftigen Prioritaten der verstarkten Europaischen Zusammenarbeit in
der Berufsbildung, Fortschreibung der Kopenhagener Erklarung, Vol. 30, November,
p. 2002.
Europaischer Rat (2000), Schussfolgerungen des Vorsitzes, Europaischer Rat, Lissabon.
Fischer, M. (2000), Von der Arbeitserfahrung zum Arbeitsprozewissen. Rechnergestutzte
Facharbeit im Kontext beruflichen Lernens, Leske & Budrich, Opladen.
Gardner, H. (1993), Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, 2nd ed., Fontana Press,
London.
Griffiths, T. and Guile, D. (2004), Learning through Work Experience for the Knowledge Economy,
CEDEFOP Reference series, Vol. 48, Office for Official Publication of the European
Communities, Luxembourg.
Grollmann, P. and Rauner, F. (2004), Einheitlicher Qualifikationsrahmen im
Brugge-Kopenhagen-Prozess zwischen Schulabschluss und Kompetenz, Die
berufsbildende Schule, Vol. 56 Nos 7-8, pp. 159-65.
Grollmann, P. and Ruth, K. (2007), The Europeanisation of Vocational Education between
formal policies and deliberative communication, Research in Comparative and
International Education, Vol. 4 No. 1.
Grollmann, P., Kruse, W. and Rauner, F. (2005), Europaisierung beruflicher Bildung,, Vol. 14,
Bildung und Arbeitswelt, Lit-Verlag, Munster.
Guile, D. (2003), From Credentialism to the Practice of Learning: reconceptualising learning
for the knowledge economy, Policy Futures in Education, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 83-105.
Haahr, J.H. and Hansen, M.E. (2006), Adult Skills Assessment in Europe. Feasibility Study, Danish
Technological Institute, Policy and Business Analysis, Aarhus.
Hacker, W. (1998), Allgemeine Arbeitspsychologie, Huber, Bern.
Hartig, J. and Klieme, E. (2006), Kompetenz und Kompetenzdiagnostik, in Schweitzer, K. (Ed.),
Leistung und Leistungsdiagnostik, Springer, Heidelberg.
Human Resources Development Canada (2006), National Occupational Classification. Career
Handbook, 2nd ed., Human Resources Development Canada, Ottawa.
Huys, R., De Rick, K. and Vandenbrande, T. (2005), Enhancing Learning Opportunities at Work Professional
(Hoger instituut voor de arbeid), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven.
competence as a
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991), Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. benchmark
Leney, T. (2004), Reflections on the five priority benchmarks, in Standaert, R. (Ed.), Becoming
the Best. Educational Ambitions for Europe. CIDREE Yearbook, Vol. 3, CIDREE, Enschede.
Leney, T. and The Lisbon-to-Copenhagen-to-Maastricht Consortium Partners (2005), Achieving 155
the Lisbon Goal: The Contribution of VET, QCA, London, UK; BIBB, Bonn, Germany;
CEREQ, Marseille, France; CINOP, The Netherlands; ISFOL, Rome, Italy; ITB, University
of Bremen, Germany; National Training Fund, Prague, Czech Republic, Navigator
Consulting Group and Danish Technological Institute, Athens and Denmark.
Leuze, K. (2007), What makes for a good start? Consequences of occupation-specific higher
education for career mobility. Germany and Great Britain compared, International
Journal of Sociology, Vol. 37 No. 2.
Martens, K. and Wolf, K.D. (2006), Paradoxien der Neuen Staatsrason. Die Internationalisierung
der Bildungspolitik in der EU und der OECD, Zeitschrift fur Internationale Beziehungen,
Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 145-76.
Miller, G.A., Galanter, E., Pribram, K.H. and Aebli, H. (1973), Strategien des Handelns: Plane und
Strukturen des Verhaltens, Konzepte der Humanwissenschaften, 1. Aufl edn, Klett,
Stuttgart.
New Zealand Qualifications Authority (2005), The New Zealand National Qualifications
Framework, New Zealand Qualifications Authority, Wellington.
Onstenk, J. (2000), Training for new jobs: contents and pilot projects, in Tessaring, M. and
Descy, P. (Eds), 2nd Report on Vocational Training Research in Europe, Office for Official
Publication of the European Communities, Thessaloniki.
Reetz, L. (1999), Zusammenhang von Schlusselqualifikationen Kompetenzen Bildung,
in Tramm, T., Sembill, D., Klauser, F. and John, E.G. (Eds), Professionalisierung
kaufmannischer Berufsbildung. Beitrage zur Offnung der Wirtschaftspadagogik fur die
Anforderungen des 21. Jahrhunderts. Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Frank
Achtenhagen, Peter Lang, Frankfurt, pp. 32-51.
Roth, H. (1971), Padagogische Anthropologie. Bd. II Entwicklung und Erziehung, Grundlagen
einer Entwicklungspadagogik, Hannover.
Sellin, B. and Piehl, E. (1995), Berufliche Aus- und Weiterbildung in Europa, in Arnold, R. and
Lipsmeier, A. (Eds), Handbuch der Berufsbildung, Leske Budrich, Opladen, pp. 441-54.
Skule, S. and Reichborn, A.N. (2002), Learning-Conducive Work. A Survey of Learning Conditions
in Norwegian Workplaces, CEDEFOP Panorama series, Office for Official Publication of
the European Communities, Luxembourg.
Springer, R. (1999), Ruckkehr zum Taylorismus, Campus, Frankfurt/New York, NY.
Stenstrom, M.L. and Laine, K. (2006a), Quality and Practice in Assessment. New Approaches in
Work-related Learning, Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyvaskyla,
Jyvaskyla.
Stenstrom, M.L. and Laine, K. (2006b), Towards good practices for practice-oriented assessment
in European vocational education, Occasional Papers, Vol. 30, Institute for Educational
Research, University of Jyvaskyla, Jyvaskyla.
West, J. (2000), Higher education and Employment: opportunities and limitations in the
formation of skills in a mass higher education system, Journal of Vocational Education
and Training, Vol. 52 No. 4, pp. 573-88.
JEIT Weymann, A. and Martens, K. (2005), Bildungspolitik durch internationale Organisationen.
Entwicklung, Strategien und Bedeutung der OECD, Osterreichische Zeitschrift fur
32,2/3 Soziologie, Vol. 30 No. 4.
Young, M.D. (1958), The Rise of the Meritocracy, 1870-2033. An Essay on Education and
Equality, Thames & Hudson, London.

156 Further reading


Rauner, F. (2004), Zur Erforschung beruflichen Wissens und Konnens. Was die
Berufsbildungsforschung von der Expertiseforschung lernen kann, in Jenewein, K.,
Knauth, P., Roben, P. and Zulch, G. (Eds), Kompetenzentwicklung in Arbeitsprozessen,
Nomos, Baden-Baden, pp. 75-91.

About the author


Philipp Grollmann is deputy head of the department on international vocational education
research in the Institute Technology & Education, Bremen University. His research interests are
comparative VET research, quality in VET and the professionalisation of teachers and trainers
in VET. He has led and contributed to a range of significant European research projects such as
the Maastricht study or the scenario study of ETF and CEDEFOP. He can be contacted at:
grollmann@uni-bremen.de

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com


Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0590.htm

PART TWO: EUROPEAN DESIGN Ways toward a


PRINCIPLES PUT INTO PRACTICE European VET
space
Ways toward a European
vocational education and training 157
space: a bottom-up approach
Jessica Blings and Georg Spottl
Institute of Technology & Education, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

Abstract
Purpose This paper seeks to concentrate on bottom-up approaches in order to promote a European
vocational education and training (VET) concept. The overall aim of this article is to demonstrate that
sophisticated approaches still have a chance of becoming common practice in European countries.
Design/methodology/approach The centre of the article is the discussion of a core occupational
profile called ECO-recycler, which tends to be an alternative to the discussion of a uniform European
Qualification Framework. The method of participatory discourse is applied in order to shape a VET
space jointly with European partners. However, the partnership should not only discuss an abstract
level because the implementation of the ECO-recycler is the main target of the discourse and it will be
demonstrated how it works.
Findings After the clarification of a bottom-up approach, the implementation process of a core
occupational profile in the partner countries is described.
Research limitations/implications The empirical approach for the creation of work process
based core occupational profiles will be offered.
Practical implications European policies must be changed if these approaches are pursued.
Originality/value This article offers an alternative to existing European policy and will be of
interest to those in the field.
Keywords Europe, Vocational training, Qualifications, Education and training, International politics
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Since the beginning of the discussions of the European qualification framework (SEK,
2005) it is obvious at the latest that Europe is focussing at a minimum of two ways for
the further differentiation of a European educational policy: a top-down approach and a
bottom-up approach. The aim is the introduction of an instrument for the classification
of different qualification levels in Europe into a linear, hierarchically structured
framework with the objective to increase the comparability and the transparency of the
graduations. The discussion of this qualification framework is manifold and will still
take a lot of time. On the other hand, the alternative approach, i.e. the bottom-up
perspective of the establishment of European occupational profiles has hitherto hardly Journal of European Industrial
been considered. It is likely that this way seems to be comparatively complicated at Training
Vol. 32 No. 2/3, 2008
first sight and that it is suspected to enforce the occupation oriented approach[1]. This pp. 157-170
is, however, by no means correct. As soon as occupational profiles, qualification q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0309-0590
concepts, modules etc. below the respective systems are more closely examined it DOI 10.1108/03090590810861695
JEIT becomes evident that the work and work process orientation is in the centre of all
32,2/3 qualification and competency development concepts. Consequently, the idea of
European core occupations safeguards that those transnational work and work process
orientations not interfering with existing system structures are in the centre of interest.
The decisive advantage of bottom-up approaches is that an uncoupling of
occupational requirements from formalised instruments a feature of qualification
158 frameworks could not take place. Furthermore, those competencies could be
measured which are concretely developed within the framework of training, e.g. by
dealing with work processes.

Approaches of a European occupational education and training policy


In December 2004, the European Union confirmed in the Maastricht 2004 Declaration
(Communique of Maastricht, 2004) to establish an increased comparability,
transparency and recognition between the national educational systems. This
declaration again underpinned the Copenhagen-(Bruges) Process of 2002 and specified
the September 2003 declaration of the Council of Ministers in Berlin on university
education. On the way towards an open, concise and comparable vocational education
and training landscape there are currently three predominant streams (Figure 1):
(1) The first approach is the realisation of comparability on the certificate level.
With the provision of formal instruments, the comparability of qualification
profiles should be safeguarded by mutually recognizing the certificates.
(2) The second approach originates from the Copenhagen process and tries to
attain transparency by awarding Credit Points (European Credit Transfer
System for Educational and Vocational Training ECVET System). This is
where the controversial debate of a European qualification framework fits in.
(3) The third approach is basically pursued by transnational Leonardo-da-Vinci
projects supported by the European Union. With the aid of the Social Partners,
sector oriented core occupational profiles are developed and implemented. The
success of this approach lies in the fact that it results in transparency and
comparability on the level of contents. The common denominator of the
European core occupational profiles are the work processes in the countries.

Figure 1.
Three ways to the mutual
recognition of graduations
in Europe
The so-far surveyed automotive sector and the closed loop and waste economy Ways toward a
sector correspond at a rate of 70 to 80 per cent. European VET
This way was first shown with the European occupational profile of a Car Mechatronic space
(Rauner and Spottl, 2002), which was implemented in four countries. It was followed by a
project on the closed loop and waste economy. The occupational profile resulting thereof
was implemented in seven countries (Blings and Spottl, 2003). Another project is currently 159
being carried through in the European aerospace industry.
The work process as a reference value basically allows to assess the different
qualitative characteristics of skilled work from country to country and from company
to company and to make it the crystallisation point of core occupational profiles. If
work processes are determined as structuring common ground of core occupational
profiles it is possible to shape vocational educational and qualification processes
according to country-specific institutional framework conditions by maintaining the
transnational, basic core occupational structures.
Generally, it is to be noted that work process oriented approaches safeguard that:
[. . .] the national vocational educational training courses can be opened towards Europe and
that the permeability of educational areas within and beyond the borders can be realised (He
and Tuschner, 2003, p. 135).
The relocation of the discussion on recognition and transparency from the abstract
system level to the work process has at least three further advantages:
(1) One avoids the trap that due to the very different institutional framework
conditions in all European countries the educational courses cannot be
compared with each other.
(2) The examination of work processes ensures a distinct closeness of the
discussion to the labour market. Furthermore, the question of the real
requirements for competency plays an important role. This facilitates to involve
all persons concerned into the discussion process.
(3) A process orientation clearly lessens the danger of a fragmentation of
knowledge in favour of a coherence of knowledge as the foundation of a
European education space. The second of the above mentioned advantages at
the same time clearly indicates that a bottom-up approach can only be
realized via clear sector references. With the aid of core occupational profiles
and a sector reference, a work oriented European vocational education and
training can develop on a high content level.

Sector orientation as the basis of a bottom-up approach


As already mentioned above, there are several first convincing approaches of
European core occupational profiles with a clear-cut sector reference. The probably
best known approach is the Car Mechatronic. The actual success of the Car
Mechatronic concept is based on the fact that the sector reference created a high
closeness to the work of world. This resulted in advantages such as:
.
practice orientation;
.
curricula structures focussing on work processes; and
.
experience knowledge was made the contents of learning.
JEIT This concept safeguards that the employees contribute subjective potentials and skills
32,2/3 to the work process.
The work process and experience orientation made the car mechatronic a
comprehensive competency and personnel development concept aiming at a
reflexively acting subject, i.e. a subject which in spite of work orientation is
determined by:
160 .
internal endeavours; and
.
autonomously set objectives.

Sector references not only allow to assess the multi-dimensional challenges of the
shop-floor such as relevance of work organisation, communication structures, legal
stipulations, use of tools etc. but also to define relevant profiles for core occupations
and further training (Spottl, 2005).
Leonardo da Vinci projects with a sector reference facilitate the cooperation with
and the support by the social partners. A successful cooperation with the social
partners is guaranteed and a successful dissemination of the results is the prerequisite
of an overdue European education dialogue.
Other central advantages of sector references can be named as follows:
.
Sector structures in industry and trade in Europe are predominantly similar and
can be clearly identified.
.
The dynamics immanent in the sectors can be transferred to the profiles and to
the level of European oriented (core) occupational profiles.
.
The development and the change of sectors is considerably influenced by the
European legislation and other European stipulations and can thus be precisely
monitored and assessed.
.
The challenges of similar European sectors are only slightly differing. Therefore,
both sector oriented and sector spanning qualifications and competencies can be
assessed and made the objects of vocational education.
.
Industry cultural characteristics can be taken into consideration by sector
oriented competency profiles and/or occupational profiles.
.
The application of a system of credit points for the work process structures of a
sector seems to be more successful as the attempt to improve the transparency of
graduations in a general way through formalised certificate structures.
.
A sector oriented vocational education and training facilitates and guarantees
the participation of the social partners because the orientation to their relevant
work of world is in the centre of interest.
.
A sector oriented involvement of the Social Partners in the discussion on
vocational education and training is one of the most important prerequisites for
the establishment of a European vocational educational dialogue.
.
Due to its definable framework the sector approach also allows for declinating
ambitious vocational educational goals down to the project level in an
operationable way.

The clear references of the Copenhagen Declaration to the world of work explicitly call
for declaring them the core of a European vocational educational system in terms of a
work oriented vocational education and training. This can only be achieved with the Ways toward a
aid of sector references, because: European VET
.
the multi-dimensional challenges of the shop-floor can thus be assessed; space
.
the relevance of the work organisation models is taken into consideration;
.
the corporate communication structures become a subject;
.
the legal regulations are introduced to vocational education and training; and 161
.
the tools, the products themselves move into the centre of vocational education
and training.

Contrary to the discussion on the formal comparability, the regulation of the mutual
recognition and the transparency of certificates only feasible by a top-down approach,
the sector orientation as a bottom-up approach is highlighted. The latter is very likely
to support a conversion of national systems as the cultural framework conditions and
industrial cultures of the individual societies are being considered and respected right
from the start.
Sector orientation always also means a concretisation of vocational education and
training and the discussion of visions and wishes in terms of the necessary and the
expected qualification levels in a real field of work. Even if this results in
interest-guided and controversial discussions and positions, a participatory process is
safeguarded which holds a great chance for a European dialogue of vocational
education and training.
The special importance of a bottom-up-strategy results from the objectives of
these approaches:
.
Based on a contribution for the development of a European vocational education
and training system.
. Based on a vocational educational and labour market political answer to an
economic sector that is currently establishing as a European sector.
.
On the one hand, based on a practice oriented (initial) education and training that
on the other hand facilitates the transition to higher education in Universities of
Applied Sciences and Universities. There is the uniform basis for the
organisation of a cooperative education between schools and companies by a
networked learning environment.
.
Based on a contents orientation of the core profile to work processes because it no
longer supports the different industry cultural accesses. Visions of a European
vocational education and training can be implemented without any conceptual
dissens.
.
Based on an alternative for the highly segmented vocational education and
training which no longer corresponds to the challenges of the world of work and
which results in an abstract comparison of country specific certificates.
.
Based on an orientation to process thinking starting with vocational training.
This entails the fact that a business process orientation has to be pursued as
early as initial vocational training.
.
Based on a high identification with sectors.
JEIT Core occupational profiles are unambiguously linked to the challenges of the sectors.
32,2/3 This is safeguarded by the fact that the exact future oriented need for qualification will
be assessed by sector specific surveys by:
.
the identification of sectoral challenges up to the survey of the central work
processes dominant in all European countries;
.
an orientation of the occupational profiles towards the sector specific work
162 processes; and
.
encouraging a dialogue of vocational education and training with the European
Social Partners.

The conceptual reflections clearly point to a development of occupational profiles


based on sectoral orientations because the comparable European challenges within the
industrial and handicraft world of work offer the best prerequisites for the shaping of
occupational profiles. The following facts underpin this position:
.
A great number of handicraft and industrial sectors with similar structures can
be identified in the european countries and offer convincing, work oriented links
for the shaping of occupational profiles.
.
The development of sectors is considerably influenced by the european
legislation leading to a homogenisation of sectors.
. The challenges on the shop-floor-level only differ little from country to country.
they are suitable as a basis of occupational profiles.
.
Industry cultural differences can be taken into consideration with the aid of the
work process orientation of sector related occupational profiles.
.
It is likely that the use of the credit point system for work process structures is
more successful than to transfer it to highly differently organised and segmented
modules and certificate structures.
.
An adequately high proximity of European occupational profiles to the sectors
guarantees the support by sector representatives during the implementation of
the system.

The success of this approach depends on the fact that the needs and challenges of a
sector are precisely analysed and that the concerns and the characteristics of the
sectors in European countries are reflected and taken into consideration.
Another important advantage of sector oriented vocational educational approaches
lies in the fact that the so-called qualitative zones defined according the Draft
Directive 119 of the European Commission can be equipped with occupational
profiles instead of courses, modules, units etc. Thus, a considerably better quality of
competency development is achieved because the idea of a vocational educational
system and the creation of system structures are in the centre of interest right from the
start rather than the accumulation of random modules for a (vague) entity.

Implementation processes as bottom-up strategy


A way to successfully implement work process oriented occupational profiles is shown
by the project RecyOccupation that has prepared the implementation of the core
occupational profiles for the closed loop and waste economy in seven European
countries[2]. In order to achieve this, the work process oriented European core profile of Ways toward a
an ECO-recycler has to be adapted to country specific needs. In the majority of the European VET
countries this process resulted in a transformation of the existing core occupational
profile ECO-recycler into the national vocational training plans and in its space
implementation (European RecyOccupation Profile Project, 2005). Thus, a
qualification deficit of the branch predominant in the countries could be overcome.
So-far, this young sector has no qualification profiles in the majority of the European 163
states and the employees of the recycling and production branch had been recruited
from different other occupational groups such as, e.g. mechanics, locksmiths,
electricians etc. or they had been trained exclusively on-the-job.
The most important work steps at the backdrop of national and regional sector
conditions and country specific educational systems were the following:
. interviews with key persons from trade unions, associations, institutes;
.
identification of national framework conditions in the sector in general and in
individual enterprises;
.
coordination of the European core profile with national needs in all partner countries;
. strengthening national implementation partnerships; and
.
leading the European Social Dialogue for the support of the transformations.

Among the essential instruments for the implementation were the national curriculum
handbooks set up within the European cooperation. These handbooks document the
national, contents and structural implementation of the core occupational profile. All
curriculum handbooks:
.
are based on the European core occupational profile; and
.
contain the nationally required adaptations of the contents of the core
occupational profile in order to take into consideration the regional and national
specific (20 to 30 per cent additional contents) as well as the industry cultural
requirements (10 to 30 per cent).

On the other hand, country specific handbooks were created within the European
cooperation. These handbooks focus on implementation measures on the levels of the
companies and schools. They contained a didactical-methodical concept,
methodical-organisational implementation aids and learning arrangements for the
work process oriented implementation of the core occupational profile. On the whole,
28 learn and work tasks for the training practice in companies and at school have been
developed in the European context.
The social partners were continuously involved in the implementation in all other
countries (Figure 2). They:
.
supported and guided the vocational educational scientific research work with
the aid of sector studies, case studies and work process studies in all countries;
.
advised, guided and evaluated the development core occupational profile of the
ECO-recycler;
.
guided, advised and evaluated the transfer of the core occupational profile of the
ECO-recycler in the national context; and
.
supported and ensured the implementation.
JEIT
32,2/3

164

Figure 2.
Seven national
implementation teams
formed the project group
for the implementation of
the core occupational
profile of the
ECO-recycler

The individual countries mainly pursued three different ways of


implementation
Introduction via central ministerial units: Slovenia and Greece
In Slovenia and Greece the implementation of the core occupational profile was
coordinated in terms of contents and organisation by the central ministerial unit for
vocational education and training. Thus, the occupational profile ECO-recycler was
directly implemented into the national training plans. In Slovenia this was a swift
process and the new official occupational profiles were introduced in May 2005. In
Greece the Occupational profile of the ECO-recycler had to be amended by contents
taken from production technological occupations as the sector of the closed loop and
waste economy had not yet created an adequate number of new enterprises as the
introduction of the European environmental legislation would have suggested. From
October 2006 on, the amended occupational profile will be coordinated by the
Organisation for Vocational Education (OEEK) at the Ministry for Education and
Religion.

Introduction via decentralized partners


In Lithuania, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce of Kaunas coordinated the
implementation of the ECO-recycler. In spite of a vocational training system rather
structured in a decentralised way and with a strong orientation towards universities,
the ECO-recycler was successfully installed as a skilled worker training course
tailored to the needs of the companies. This resulted in an occupational profile named
Waste Treatment Operator which was filed for implementation with the Ministry of
Education.
In Great Britain, a Vocational College pursued the implementation work and
coordinated an Advisory Board. An ECO-recycler pilot course took place at the
Vocational College from September 2004 to June 2005. By March 2006, the approval of Ways toward a
the ECO-recycler as a Vocationally Related Qualification (VQR) was implemented. European VET
Introduction within the dual system by improvement of existing occupations space
In Austria, the vocational occupation of a skilled worker for disposal and recycling,
waste and/or sewerage with a three years apprenticeship has been in existence since
1998. This occupation is, however, very rarely trained and it is not yet adequate to suit 165
the needs for the closed loop and waste economy 2003. Therefore, the Austrian
implementation team after comprehensive research work prepared the further
development of the existing occupational profile by the core occupational profile of the
ECO-recycler. On the other hand, the re-formulation of the occupational profile was
prepared by the responsible institutions (basically the Ministry of Economy and the
Social Partners). This results in the fact that the updated block instruction has already
started in April 2006 whereas the official introduction of the new occupational profile is
only planned for the autumn of 2006.
In August 2002, the environmental technical occupations were newly arranged in
Germany. This also includes the occupation of a skilled worker for the closed loop and
waste economy which together with another three occupations replaced the former
supplier and disposal specialist. Figure 3 gives an overview on the implementation
process. Owing to this ordinance political background the German implementation team
focused on the didactical-methodical work. The objective was to develop a
didactical-methodical concept for the implementation of work process oriented training
for a sustainable development on corporate level and to set up a catalogue of learn and
work tasks qualitatively supporting the skilled worker training in the German sector.
In Spain, the partner organisation considered the profile of the ECO-recycler as an
approach for further training and implemented it. In other countries, the official
introduction of the transformed core occupational profile is planned and prepared for:

Figure 3.
Political background of
the implementation
strategy of the German
team
JEIT .
Greece in October 2006;
32,2/3 .
Lithuania in 2006; and
.
Austria in September 2006.

A first concept for an ECVET recognition system based on the work process structured
occupational profile was additionally established for the core occupation of the
166 ECO-recycler in order to facilitate the transparency and the recognition between the
different nationally implemented forms of the ECO-recycler.

The implementation in Slovenia an example of best practice


A new EU member and a comparatively small country, Slovenia has carried through
the implementation process in a particularly effective and quick way. It will therefore
be featured in detail as an example of best practice.
The implementation of the occupational profile as part of the national initial
training has been taking place since 2005. The members of the Slovenian
implementation team encompassed:
.
The centre of vocational training of the Republic of Slovenia (central ministerial
unit for the shaping, the guidance and the evaluation within vocational training
in Slovenia).
.
The Chamber of Industry and Commerce of Slovenia.
. The Ministry for Environment and Building Planning.
.
The Solski Center Novo Mesto (a vocational school in Ljubljana).
.
Five enterprises of the sector.

As social partners the advisory board also comprised representatives of:


.
The Chamber of Commerce of Slovenia.
.
The Chamber of Industry and Commerce of Slovenia.
.
The free-trade organisation of Slovenia.
.
The Sectoral Committees for vocational training standards.
.
The Ministry of Work, Family and Social Affairs.
.
The Ministry of Environment and Building Planning.
.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Sport.

The centre for vocational training of the republic has pursued the following tasks
within the implementation team and the Advisory Board:
.
the translation of the core occupational profile into Slovenian language;
.
the transfer of the contents and the structure of the core occupational profile to
the members of the implementation team and the Advisory Board;
.
the preparation of the first drafts for the development of an organisational
structure corresponding to the requirements of the closed loop and waste
economy;
.
the need analysis of the labour market of the closed loop and waste economy in
Slovenia;
.
the preparation of a quality development plan for the sector; and Ways toward a
.
the coordination of all work within the implementation team, with the Advisory European VET
Board and of all research work done within the sector. space
In order to verify the fitting of the core occupational profile in Slovenia, five case
studies were carried through analysing and breaking down the main business and core
work processes. In addition, the ECO-recycler core tasks were evaluated with the aid of 167
a questionnaire survey carried out by sector experts.
These surveys resulted in the introduction of the ECO-recycler profile on three
levels. Four national occupational profiles for the sector emerged during this process:
(1) Eco waste sorter (Slovenian Level 3);
(2) Waste maintainer up-keeper/Operator of vehicles and machines for handling
waste (Slovenian Level 4);
(3) Technologist for the closed loop and waste economy (Slovenian Level 5); and
(4) Hazardous waste manipulator (Slovenian Level 5).

The environmental legislation of Slovenia necessitated the creation of the occupation of


a Hazardous waste manipulator (5th level) which is only partly related to the
ECO-recycler. The structure of the core occupational profile of the ECO-recycler
provides training in all important business fields of the sector.
Based on the vocational training standards, three Catalogues of standards of
knowledge and skills have been created for the occupational profiles of Eco waste
sorter, Waste maintainer up-keeper/Operator of vehicles and machines for
handling waste and Hazardous waste manipulator.
The Slovenian case will again be presented as an example case because the entire
problem of dealing with different approaches becomes evident. At first sight, it seems to
be a contradiction to assign a work process oriented profile to several levels. On the other
hand, however, it becomes apparent that the relations with occupationality can be ensured
through a work process structure and that an implementation is possible in countries with
already firmly installed level hierarchies/qualification frameworks. Nevertheless, it is
important for such cases that the development logical structure inherent in the work
process structures is not lost during the adaptation to the different levels.
In addition:
.
the entry qualifications were determined by the profiles;
.
the examination methods and criteria were defined; and
.
materials for examination and accreditation of the examiners were determined.

Furthermore, a detailed standard was established, forming the basis for the future
recognition of informally acquired knowledge and competencies.
The content of the Slovenian Curriculum Handbook is structured in the following
way:
(1) Introduction: Objective of the publication and description of the transformation
process for the implementation of the ECO-recycler into the national context.
(2) Description of the key requirements for enterprises and employees in the closed
loop and waste economy sector.
JEIT (3) Description of the consequences resulting from the requirements of the sector
32,2/3 for vocational education and training.
(4) Introduction to the closed loop and waste economy in Slovenia, including the
legal stipulations.
(5) Introduction to the national system of vocational education and training.
168 (6) Confirmed and officially introduces Catalogues of standards of knowledge and
skills for national vocational qualifications: Eco waste sorter, Waste
maintainer up-keeper/Operator of vehicles and machines for handling waste
and Hazardous waste manipulator.

The curriculum handbook is meant for employees of the closed loop and waste
economy (trainers and apprentices, responsible persons for personnel issues), members
of the vocational training institutions as well as certification units and the political
level (commissions, ministries, labour offices). The Slovenian implementation
approach has been carried through on a high contents level in spite of its swiftness.
This is probably one of the advantages of small countries when it comes to the shaping
of vocational training: The agreements with the social partners can be achieved more
rapidly and simply and the State institutions can react more efficiently.

Future perspectives of bottom-up


The bottom-up approach with country spanning and sector related core occupational
profiles as its centre aims at the development of a European Vocational Education and
Training System. The industry cultural differences (Component 1, Figure 4, cf. Loose,
2002) are covered with the aid of the work processes and the different requirements
resulting thereof are implemented into the core occupational profiles. The orientation of
the core occupational profiles to the work processes allows adapting the configurations
of occupational profiles to the different system structures (Component 2) without
colliding with the structures themselves (cf. preceding chapter). The work process
oriented structure of the core occupational profiles can be endowed with credit points.
This will facilitate to adapt this concept to the qualification framework (cf. Component
3). At the same time and this is considered one of the most important aspects by the
author the orientation to work processes creates a new work oriented basis for
curriculum development (Component 4). With the aid of work processes it is
furthermore possible to cover the socially relevant dimensions of work and the
subjective challenges and to take them into consideration in the training concepts
(Component 5). These five components reveal the most important dimensions
influencing the shaping of core occupations and making a considerable contribution to
the shaping of European oriented vocational education and training structures. The
basis of this is the challenges of the world of work with all its social influences which
differ to a lesser extent in European countries than their vocational education and
training structures.

Summary
The advantages of European core occupational profiles as an answer to the current
demands for comparability, transparency and recognition of different national
vocational education graduations in Europe are evident:
Ways toward a
European VET
space

169

Figure 4.
Convergence of
occupational concepts in
Europe

.
The development will be realised by a Bottom-up approach at a national and
on a European level. Social partners play a decisive role, sector experts support
the shaping of contents.
.
Sector oriented comparability, transparency and recognition can be ensured on
the level of the work processes in terms of contents.

The comparability with national structures is always present as the structuring takes
place on the work process level rather than on the level of the vocational training
systems.
It is crucial to ensure a discussion in terms of contents and quality backed up by
occupational profiles. Emphasis should be given to find out which occupational profile
and which qualification level is necessary for the individual sectors (Spottl, 2005).
Scientists, vocational educationalists and sector representative are invited to offer the
best qualitative solution.

Notes
1. The occupationality approach is generally alleged to result in the exact opposite of what the
European policy has in mind, i.e. not promoting flexibility, permeability, comparability etc.
2. The Leonardo-Project RecyOccupation developed the European core occupational profiles
ECO-recycler for the closed loop and waste economy with six European partners in four
countries (Germany, UK, Spain, and Greece) from 2000 to 2003. The project work carried out
JEIT on the project European RecyOccupation Profile, carried through between 2003 and 2005,
the implementation of the core occupational profiles ECO-recycler was prepared and
32,2/3 started in the countries involved earlier as well as in Slovenia, Lithuania and Austria.

References
Blings, J. and Spottl, G. (2003), ECO-recycler ein europaisches Kernberufsprofil fur die Kreislauf-
170 und Abfallwirtschaft (A European core occupational profile for the closed loop and waste
economy), Impuls-Reihe, Nummer 21, Nationale Agentur fur Bildung in Europa beim
BIBB, Flensburg.
European RecyOccupation Profile Project (2005), Implementation Report Implementierung des
europaischen Kernberufsprofils ECO-recycler in sieben nationalen Systemen
(Implementation of the European Core Profile ECO-recycler in seven national systems),
biat- Schriftenreihe Mt 20, Flensburg.
He, E. and Tutschner, H. (2003), Experiment und Gestaltung, Uber das Wirkungspotential des
Programmes, Vol. 18 No. 34, pp. 35-150.
Kommunique von Maastricht (2004), Kommunique von Maastricht zu den kunftigen Prioritaten
der verstarkten Europaischen Zusammenarbeit in der Berufsbildung (Fortschreibung der
Kopenhagener Erklarung vom 30 November 2002). Maastricht, den 14.12.2004.
Loose, G. (2002), Planning Paper Dual System Project, Dual System Project, Kuala Lumpur.
Rauner, F. and Spottl, G. (2002), Der Kfz-Mechatroniker Vom Neuling zum Experten,
W. Bertelsmann Verlag, Bielefeld.
SEK (2005), 160: Arbeitspapier der Kommission, Beitrag zum Bericht der Kommission fur die
Fruhjahrstagung des Europaischen Rates am 22. und 23. Marz 2005 uber die
Lissabon-Strategie zur wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und okologischen Erneuerung, Brussel,
den 28.1.2005.
Spottl, G. (2005), Sektoranalysen, in Rauner, F. (Ed.), Handbuch der Berufsbildungsforschung,
W. Bertelsmann Verlag, Bielefeld, pp. 112-8.

About the authors


Jessica Blings works for the Institute Technology and Education of the University of Bremen as a
researcher and concentrates on the research emphasis of sustainability in Vocational Education
and Vocational Training. She is responsible for continuing European research projects on the
above mentioned issues. Jessica Blings is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
blings@uni-bremen.de
Georg Spottl is the Director of the Institute Technology and Education and Professor at the
University of Bremen. He looks back on several European research and development projects
aiming at the design of curricula, the identification of skill needs in high tech-fields and the
analysis of work processes in classical sectors as well as newly emerging sectors such as
automotive service or recycling.

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com


Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0590.htm

Putting Dreyfus
Putting Dreyfus into action: into action
the European credit transfer
system
171
Jorg Markowitsch and Karin Luomi-Messerer
3s Research Laboratory, Vienna, Austria
Matthias Becker
Berufsbildungsinstitut Arbeit und Technik, Flensburg, Germany, and
Georg Spottl
Institute of Technology & Education, Bremen University, Bremen, Germany

Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this article is to look closely at the development of a European Credit
Transfer System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET). The European Commission,
together with the member States, are working on it and several pilot projects have been initiated
within the Leonardo da Vinci Programme of the European Commission. The problem of the transfer as
well as a convincing transparency of vocational competences has yet been developed. The aim is to
discuss this in the article.
Design/methodology/approach This contribution illustrates a model using the Dreyfus/Dreyfus
approach of acquisition of profiles in such a way that the levels of competence development are not
applied to overall professional actions (as shown for pilots, nurses, teachers and others), but to smaller
entities of professional profiles.
Findings While strongly taking into account work related tasks and contexts (objects, tools, work
organisation) the authors define groups of competencies and apply Dreyfus ladder to these new
entities. That means the authors adopt Dreyfus model in two ways: by applying the model to groups of
competencies (corresponding to specific core work profiles) instead of using it for overall competency
profiles (corresponding to professionals/ experts); and they make the model flexible and dynamic by not
restricting it to a certain number of levels, but only defining the differences between levels.
Research/limitations/implications The background of the paper is the so-called work process
analysis to identify the work related tasks and related groups of competencies.
Practical implications The article offers a new concept for the European discussion of the
Qualification Framework as well as the Credit Transfer System.
Originality/value This article provides an alternative to existing European policy.
Keywords Europe, Qualifications, Competences, Vocational training
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
The mutual recognition of qualifications is seen as a basic requirement for increasing
the mobility of vocational training and for the development of a European job market.
Amongst other things[1] a system that would make it easier to combine and transfer Journal of European Industrial
contents of education and training and certain competencies is necessary. This is a Training
Vol. 32 No. 2/3, 2008
central goal of the Bruges-Copenhagen Process wherein the EU countries have pp. 171-186
declared their willingness to strengthen cooperation in vocational education and q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0309-0590
training (VET)[2].. In the course of the process, the intention is to create a system for DOI 10.1108/03090590810861703
JEIT VET similar to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS), which for years has been
32,2/3 successfully used for student mobility in the field of higher education. In 2002, a
Technical Working Group (TWG) was implemented by the European Commission in
order to develop a proposal for a European credit transfer system in VET (ECVET).
This working group has meanwhile presented their concepts in several papers without
proposing detailed models[3]. At the same time, projects and initiatives have been
172 promoted and they are working on the exemplary development of some kinds of credit
transfer systems, especially within the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci
Programme[4].
The objectives of these projects, initiatives and of the working group of the European
Commission reach beyond the simple transfer of a university credit point system on
vocational education and training. In order to consider the special requirements of the
internationally very differing educational field, the Commission thinks that we need a
system which is oriented towards the learning outcomes[5] in terms of knowledge, skills
and competencies. The core idea of actual approaches is to focus on the comparability of
learning results. For this purpose the European discussions stated learning units
must be split up into small, standardised units described in the form of learning
outcomes. These units of learning outcomes thus function as a kind of learning atom or
molecule, i.e. small, isolatable and individually revisable units forming our learning
worlds. Although this approach does not openly aim at a unification of learning
processes and contents it is to be feared that it will strongly influence the latter and will
thus become a universal construction set for curricula. In any case, the comprehensive
aspect of competency for employed persons is neglected.
Another and not a completely different approach, aims at considering the
incomparability of training contents (due to clearly different training concepts) via the
comparability of occupations and/ or work processes for which training is carried
through. It is assumed that the occupational requirements in each country can be better
compared than the training courses on which they are based.
As, however, the persons to be trained are in the focus rather than the skilled
workers who are already coping with the task profiles, the preparation of such task and
competency profiles is not sufficient. If details of training courses should be underlined,
also partial profiles must be set up albeit imbedded in a comprehensive concept.
These profiles reveal two dimensions in a simple and a prevailing form: The depth and
the level as well as and the width and the scope of the acquired knowledge and skills. In
other words: In order to carry through a development logical differentiation of a
competency profile (empirical or normative), a competency development model (also:
competency acquisition model) is required.
The following chapters will refer to the competency acquisition model of Dreyfus
and Dreyfus as a basis for the further development of this approach. We like to suggest
a new formulation of the core problem as a basis for the development of an ECVET
system in a way that an international discussion cannot lead to misinterpretations and
false estimations.

How the application of the Dreyfus model shows the way to a solution and
which new problems are emerging
The most popular and in our case most promising model for the acquisition of
competencies[6] is the model designed by Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986a). The model
describes the competency development in five levels from the novice to the expert. In Putting Dreyfus
order to mark the multi-dimensionality of competency development we choose the into action
description in Figure 1, highlighting the characterisation of situations, abilities and
actions at each of these levels.
Based on the competency profile of, e.g. a skilled worker (description of his/her
abilities, his/her expertise), five development levels can be characterized which have
to be run through. Each of these levels is marked by certain characteristics (kind of 173
perception, dealing with rules etc.).
If this approach is also taken into consideration during the training this leads to
abandoning the specialized systematic structure of curricula in favour of the
development of a logical structurisation[7]. The analysis of work processes and work
tasks in their situatedness is crucial for an adequate description of the development

Figure 1.
Use of the
Dreyfus/Dreyfus model to
characterise competency
development
JEIT levels (Rauner, 2004). This includes the descriptions of the objects of occupational
32,2/3 work, the tools, the work organisation, the methods as well as the requirements.
The application of the Dreyfus model for vocational education helps to better
considering the practical knowledge central for these training courses (experience
knowledge, know-how, know-that) and additionally points at didactical implications
which may lead to curricula structured in a development logical way. In order to solve
174 the initial problem, the model offers starting points for an adequate description of the
development of competencies within the framework of a training course. Training
specialisations and/or individual competencies may according to the initial idea
reflect competency requirements in competency levels as soon as they maintain holistic
and occupationally oriented links to work processes. In spite of this process the
approach still faces some problems, which will be sketched below.

a) Area of application
In their dissertations, Dreyfus and Dreyfus refer to the process of competency acquisition
of airplane pilots, chess players, vehicle drivers and adults learning a second foreign
language. The case of the airplane pilots is the only case of a classical occupation. The
three other cases just deal with certain abilities with a relevance for every-day life or
leisure time rather than cohesive vocational training courses. As a consequence, more
comprehensive studies were carried through on nurses (Benner, 1984) and on the car
mechatronic (Rauner and Spottl, 2002). These studies focused on requirements for
occupations as a whole. Benner for example defines seven areas of nursing practice,
subdivided into five to ten sub-areas. Generally, she states (and this is also be shown by
other authors) that reaching level 3, i.e. the level of the actual competent person
(Dreyfus and Dreyfus call this level the competent actor) requires an occupational
practice of two to three years and repeated routines. At the time of their entering their
professional careers, graduates of nursing schools could, however, just be allocated to
Level 2 i.e. the intermediate beginners (Benner, p. 183) Based on this fact the
application of the model for a vocational training course (regardless whether on
secondary or tertiary level) raises the question whether it can be effective at all if only
two out of five levels seem to be relevant. Nevertheless the levels are part of the
competency development model which nowhere defines an absolute competency level for
experts. A vocational training enables students to acquire expertise in certain areas
which in other areas my not be so distinct and which may only reach the level of an
intermediate there. Altogether, the graduation from a vocational training ensures a
relative expertise, a level of competencies which allows for a successful professionalism.
The consideration of this coherence is crucial for the description of competency
development because it points at the embedding of competencies into the work
coherences. A close link of competencies to the respective domain and the context of
skilled work such as vocational education eventually characterizes occupational
competency. Unlike intelligent machines where a sudden decrease of competency beyond
the narrow area of domain (plateau effect) often leads to a failure of machine solutions
for practical tasks, occupational competency is embedded in a context (work and living
coherences) and is reflected in different intensity and multi-layered levels (Becker, 2004).
For example: A mechatronic (to-be) may be an expert when it comes to repair a
malfunction of a certain material flow system where he or she already has experiences.
At the same time he or she may be just an intermediate with regard to the same system
of a different manufacturer (same domain) which is differently structured and for which Putting Dreyfus
completely different programming principles are valid (different context). into action
Competency development of persons in training forms with a focus on holistic fields
of applications can better be mapped with descriptions maintaining the application
coherence than by persons in purely scholastic training systems[8]. A thus unavoidable
preference of training systems featuring a closer interrelationship between theory and
practice, however, is better suited to meet the requirements of vocational education. 175

b) Work process descriptions


Directly linked to this problem is the question how the description of the individual
levels and/or profiles has to be realized and which methods are suitable to develop such
a description. Benner chose the method of pairwise interviews (beginners and
experienced nurses in their role as mentors) and partially group interviews and
compiled and evaluated the thus collected examples (interview transcripts). Rauner
(2004, p. 4 with reference to Bremer et al., 2001) is convinced that these descriptions are
most likely to be successful if they are based on expert-skilled-worker-workshops[9].
All approaches to a description of work processes[10], however, result in the problem
that the description concentrates on the competent coping with occupational tasks.
Implicitly all these descriptions boil down to the highest performance level, i.e. the
expert[11]. By additionally assuming that work process descriptions cannot be
separated from major work coherences (Spottl and Becker, 2005a), the researchers are
confronted with the task to deliver requirement profiles and/or descriptions of the
practice which are aimed at competent persons, skilled persons or experts, i.e. at
persons who have been qualified at this level (the German terminology: volle
Berufsfahigkeit full ability to master an occupation).
With regard to the sketched statement that persons undergoing initial training can
only go beyond the second competency level (intermediates) by making greater efforts
and depending on the complexity of a domain, the perspective of training results in the
problem that comprehensive work process descriptions are rather interpreted as target
orientations which cannot reached offhand during the training course. Furthermore,
the question has to be clarified whether a description of competencies oriented to work
processes do not completely exclude experiences acquired at school. In this connection
it is not yet clarified whether abilities acquired at school can be transferred to the work
situation. Generally, it can be stated that the transfer problem as such has not yet been
solved[12].

c) Heterogeneity of professions and work tasks


It is obvious that the Dreyfus model is working efficiently with professions oriented
towards competency development: the nurse, the car mechatronic, the airplane pilot.
The acquisition of expertise can be very well described for the respective core work
tasks, e.g. flying an airplane. The model is also well suited for a lot of freelance
professions and above all for professions which have strong tendencies towards
professionalism.
However, the model in its current application is only suitable for the increasing
share of occupational reality if the multi-dimensionality is consequently taken into
consideration. And this is why:
JEIT .
The differentiation of the professional field and the related specialisations make
32,2/3 it increasingly harder to define the core work tasks. Therefore, an inherent
dynamics has to be taken into consideration.
.
It is just the increasing expertise in a field, a domain or a profession which leads
to a change of career and thus to new fields of responsibilities and tasks. This
swiftly calls for complex competency descriptions.
176 .
A lot of training, professionalisation and career paths are superficially not
structured in a way to lead from the novice (apprentice) to the expert (master) but
rather to new work tasks whose relevance for competency development must be
determined. The relevant domains have yet to be empirically identified. This has
been shown in the case of the EcoRecycler (Blings and Spottl, 2003).

With respect to these coherences interlinking work complexes can also be found and
described for less profiled and consistent branches and fields of work (Blings and
Spottl, 2003).
The statement has to be scrutinized that the Dreyfus model is a holistic model which
always considers the expert as the target perspective. Dreyfus and Dreyfus are,
however, only holistic in terms of sub-areas which, however, merge in domains. The
holistic aspect refers to the competency of the researcher for the mastering of
occupational work tasks and/or the ability to solve an occupational problem. Only by
reflecting this interrelationship the multi-dimensionality of the professional
competency will become visible[13].

How these problems can be solved and to which extent Dreyfus and
Dreyfus themselves give the decisive hints for a solution
Dreyfus and Dreyfus also provide decisive hints for the solution of these problems.
These hints have so far not been considered in the model as it was not necessary for an
application in sections for certain occupational and every-day competencies. We think
that Dreyfus and Dreyfus are only interpreted in a correct way (and that their model
can be correctly applied) as soon as the following statements are taken seriously. They
are all related to a few pages of introduction to their model concept (Dreyfus and
Dreyfus, 1986a, p. 19):

One is not generally an expert as a person but only for certain areas of competency!
Consequently, an individual will be at the same time an expert with respect to certain types of
problems in his area of skills, but less skilled with respect to others. A businessman, for
example, may show expertise in marketing while at the same time being only competent as
financial planner, and a mere novice when it comes to negotiating a merger (Dreyfus and
Dreyfus, 1986a, p. 20).
Dreyfus and Dreyfus stress that a person cannot at the same time be an expert in
clearly different areas better domains even if he or she requires adjacent or
related fields of tasks for his or her own work. Benner also deals with the topic of
specialisations and gives a concrete example: A nurse who had done a very good job
at the intensive care station found it hard to meet the requirements she faced at a
general surgery station (Benner, 1994, p. 177).
This trivial fact continuously causes considerable difficulties during the consequent Putting Dreyfus
application of the Dreyfus model as it may lead to a differentiation of the expert profile into action
according to tasks[14]. This trap can be avoided if the work processes with their different
dimensions are the focus of the considerations rather than isolated, work oriented
thinking. This always ensures competency structures and profiles encompassing both
the width and the depth. Thus, the problem can be solved by a deliberate differentiation
of an occupational competency profile with the aid of work process orientation and the 177
structurisation according to the Dreyfus competency ladder (Figure 1).
Dreyfus and Dreyfus almost always speak of the person as an expert rather than of
the expertise in competency areas. These formulations imply that the professional
expert is always perceived as someone mastering an absolute expertise for all tasks in
his area of work. He or she is rather marked by a considerate rationality. Such a
rationally does not aim at separating situations into context free elements but to better
assess entire situations. Even Benner who unlike Dreyfus deals with a concrete
differentiation with the aid of competency areas does not strictly differ between the
respective attained expertise within the competency areas and the person as an entity.
This results in the following problem which is more or less inherent in the model: One
talks about experts without defining which competency level in which area must be
attained in order to be recognised as an expert in the entire profession defined by the
individual competency areas[15]. Expertise is thus always a relative dimension.
Someone can also be an expert for simple tasks without reaching expertise in
neighbouring domains. The car mechatronic for example is not an expert per se for all
tasks and problems around the vehicle. He or she is neither the car developer nor does
he or she master all specialized tasks of the branch but he or she can be called an
expert because he or she masters the domain relevant for him or her. The domain
neither includes the vehicle development nor the driving of a car but encompasses
service, repair, diagnosis, and customer advisory tasks with the aim to keep the vehicle
functioning.
The solution of this problem lies in the way of differentiation of different
competency areas which collectively characterize the profile of an occupation.
Competency levels have to be assigned to core work tasks.

Not all persons achieve the expert level for certain competency areas and the latter have
very different meanings for the every-day life or the professional life
Not all people achieve an expert level in their skills. Some areas of skill chess, for example
have the characteristic that only a very small fraction of beginners can ever master the
domain. [. . .] Other areas, such as automobile driving, are designed in a way that almost all
novices can eventually reach the level we call expert, although some will always be more
skilled than others (Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1986b, p. 21).
Here, it becomes apparent that:
.
one and the same level in different competency areas can have both social and
individually different impact; and
.
a comparison of one and the same level across different competency areas does
not make sense.
Experts for motoring and chess experts are completely different in terms of training,
duration of experience, social perception (reputation) and socio-economical importance.
JEIT With regard to a similar point of departure i.e. the introduction of the British
32,2/3 National Vocational Qualification System (NVQ) Eraut also recognises the social
dimension of this problem:
The proponents of this system [NVQ] will argue that it frees qualifications from being defined
by the length of a training course. But it also risks a certain lack of comparability across
occupational sectors; because the amount of training needed to reach Level 3 in one
178 occupation could easily be twice as much as that needed in another. From a learning-needs
perspective this presents no problem, but it conflicts with other societal norms (Eraut, 1994,
p. 185).

A different length of the training course can, e.g. result in different salaries and a
different social prestige[16].
As for our point of departure, the hint is sufficient that defined competency levels
cannot compared to each other (even in one and the same professional area) and that a
basic differentiation in levels nevertheless makes sense because as Dreyfus and
Dreyfus (1986b, p. 21) state: The most talented persons on a competency level will
always perform better than the most talented persons on the level below! This is why
the model makes sense in spite of a limited comparability[17].

There are at least five competency levels!


A careful study of the skill-acquisition process shows that a person usually passes through at
least five stages of qualitatively different perceptions of his task and/or mode of decision
making as his or her skills improve (Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1986a, p. 19).
This is the only point where we think that Dreyfus and Dreyfus may be mistaken, as
there can also be less levels. Dreyfus and Dreyfus assume that all levels have to be
passed through as a matter of principle[18].
First and foremost, it seems to be correct that the number of levels are not meant to
restrict but have to be flexible although some of the levels underpin that it should be
exactly five levels. If, however, qualitative differences can be found, there could also be
more than five. Nevertheless they are mistaken as there is a clear dependence of the
definition of the competency areas from the number of qualitatively distinguishable
competency levels. It may be that five levels exist always and everywhere. They only
cannot always be observed.
This criticism must not automatically lead to abandon the model but should only
stress another need for adaptation. The amount of the competency area in question as
well as a possible further differentiation is discretionary. It is less discretionary but
arbitrary in other respects to state whether these are basic skills. The dependency of
the acquisition of a skill (competency) from another skill (competency) is too little
considered in this model as in most empirical surveys. If the fact that the mastering of
some tasks is a prerequisite for the acquisition of other tasks is to be taken into
consideration, the Dreyfus model must be further developed towards a development
logical model. The development logical coherence of tasks must therefore be more
closely surveyed in order to be able to correctly judge the skills acquired during
training and to assign them an adequate importance.
As a summary, it may be stated that the number of levels is less important for
qualitative description of process oriented tasks, that this dimension can, however,
play an important role for a uniform (international) system and that a differentiation of
tasks must in any case take into account the development logical coherence between Putting Dreyfus
the different tasks and competency areas respectively. into action
The role of examples and development tasks respectively
After discussing the form of the structurisation of descriptions of competency
acquisition, the question remains how the descriptions of the respective competency
areas and the related levels themselves have to be realized. Decisive hints have already 179
been given: The description should be oriented to work process and/or work process
oriented tasks and should be related to the objects of work, the tools, the work
organisation and the methods as well as the requirements in order to avoid to be
haunted by de-contextualisation.
The most efficient means in this connection seem to be good examples, which can
safeguard a consequent link to the context, the domain and the application. It is amazing
that the literature on the application of the Dreyfus models hardly contains any
discussions about the role of the examples although no reasonable description of
competency can do without them. Benners analysis exclusively relies on the tasks, on
real examples, i.e. reports of real cases given by nurses. She also abstracts the different
competencies for the sake of structurisation. These abstracts, however, only serve as
titles whereas the real descriptions of the practice are to be found in interview quotations
or their paraphrases. In this context Benner speaks of paradigmatic cases (Benner,
1994, p. 31). Dreyfus and Dreyfus as well deem the examples central but do not explicitly
pick them out as central themes. A thorough analysis of examples and their importance
for the acquisition of implicit knowledge can, however, be found in the book Impure
Reason by Janik (2002). He writes and you could not put it more clearly:
Tacit knowing refers to a wide variety of things whose only common characteristic is
precisely that they have to be learned by doing rather than by studying. For this reason it is
very hard to say anything about it except by referring to concrete examples and case studies.
Most misunderstandings with respect to tacit knowledge arise because people forget about
the case studies and examples in whose terms alone it can be profitably discussed, and try to
imagine it in the abstract. This is always disastrous. Tacit knowledge means little apart from
examples and case studies.
And Janik speaks out even more clearly: In practical activities examples play the role
that definitions do in theory formation (Janik, 1995, p. 2). One is tempted to continue
and amend:
[. . .] and when it is a good description of practical actions, examples cannot be omitted less
than ever. Examples are not simply an illustrating element of descriptions but they are
playing a constitutive role. Also in the case of the car mechatronic, the empirical examination
of the domain is in the focus of interest and numerous examples characterize the different
competency levels and the expertise necessary to cope with tasks. Only concrete links to the
world of work, to the work processes can characterize the multi-dimensionality of the
challenges behind the tasks (Rauner and Spottl, 2002).
In the case of teaching and curriculum construction, we speak of development tasks
(Gruschka, 1985) instead of precedence, paradigmatic cases or canonical examples. The
simple basic idea is that competency development takes place by the coping with certain
tasks. These tasks have the property to logically support the development of the
professional competencies of the individual. The immanent difficulty is to identify and
JEIT describe the supra-individual logic of development. The approach to a solution is marked
32,2/3 by the fact that only central tasks can be identified within a domain or a profession that
can be used in terms of development tasks (Figure 2). These development tasks maintain
in any case the link to the real requirements of professionals (this is underlined by the
grey areas which mark the depth and the width of core work tasks). Partly, they go
beyond these boundaries and take into consideration that competencies for a certain task
180 (e.g. Task D) require certain competencies for another task (e.g. Task B) and cannot be
developed by starting at the level of a novice (cf. last chapter).
For our arguments it is crucial to mention that examples in the form of central
professional actions are important both for learning (acquisition of
competencies/development of competencies) and for their description. It is a frequent
and completely false conclusion to think that although they do play a role for the
acquisition of competences they could be omitted in the description of the acquisition of
competences.

Example of a competency matrix


By considering all these hints and nevertheless maintaining the Dreyfus model, one
can shape the instrument of a competency matrix[19]. Competency requirements of
different competency areas are described with the aid of examples and/or development
tasks in a sense of work process oriented tasks. Within the framework of the project
VQTS, financed by the European Commission, the Austrian Federal Ministry for
Education, Science and Culture and the Austrian Federal Ministry for Economy and
Work, such a competency matrix was developed for the occupational profile of a
mechatronic and will serve as an example.
In the first column the competency areas or groups of competencies linked to work
process oriented tasks are listed (Figure 3). Based on core work tasks, a varying
number of competence areas are defined, depending on the complexity, range of
activities or job opportunities.
This table merely serves as a rough overview and does not show the acquirable or
actual competencies available to a person in training. In order to be able to show these,
a description of the specifications of the individual competency areas is necessary:
Therefore, 2 to 6 steps of the competency development (SCD) for every competency area

Figure 2.
Competency development
for an occupation by
dealing with development
tasks
Putting Dreyfus
into action

181

Figure 3.
List of competency areas
for relevant work tasks
(First column of the
competency matrix for a
mechatronic)

are described in the second column of the row. Figure 4 is an example of the description
of competency steps for the competency area D. Manufacturing mechatronic parts,
components and systems.
In earlier chapters we have already mentioned some of the basic principles for the
creation of such competency descriptions, which highlight the context of professional
action within a domain: the reference to objects of work, tools, the use of examples. By
considering these principles, it becomes evident, how difficult it is to draw up a good
competency description. Even the examples we have developed in the mechatronics
area do not yet live completely up to these demands. This is especially true for the use
of examples.

Figure 4.
Steps of competency
development for the
competency area D
(column two in the row of
the competency matrix for
a mechatronic)
JEIT It is also clear that in particular with a view to the last set of dimensions described
32,2/3 not always all aspects can be considered in a competency description. Rather
pragmatic paths will have to be stroken and it will only show in practice how
comprehensive these descriptions have to be. Furthermore, specific expert knowledge
is needed, in particular methodical know-how to be developed in order to moderate
processes for the setting up of competency descriptions.
182
Open questions and conclusions
We have shown exemplarily that standardised descriptions of different phases of
competency development of individual persons undergoing training and individual
training programmes respectively can both as a principle and in practice be carried
through with an orientation to domains and contexts. The contents of such competency
matrixes can thus be set up by making use of research instruments above all of work
process analyses (Spottl and Becker, 2005b). Expert workshops and national
consultations of the bodies responsible for training can increase the acceptance at
political and branch levels[20]. The amount and the grade of detailing of the descriptions
can be coped with as it may be assumed that the descriptions will possibly not exceed
two pages. The expenditure for the preparation and the continuous review for all
member states may be assumed to be of lesser importance than the expenditure which
is currently necessary for the preparation and the implementation of Certificate
Supplements. In addition, the certificate supplements are summaries of curriculum
descriptions which are problematic for the mutual recognition of competencies and are
rather suitable to increase the transparency of national training contents.
Although the feasibility may be taken for granted, there are some questions which
we have partly already raised and which we have not yet raised. Finally, we would like
to raise some important questions:

Is all this worth the trouble or are there easier ways?


The question has probably to be affirmed if the task is confined to the target of
exchanging training performances with the aid of an ECVET system. One could
argument that additional formal requirements make the access to education and
educational mobility harder rather than promoting it. Example: At the moment the
stay abroad of a person undergoing training can be arranged comparatively informally
in most of the countries (in Austria up to one year, in Germany up to 25 per cent of the
training period). The introduction of the ECVET, however, is likely to slow down the
current procedures and would at any case require more formal time and efforts for all
persons involved. Another argument is that the promotion of mobility could better be
reached by a liberalisation of current regulations than by a standardisation and
formalisation. Above all, with regard to the exchange of training performances, which
per se do not yet provide any authorisations (as the latter are linked to a graduation)
the risk would be rather small. The students have to prove themselves anyway and in
case they aim at a graduation they have to meet the same criteria as anybody else. Why
build additional obstacles for an access?
The model developed here is nevertheless worth pursuing as its potential for
application clearly exceeds the use within the framework of ECVET as, e.g. for the
creation of national occupational profiles, corporate job profiles or the description of
training profiles, to just name a few. As a help for implementation in a national context
it is not confined to the exchange of training performances but is open to the entire Putting Dreyfus
professional world and the world of work. into action
Can the prerequisite of the comparability of occupational requirement profiles assumed
above really be taken for granted across the boundaries of the countries?
Rather not. At least strictly considered. It is undoubtedly correct that individual job
profiles are internationally seen very similar and comparable conditions may be 183
rather found in the economy than in the educational area. This is simply due to the
fact that the globalisation of the economy is and has always been much more
advanced than this will surely never be the case for strictly nationally determined
educational courses. But even a survey of multi-national enterprises taking advantage
of this fact has revealed that the same jobs in one and the same enterprise in different
national subsidiaries may call for different kinds of competencies (Markowitsch et al.,
2002). There are industry cultural differences that count.
Based on a purely theoretical requirement this assumption is thus not suitable
whereas practically seen the approach is more promising than the attempt to establish
a comparability of the educational systems. Eventually, the approach proposed here
tries to build a bridge between a terminology marked by the educational worlds and a
terminology marked by the world of work. Work processes are thus to be found in
these descriptions along with classical learning tasks.

Does the shaping of curricula really remain unaffected by this instrument of competency
description?
Probably not. In contrast to the current ECTS or ECVET system respectively an
immediate intervention or an adaptation of the curricula is not necessary. In the
long-term, however, an impact on the latter is to be expected. This is especially valid for
those countries or areas which are so far not revealing any curricula oriented to learning
outcomes as there will be a new aspect of traditional curricula through competency
descriptions. If the general trend towards learning output oriented curricula should be
opposed, it is better to stay off the proposed model or to avoid any discussions at all!

Notes
1. European Qualification Framework Commission of the European Communities, 2005;
EUROPASS (http://europass.cedefop.eu.int); Ploteus (http://europa.eu.int/ploteus).
2. See primarily the Copenhagen declaration (EC, 2002).
3. Reports from the technical working groups (TWG, 2004/2005).
4. Vocational Qualification Transfer System (VQTS, see www.vocationalqualification.net), ECTS
for Chemistry Workers (see www.ects-chemie.de/), see also www.leonardodavinci-projekte.org
5. Learning outcomes can be defined as a set of knowledge, skills and/or competences an
individual acquired and/or is able to demonstrate after completion of a learning process
(Tissot, 2004, p. 47).
6. cf. also other competency development models such as the one designed by Schmidt, Norman
and Boshuizen (1990) for physicists. These models seem, however, to be less suitable for our
aim to characterize vocational developments.
7. This was, e.g. applied for car mechatronics (Rauner and Spottl, 2002) and skilled workers in
the recycling sector (Blings and Spottl, 2003).
JEIT 8. Markowitsch has already discussed the consequences of this model for teaching (for
instruction) in another publication (Markowitsch, 2001, p. 137): (...) here the teachings meet
32,2/3 their limits as according to Dreyfus and Dreyfus expertise cannot be taught. The
conventional pedagogy is, however, rather powerless not only with regard to this last
competency level but also in terms of the entire level model. Level 1 clearly forms part of this
area and level 2 is taken into consideration and further developed in pedagogical models.
Starting with level 3, it is evident that the teacher in his and her traditional function will
184 become obsolete. The development of occupational competency as a target of vocational
education cannot solely be promoted by general approaches of pedagogy and calls for
vocationally oriented didactics in order to support the development of competency levels up
to the expert level.
9. The choice of experts who are able to describe the work processes with adequate depth is
crucial. This is not always possible in expert-skilled-worker-workshops. Therefore,
interviews in terms of Benner as well as more comprehensive methodical approaches aiming
at the direct survey of work processes are playing an important role (Spottl and Becker,
2005b; Spottl, 2003).
10. As for a discussion of the term, e.g. Roben (2004).
11. It is crucial to state that the expertise of a person is oriented to occupational work which, on
the other hand, requires a certain embedded competency (relative expertise, see above).
12. The expertise research has proved that the transfer problem is due to a lack of link to the
context and the domain (Becker, 2004).
13. A domain characterizes an area, a dominion or special subject where someone excels in a
special way. Therefore, it seems to be justified to call each delimited acting area a domain
where someone can act in a dominant way. The expertise research makes use of this
opportunity as it assumes that competencies of an expert can only be related to his or her
special subject.
14. Janik et al. (2000, p. 110) underline this problem in their survey on implicit knowledge in
physicists: Due to the extensive specialisation of science and the subsequent expertise of
scientists, the physics expert cannot not found. They introduce the somewhat bulky term
of a partial expert compared to the global expert.
15. There is a close relationship between the individual competency areas, marked by the
domain and the context. The description of isolated competency areas dedicated to work
tasks freed of their context thus does not lead to applicable competency descriptions and
classifications for occupational profiles.
16. This is also the core problem of the so-called European Qualification Framework (EQF),
currently developed by the European Commission: the abstract, occupational and
sector-decontextualised level descriptions do per se represent coherent competency and
applicability and/or level descriptions. They are, however, across the grain of any
occupational reality.
17. The adherence to the Dreyfus terminology may result in problems here as the use of the
same gauge (numerically arranged levels) for different and incomparable competency areas
can easily lead to misunderstandings. As for our approach, we will therefore speak of
competency levels of different, non-numerically arranged competency requirements.
18. Cf. the limitations of Dreyfus and Dreyfus in the case of a pure acquisition of skills (1986b,
p. 227).
19. Within the framework of the VQTS project.
20. Other reflections for the practical implementation are laid down in a document of the VQTS
project (cf. VQTS, 2005).
References Putting Dreyfus
Becker, M. (2004), Domanenspezifische Kompetenzen fur die Facharbeit im Automobilsektor, into action
in Roben, P. and Rauner, F. (Eds), Domanenspezifische Kompetenzentwicklung zur
Beherrschung und Gestaltung informatisierter Arbeitssysteme, W. Bertelsmann, Bielefeld,
pp. 31-44.
Benner, P. (1984), From Novice to Expert Excellence and Power in Clinical Nursing Practice,
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Menlo Park, CA. 185
Benner, P. (1994), Stufen zur Pflegekompetenz From Novice to Expert, Verlag Hans Huber, Bern.
Blings, J. and Spottl, G. (2003), A European core occupational profile for the closed loop and
waste economy. Herausgeber: Nationale Agentur Bildung fur Europa beim Bundesinstitut
fur Berufsbildung (BIBB), in Bremer, R. (Ed.), Impuls-Reihe, Heft-Nr. 9, Bonn, Technik
und Bildung Habilitationsschrift, Bremen.
Commission of the European Communities (2005), Commission staff working document.
Towards a European qualifications framework for lifelong learning, paper presented at
the SEC(2005) 957 conference, Brussels.
Dreyfus, H.L. and Dreyfus, S.E. (1986a), Kunstliche Intelligenz Von den Grenzen der
Denkmaschine und dem Wert der Intuition, Rowohlt, Reinbeck b., Hamburg.
Dreyfus, H.L. and Dreyfus, S.E. (1986b), Mind over Machine The Power of Human Intuition and
Expertise in the Era of the Computer, The Free Press, New York, NY.
EC (2002), Declaration of the European Ministers of Vocational Education and Training, and the
European Commission, Convened in Copenhagen on 29 and 30 November 2002, on
Enhanced European Cooperation in Vocational Education and Training. The Copenhagen
Declaration, EC, Copenhagen, 30 November.
Eraut, M. (1994), Developing Professional Knowledge and Competence, Falmer Press, London,
Philadelphia.
Gruschka, A. (1985), Wie Schuler Erzieher werden Studien zur Kompetenzentwicklung und
fachlichen Identitatsbildung in einem doppeltqualifizierenden Bildungsgang des
Kollgeschulversuchs NW, Wetzlar.
Janik, A. (1995), The concept of knowledge in practical philosophy (in Swedish).
Janik, A. (2002), Impure Reason (in Swedish).
Janik, A., Markowitsch, J. and Seekircher, M. (2000), Die Praxis der Physik Lernen und Lehren
im Labor, Springer Verlag, Wien/New York, NY.
Markowitsch, J. (2001), Praktisches Akademisches Wissen Werte und Bedingungen
praxisbezogener Hochschulbildung, Schriftenreihe des Fachhochschulrates 4,
WUV-Universitatsverlag, Wien.
Markowitsch, J., Kollinger, I., Warmerdam, J., Moerel, H., Konrad, C., Burell, D. and Sellin, B. (2002),
Competence and Human Resource Development in Multinational Companies A Comparative
Analysis between Austria, The Netherlands and United Kingdom, CEDEFOP, Thessaloniki.
Rauner, F. (2004), Praktisches Wissen und berufliche Handlungskompetenz, ITB
Forschungsberichte 14/2004.
Rauner, F. and Spottl, G. (2002), Der Kfz-Mechatroniker Vom Neuling zum Experten,
W. Bertelsmann, Bielefeld.
Roben, P. (2004), Kompetenzentwicklung durch Arbeitsprozesswissen, in Jenewein, K. (Ed.),
Kompetenzentwicklung in Arbeitsprozessen, Bildung Arbeitswelt Band 9, Vol. 9,
Nomos-Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden.
JEIT Spottl, G. (2003), Work Process Analyses as Instrument for Developing Standards, Flensburg:
biat, Kuala Lumpur.
32,2/3 Spottl, G. and Becker, M. (2005a), Work related zones of mutual trust (WRZMT) as a basis for a
model for credit transfer in vocational education and training, discussion paper within the
project VQTS Vocational Qualification Transfer System, Flensburg.
Spottl, G. and Becker, M. (2005b), Arbeitsprozessanalysen Ein unverzichtbares Instrument fur die
186 Qualifikations- und Curriculumforschung, in Huisinga, R. (Ed.), Bildungswissenschaftliche
Qualifikationsforschung im Vergleich Qualifikationsbedarf und Curriculum, Band 3, Verlag
der Gesellschaft zur Forderung arbeitsorientierter Forschung und Bildung, Frankfurt am
Main, pp. 111-38.
Tissot, P. (2004), Terminology of vocational training policy a multilingual glossary for an
enlarged Europe, CEDEFOP, available at: http://europass.cedefop.eu.int/img/dynamic/
c313/cv-1_en_US_glossary_4030_6k.pdf (accessed 15 January 2006).
TWG (2004), Principles and essential rules for implementation of a European credit transfer
system for vocational education and training (ECVET), interim report of the working
group, Brussels, 23 November.
TWG (2005), European Credit System for VET (ECVET), Technical Specifications, Report of the
credit transfer technical working group.
VQTS (2005), Competence Certificate, Proposal for Implementation of an ECVET-Procedure
Developed within the Framework of the VQTS Project, VQTS, Vienna.

About the authors


Jorg Markowitsch is Chairman and Managing Director of 3s Management Consultancy in
Vienna/Austria. He was responsible for numerous European research projects on vocational
education and training and the development of the labour market. Among others he concentrates
on issues of efficient management. Jorg Markowitsch is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: markowitsch@3s.co.at
Karin Luomi-Messerer is responsible for research at 3s Management Consultancy in
Vienna/Austria. Above all, she is managing European projects and currently works on issues on
the European Qualification Framework and the Credit Point System.
Matthias Becker is Junior Professor at the Institute for Vocational Education and Technology
of the University of Flensburg. He is doing research in the fields of automotive service,
curriculum development and design of occupational profiles.
Georg Spottl is director of the Institute Technology and Education, Bremen University. He
looks back on several European research and development projects targeting at the design of
curricula, identification of skill needs and the analysis of work process in classical sectors as well
as newly emerging sectors such as car-service or recycling.

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com


Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0590.htm

The European
VET in the European aircraft and aircraft and
space industry space industry
Rainer Bremer
Institute of Technology & Education, Bremen University, Bremen, Germany 187
Abstract
Purpose This article aims to take up a mirror image-oriented position of the EQF and the
announced ECVET system. It seeks to be concerned with the effects that the EQF transformation
process into the respective NQF might have on the underlying systems of vocational education and
training.
Design/methodology/approach A comparison is drawn between the competence development
the four different VET systems in France, Germany, Spain, and the UK initiated by the identical
qualification demands of the sector of aircraft industry (AIRBUS plants in France, Germany, Spain,
and the UK). This serves as a finding for the evaluation of the EQF and the effects it will could on the
sector of the European aircraft industry.
Findings Three hypothesises on: convergence of skill requirements because of the technologies and
procedures tend to become the same all over the world if the same products are manufactured;
divergence of the national VET systems as a consequence of adaptation such requirements; and a
structural reference between requirements and the development of competence, are tested and
validated.
Research limitations/implications The research was confined to the aircraft and space industry
and one enterprise co-operating in France, Germany, Spain, and the UK.
Practical implications It was possible to establish two European occupational profiles for this
sector (aircraft mechanic and avionic). The applicability of a method for depicting competence
development based on Havighursts theory of developmental tasks, is expected to be improved.
Originality/value A method of evaluating competence development was applied that can be used,
despite some differences.
Keywords Competences, Individual development, Europe, Vocational training, Aircraft industry,
Aerospace industry
Paper type Research paper

Education and training in the European aircraft and space industry


anticipated problems resulting from insufficient EQF quality
Shortcomings of the EQF: standardisation of vocational education and training without
reference to their contents?
Experience with the AERONET project and the still relatively new application of its
instruments suggests that the establishment of transparency regarding training
performance and results depends on feedback concerning the quality of two variables,
namely the form of the individual learning processes and the organised teaching
processes. The article therefore deals with the disclosure of interrelationships between
learning requirements and their accomplishment as learning achievement, respectively Journal of European Industrial
of learning results. Training
Vol. 32 No. 2/3, 2008
In order to be able to make comparisons, it is necessary to have something by which pp. 187-200
quality can be determined. Comparisons with sustainable results will hardly be q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0309-0590
achieved by technical terms and conditions alone. DOI 10.1108/03090590810861712
JEIT The more or less openly admitted schematics or list of precedence of a comparison
32,2/3 like the EQF, which tries not to intervene in the national systems, must blank out the
content factor, as that, which is to be compared. This runs the risk of basing the system
of comparison on a quid pro quo, a mix up, notably a confusion of the concepts of what
and how. The tertium comparationis of the comparison is not even determined from
the outset.
188 This constructional deficit or design fault characterises the EQF as a whole. A
methodologically significant part within the text states that: the concept of
qualification is of great significance for an EQF and needs to be defined in such a
manner, that the existing, generally acceptable usages of this term are covered as much
as possible.
The following definition, which is based on the work of the OECD, is suggested:
A qualification is attained, when a responsible authority decides, that the level of learning
which a person has reached in regard to knowledge, skills and competency, corresponds to
the specified requirements.
Confirmation concerning the attainment of the sought after results, takes place by an
evaluation process or a successfully completed course of studies.
Learning as such, and the evaluation of knowledge from a qualification perspective,
can take place in the context of a course of education and/or in the framework of
vocational experience.
A qualification comprises of official acknowledgement, that is recognised and
accepted on the labour market and moreover enables the continuation of education and
training. A specific qualification can legally entitle someone to carry out a trade, or
pursue a specific career.
The value of such qualifications is essentially backed up by authorised state and/or
federal education and vocational training authorities, who provide educational and
vocational accreditation. Increasingly, however, it can be observed that facilities and
associations outside of the official context of national qualification policies are claiming
the right to confirm learning results officially and bindingly. An EQF must make
allowance for such tendencies, in order to facilitate connexions between national and
sectored qualification frameworks and systems (SEK, 2005, p. 14).
The problematical aspects of this concept are characterised by the fact, that it
considers the question about the quality of training on the basis of the national
systems, to have been answered, in order to then pass off a commensurability of EQF
and ECVET procedures with the normal characteristics of these systems, as a core
component of the measures for the attainment of transparency in the establishment of
vocational qualifications.
This however, leads to absurdities, as the deciding parameter does not occur, as a
consequence of the EQFs characterisation by hierarchical thinking and its associated
two-dimensionality. The eight stages involved, begin with simple tasks and are
completed with the classical academic professions. If vocational training is to have a
logical place in this, then it will be somewhere in between. That at least is how it appears.
In order to avoid any misconceptions about member countries being forced to adopt
systemic structuring with standardised classifications, the level of professional and
vocational standards such as for example, that concerning nurses, will remain open in
its graduations. Reasons for this include, that in one particular country, a specific
course of studies has to be undertaken at university for instance, whereas in another The European
country, it is sufficient to absolve a course at a vocational school, and in a further aircraft and
country, it may be obligatory, to do courses that are completed by sitting for an
examination. Such differences appear to be covered by the graduations. The vertical space industry
organisation does not depend prima facie on rigid classifications (Grollmann and
Rauner, 2006).
The complementary ECVET approach however, lies athwart to this, ideally 189
speaking, horizontally. More or less well organised vocational training, as regards time
and contents, like education and training or in other terms, development, would be
impossible to be represented on a vertical scale, but rather the dimension of breadth, on
what in principle, is the same level, but nevertheless, a level, on which the tasks have to
be mastered discretely.
In view of their potential dissimilarity, an additional dimension, could come into
play, namely that of depth, where formally identifiable competence is individually
elaborated. The EQF mixes up this dimension of depth with the hierarchically intended
height dimension of differences, caused by their formally imagined provenance.
The EQF confuses the diversity that it ostensibly wants to endorse, mistaking
diversity with a surface or colourful facade, which must perforce, remain a Potemkin
village from the perspective of vocational education and training, as long as the range
of individual development of competence is not recognised, by the acceptance of all
such qualities that are not envisaged in the hierarchical interpretation of graduations.
The instrument recommends a height dimension in order to facilitate differentiation,
which requires an appreciation of depth and range of qualification instead.
Serious deficits must be reckoned with after the implementation of a national EQF
in the supplementation by an ECVET system, in light of this major lack of a conception
of the empirical qualities, of vocationally attained competency.
The example of the European Aircraft and Space Industry, allows us to call to mind,
the German pilot project experience over the past 15 years:
Shortly after the introduction of the training workshops and the recognition of the
consequences of the overly school-like structure of vocational training courses, an attempt
was already made at countering the poverty of experience, of what for all intents and
purposes, was a well organised form of learning. This was done by the application of
countless models and by means of diverse concepts. Although this was a well-intentioned
approach, it was nevertheless characterised by a paucity of demands and standards
(Dehnbostel, 2001; Bremer, 2004, Krogoll, 1991; Rohlfing and Schenk, 1990).
Decentration and self-operationalisation processes (Bremer, 2004; Lenzen, 1973;
Heursen, 1995) central to the development of vocational competency and autonomy,
cannot be attained through the functions, of what is largely institutionalised and
deliberately targeted teaching. The gap between working conditions and learning
conditions cannot be overcome by approaches of this kind. Flagrant examples
illustrating this situation, include individuals, who successfully completed their
vocational training with excellent examination results, but who are none the less,
regarded as only barely disposing over the necessary vocational aptitude in their
chosen occupational paths. Causal factors contributing to this are the overly school-like
structure of vocational learning and the departure of training from the work processes,
where the mastery of work processes must ultimately be the logical goal of any form of
training (Rauner, 1999).
JEIT The model experiments used for measuring the quality of vocational education and
32,2/3 training, both implicitly and explicitly, by testing in real places of employment and
work environments, were aimed at reducing this gap between professionalised
learners, and learners empowered to competently carry out their occupations. On the
other hand, the two dimensions of the EQF and the ECVET only constitute the
provenance and stages, perhaps merely the elements of the path of education and
190 training. Both constructs thus remain auto-referential, falling short of the quality of
individually experienced education and training biographies and thereby, of that
which individuals tend to bring along as their very own potential, in terms of
knowledge and ability, the delivery of which can only however, be achieved within
work processes, the mastery of which leads to the growth of those very competences.
These then represent the subjective prerequisites, of what are generally termed
qualifications required on the labour market. Certificates are meant to symbolise:
[. . .] the attainment of a qualification, when a responsible body decides, that a persons
acquired level of learning corresponds to the specified knowledge, skills and competence.
The quality of education and training thus lies in the hands of an administration intent
on confusing the issue of the organisation and systemic limitation of the acquisition of
competences, with competency itself.
In reality, the situation is quite the opposite. A qualification should only be certified
when someone actually has it. Where the development context of qualifications and
competences is given over to a system lacking in quality, such as the EQF and the
ECVET, by means of competitive mechanisms and other instruments of subjective
economics, a complete self-actualisation of the education and training systems will
ensue, by virtue of the decoupling of vocational requirements a problem that has
already become apparent in the sector of the European Aircraft and Space Industry.

Procedures to be undertaken in AERONET


A small pilot project will be undertaken in the AERONET project over the coming two
years. One production site of the AIRBUS aircraft manufacturer of each member
country will participate, together with the local training centres and where appropriate,
a number of schools, complemented by a correspondingly engaged institution of
vocational education and training or a labour market research institution. The project
work will be carried out on three levels in all four countries involved. The project work
includes manufacturing; training (including the training centres) and optionally, the
trade schools, as well as a monitoring institution, which can follow the respective
national system through its particular horizon. The make up of the partnership aims at
establishing and securing the project-wide principle of an identical participation
structure. Project-wise, the design of the partnership aims at assuring an in principle,
identical participation structure. System-wise however, this necessitates giving
preference to a functional equivalence of the partners, rather than a formal equivalence.
The partners are therefore not perceived from their formal role as an institution, but
rather as organisations that fundamentally have to fulfil the same task, namely, that of
qualification for the manufacturing of aircraft. The differences between the individual
national education and training systems can thus be avoided. An equally functional
role is hypothetically presumed for them. We hence dont need to apply comparativistic
methods to the systems (such as occupational regulations, the types of qualification
and qualification models or education and training based on them), but instead, work The European
out the methodically conducted identification and logically consistent use of a tertium aircraft and
comparationis to be found in sector specific skilled work.
The AERONET pilot project is not meant to retain the status of a special case. It is space industry
initially necessary to limit the focus onto one sector, if the originality of educational
systems and training systems is to be empirically assessed beyond systemic
structures. A different procedure would lead to generalisations being made, that could 191
hardly bear up to the scrutiny of results gained from sectors such as the health system,
gastronomy or skilled service and maintenance work. Our approach is to make a virtue
out of this limitation, by researching the sector simply as what it is, a sector. It is
organised as a large-scale industry and is therefore comprised off several
internationally competitive companies. The key to understanding the challenges and
problems associated with personnel development, the development of education and
training as well as on-going training at the European Aeronautic Defence and Space
Company (EADS), is the authentic trans-national nature of the enterprise group EADS
and its subsidiaries such as AIRBUS.
EADS is not merely a transnational enterprise with national origins and branches or
plants in additional countries, but a truly transnationally positioned enterprise, that
developed from the merger of strong erstwhile partners. The transnational character is
illustrated well by the example of Airbus, the largest EADS division, which has plants
in Germany, France, England and Spain.
The different Airbus plants together produce an aircraft family that has been very
successfully introduced onto the world market and for a time, wrested the market
leadership from the renowned Boeing enterprise. Every aircraft sold by AIRBUS has
components and modules produced on the basis of the division of labour between the
four participating countries, at the locations consolidated under AIRBUS. A significant
characteristic here is that the individual functionalities are transnationally staffed and
geared. Thus, we find German engineers having their supervisor in France or British
workers having their team leader in Germany, whereas production takes place in all
four countries, according to the same standards, subject to the same quality
requirements and very importantly, under comparable cost considerations.
Work organisation and work processes are largely identical in the context of
Best-Practice organisation. Even though an aeroplane is not really an article of mass
production, its market chances as a de facto costly, but also extra-ordinarily long-lived
investment (producer durable) good, depend not only on high quality and an attractive
price, but also on the variability and adaptability, with which the needs and
requirements of airlines are met, as regards the network of flying routes and the
passenger volume.
The market for aircraft of such dimensions must moreover be universally described
as a global market, as the aircraft are not only sold to all four corners of the globe, they
also fly to destinations everywhere.
There is neither rivalry nor competition for the products of the Aircraft and Space
Industry between the partners on a national level! Instead, competition is exclusively
international. Next to no other product fulfils the criterion of globalism as
comprehensively as a civilian passenger aircraft for commercial use.
What this means for the criterion of quality follows from the question concerning
safety, which already props up in earnest for laypersons, such as passengers for
JEIT instance. Structures like bridges or tunnels can be built stably and made to look stable
32,2/3 as well. This type of safety technology is eliminated in aircraft construction. Oversized
components and assemblies, or design engineering dimensioning, make aeroplanes
unnecessarily heavy, more uneconomical and ultimately only marginally safer, since
even though individual systems may be stable, they cannot in principle, be constructed
fail-safe. Both stability and the fundamentally not to be ruled out likelihood of
192 breakdown or malfunction, have generated completely different safety technology in
aircraft manufacturing, with the principle of redundant construction of the most
significant components and units.
This has taken place under the most stringent requirements, on national, European and
worldwide levels. What matters in terms of redundancy, is the utilisation of lightweight
materials and the sparing use of the necessary, expensive raw materials such as titanium
alloyed steel. A plethora of materials and processes rarely utilised outside of the aircraft
industry is used, to attain the highest degree of quality, operational safety and reliability of
the product. The global market necessitates the yardstick of cost-effectiveness, whilst
being innovative at the same time i.e. not merely relying on the tried and tested.
Keywords used in this text, such as the transnationalism of an enterprise, globalism
of a product in marketing terms, putting the finished product into service, the quality
and cost-effectiveness of the product on a world market, as well as the singularity of
materials and processes used, are the terms, by which the dimensions are expressed, in
which the qualifications of the workforce need to be as highly developed as possible.
Quality differences such as those still apparent between American cars on the one hand
and European and Japanese cars on the other cannot be tolerated in the manufacture of
a global product like an aeroplane.
Where only extremely small tolerance margins are allowed for a product for safety
reasons and there is the additional benchmark focus on a world market, this
significantly influences the qualification requirements expected of the different
workforces. What this means for the workforce, is that the workers too, must satisfy
the minimum requirements, which by the very nature of the product already
potentially lie within the realm of maximum or highest requirements.
Technological and work organisation induced tendencies have thus, long
established themselves within the entire European Aircraft and Space Industry,
placing almost equally identical demands on the manpower in their form and contents.
The traditional divergence between the systems partially stands in stark contrast to
this. It is hardly surprising therefore, that those people, who have the responsibility for
qualification and need to conciliate between the latent discrepancy between national
differentiation of vocational education and training systems and the universalised
convergence of these contrasting requirements, have to date, done this on completely
separate levels (in enterprises, training centres, schools, teacher training institutions,
institutes for curriculum development and pedagogical research).
Notwithstanding this, certification systems do exist, through agreements between
industry and regulatory authorities, which also affect vocational and professional
training. The JAR (Joint Aviation Requirements) respectively, the EASA regulations
(European Aviation Safety Agency) that have superseded the former JAR-regulation
agreements define a common European and significantly, no longer, American level of
requirements, which must be implemented on a national level, through education
and/or training.
The possibility of succeeding in developing a set of vocational task oriented The European
requirements in this sector, given the opportunities for combining the four prototypes aircraft and
of European traditions of vocational education and training of the member countries is
very real. This can be carried out through cooperation with the EADS locations in the space industry
four European countries, in which different forms of access, identical result
requirements, experience and solutions exist concurrently, so that one or two European
core occupations crystallise, which provide a suitable basis for expanded certification. 193

Prerequisites at the different locations


Functional differences exist in the division of both work and labour, regarding
vocational qualification, according to the respective national organisation of vocational
education and training. The Dual System in Germany has produced the categories of
teachers on the one hand, and trainers on the other.
There are in addition, workers within industrial manufacturing and the service
industry, who are directly involved in the creation of added value, i.e. the real net
output and who are also engaged in the mentoring and supervision of trainees for
qualification purposes.
In countries with a school based vocational education and training system and
institutionally defined job descriptions, teachers and trainers accordingly have a
highlighted role. In factories and production shops on the other hand, there are the
trainers or specialists, who also play an important role in qualification, without
necessarily disposing over the obligatory pedagogical qualifications, simply through
their own professional skills and knowledge (France).
A further vocational education and training system exists, organised academically
on the basis of modules, without job descriptions or occupational images and which
accordingly, displays a diversity of qualification building blocks and elements.
These are not as a rule, occupation based or branch related, since what is important
here, is the attainment of non-specialised qualifications or special, directly usable
qualifications. Teachers also play an important role here, while the enterprises are
more or less free to make the personnel required by them for education and training
into professionals (UK).
Finally, there are also European countries that dont have any significant state
organised, public vocational facilities at the non-academic Post-Sixteen level, and
which thus leave the task of qualification of the up and coming young workforce to the
shop floor level. This leads perforce to a significant, but non-uniform role of privately
organised, accountable vocational training (Spain).
We thus find four characteristic systems of vocational qualification:
(1) Systemic independent, dual, private respectively, state organised (AIRBUS
Germany);
(2) Systemic independent, academically respectively, state organised (AIRBUS
France);
(3) Interlocked with the labour market, modular individualised structure, privately
accountable, but state supervised (AIRBUS United Kingdom);
(4) Polytechnic direction. No labour market orientation as regards the skilled work
level (AIRBUS Spain).
JEIT This divergence of responsibility between the changing private and public systems can
32,2/3 only be answered by one basic approach, namely, one, that takes up the effects of what
according to the hypothesis, are associated with a convergence of requirements, as a
result of the tendency towards universalism. Where the tasks of skilled work include
requirements relevant to training and qualification, they can be addressed in sector based
and location oriented task setting, so as to operationalise them for training purposes.
194 The competencies and skills necessary for working on and with aircraft
respectively, flying objects, must therefore firstly be ascertained at the different
plant sites, on the basis of direct added value. It is anticipated, that these competencies
can initially be described in the form of task specific requirements. In other words, the
tasks which the workforce has to fulfil would have to be identified in the context of the
respective production, before questions regarding the volume or breadth of tasks that
an individual employee should be able to master, are posed. This then furnishes the
normative goals of the required education and or training.
A comprehensive collection of such tasks, would at the same time, also reflect the
operational work organisation and division of labour, even though this would not be on
a job description or related level. It would nevertheless be a very functional basis. That
element of the structure of occupational image, which would not normatively be the
basis for planning, would become transparent.
Such a sector and location oriented setting of tasks, would initially, have a strong
business orientation. An appropriate method for the generalisation of the results is
therefore important. This would also enable the validation of the consolidated findings,
gained at the individual enterprise locations, about vocational tasks and their
requirements.
Three steps are required for this:
(1) Illustration of the qualification requirements of the European Aircraft and
Space Industry pertaining to skilled work by the ascertainment of sector and
location based task setting.
(2) Comparison of these location settings through a broadened validation process.
(3) Comparison of the existing qualification enhancing training goals, associated
with these settings, possibly documented by means of codes of conduct,
curricula, examination provisions, et al.

The sequence of steps one and two stands for the reference to the requirements.
These are vested in the product, the organisation of its production, as well as the
technologies and processes utilised for production.
Step three represents the attempt at making an inventory of the existing, well-tried
qualification measures related to the work process, in their respective system-specifics.
This step obviously also incorporates the problems that may result from either too
great a distance of training to work processes or vice versa, too much proximity. Both
situations could result in deficits of the theory, which in turn, could hinder the further
vocational development of an employee.
The execution of the third step opens up a further possibility for the investigation of
applied training, as it occurs in the four countries involved in the common aircraft
company. As soon as the country specific qualification and training guidelines are known,
then empirical methods can be implemented for investigating, how these specifications
relate to the documented task based work, and how the required qualifications evolve in
the individual development process. Here, we put a method contiguous to work processes The European
to the test, for the evaluative ascertainment of specialist competency. aircraft and
The aim here, is to use the elements involved with the first step, (sector and location
based task) and the fundamentals of the second step (validation and inventory of the space industry
existing work process related qualification measures in their respective system
specifics) as a basis and to enrich these with a new method, where the level of
requirements represented in the setting of tasks, is crossed with the respective forms of 195
training in such a manner, that the trainees become aware of the state of their skills and
knowledge and abilities in close relationship to the requirements of the vocation
rather than their systemically divergent, organised vocational learning.
This lends itself to inferring the manifestation of complex vocational work tasks
from the hypothesis formulated under (1) about the universalisation of qualification
requirements, the overcoming of which necessitates inter-workplace competencies.
Without getting into adversity through imposing occupations as normative
constructs onto these tasks, professionalism can be recognised in regard to such tasks,
against the background of its technologically and organisationally contingent
structure, brought about by the mastery of just these tasks.
In addition to the objective factor, contributed by the requirements inherent in work
and organisation, there is also a subjective response, which bestows something like
professionalism on a set or an ensemble of tasks. This touches on the second
hypothesis, on which the EVABCOM project is methodologically based (see Figures 1
and 2).
Tasks of this nature will be set in all countries, during the course of further
developments within the AERONET project. The criterion used, is not so much the
learning level, as might be presumed i.e. the question as to whether suchlike was learnt
or not, but rather the real, actual task posed similarly everywhere.
In steps one and two it is ascertained beforehand, whether a task can really be
considered to mutually apply. Where this is found to be the case, an informed
judgement can be made about the performance effectiveness of the national
respectively, sector specific training and qualification systems, on the basis of the task
or the level of solutions worked out by the test person(s).
By this means, AERONET attempts to compare the training performance of the
different countries, and avoid drawing results exclusively from the logic of these
systems.

Figure 1.
Example of the
documentation of research
results developed as a
consequence of steps one
and two
JEIT
32,2/3

196

Figure 2.
Example of an evaluation
task, with reference to the
task

The reason behind avoiding this is not a methodological one, of ambitious comparison
it rather arises from an interest in the optimisation of the learning processes, in the
sense of the quality requirements of the sector. This typically results in the
establishment of transparency, since one of the prerequisites is the establishment of a
yardstick for comparison.

Three hypotheses about the development of vocational education and


training in Europe
The sector typical requirements identified for skilled work represent the logical goal of
qualification and training. That is why they proffer the third approach, which not
only enables comparisons to be made in principle, but also helps furnish criteria that
allow comparisons to be made beyond the descriptively attainable findings, providing
a more or less operative quality.
Further-going investigations about this have already been undertaken, which lead
to the description of the empirical cores of primarily, sector specific occupations and
second, to European occupations. This is presented in more detail elsewhere (Bremer,
2005). The hypotheses are only intended to be named in their fundamental roles here.
The following hypotheses can be made: using the example of AERONET in a
scrutiny of the European training and qualification systems:
H1. Hypothesis of convergence resulting from universalisation. The raw materials
and semi-finished goods available on global markets, as well as technologies in
the form of production facilities, demand ever more similar requirements,
regarding the quality of the products and consequently, also the quality of the
work that needs to be carried out during the manufacturing process. The
qualification requirements are thereby also subject to a type of universalisation.
H2. Hypothesis of divergence as a consequence of adaptation. Every tendency
towards universalisation must first be realised on the basis of local adaptation,
characterised by traditional leeway and expressed for instance, through the
divergence of the education and training systems. Such differences will The European
undoubtedly remain for quite a considerable time. aircraft and
There will therefore continue to be a big gap between systems, which organise gainful space industry
employment, from the perspectives of economics and education, on a vocational level,
and systems that only know employment conditions without coherent occupational
regulations.
Focussing on the functional character of the education and training systems, it
197
furthermore seems to be the case, that they are more directly affected by the tendency
towards universalism than the qualified work itself.
With it as the primary, socio-economically contingent forces may have an additional
influence on the tendency towards universalism, so that the work that has to be done in
the important dimensions of the division of labour and in organisation, for their part,
remain a type of adaptation product.
The education and training systems existing in a secondary relationship to this, will
on the other hand have to accept this adaptation process as a norm, at the price of their
functionality, if only, so as not to obstruct it.
The factor of obstruction for instance, caused the tendency for the overly school-like
structure of vocational training, forced through in Germany during the 1980s, to be
superseded for instance, by the concept of business process orientation and work
process orientation during the 1990s (Bremer and Jagla, 2000).
A fatal characteristic already becomes evident here, one, that hits the systems quasi
from below, from that ground which supports them both materially and economically.
If they, within their respective national contexts, act as subsystems of the reproduction
of qualification to those systems, that in turn operate with them, and carry out
production, then the proprietary function of the education and training systems limited
in this way, acquires a precarious aspect of originality, or more poignantly, the coercive
necessity thereto, inherent in the tendency towards universalisation.
During periods of only minor changes in the contents of qualification and
corresponding forms, the relationship of interdependence between the subsystem of
the reproduction of qualifications and the goal system which this requires for
productive purposes, is characterised by easily handled traits. The renewal of
qualifications is not only pedagogically something fundamentally different to the
changing of qualifications.
Where the functional imperative of procuring qualifications is no longer exclusively
understood as renewing, but rather, changing that which is to be renewed, then a
further, disproportionately more difficult to answer imperative appears, one, which
Luhmann once roughly outlined as follows:
[. . .] the educational system . . . can recognise the problem therein, that the education and
training that is carried out, is too general, too theoretical, too far removed from practical
application and does not sufficiently prepare for the special requirements of the individual
vocations.
Should curriculum planning be reformed in this sense, then the counter argument that
training must prepare for an as yet, innominate future and the likelihood of job change [. . .] is
obvious. The education and training system thus initially transforms the relationships to the
economy into the paradoxicality of contrary planning recommendations, a paradoxicalness
with which it can work internally. It unfolds the paradoxy by either seeking objectively
different implementation concepts or by oscillating time-wise between both
JEIT recommendations. Although one cannot in principle, find any sensible solutions in this way,
sensibility for requirements can however be maintained and reproduced, that can improve the
32,2/3 opportunities on the labour market (Luhmann, 2002, p. 126).
Sociological analysis cannot contribute anything further to work of this nature that
needs to be organised internally. The actual frame of reference, the organised skilled
work or gainful employment, respectively, the level of requirements existing therein,
198 constitutes itself technologically, economically and politically.
A change of these requirements causes a repositioning of the precarious imperative
for change between the internally progressing function of vocational education and
training and the externally demanded need for qualification as its procuration.
The conundrum about the quality of a qualification (which is the appropriate one?)
and the problem of quantity (how many does one need?) is innately ubiquitous,
whereas its solution remains local.
It can therefore be said, that the learning conditions faced by individuals are
fundamentally different to the working conditions, for which they are being prepared.
Consequently, the vocational education and training institutions are likewise unable to
model themselves as exact copies of the frame of reference and its structures.
An additional endogenously effective factor comes into play in their case, which
may have multiform variants, but which is also characterised by restricted plastic
pronounced learning conditions.
The compulsion towards originality is therefore twofold, resulting on the one hand,
from the educating function, which only produces something like the fungibility of
applicable qualifications at the end, and on the other hand, the existing pressure to
adapt, emanating from the frame of reference.
The two hypotheses about the convergence of vocational requirements, caused by
universalisation, and that of the adaptation contingent divergence of their qualificational
response, need to be supplemented by an additional hypothesis. The third hypothesis
can be extrapolated as a consequence of the other two, if they are viewed from the
perspective of the impartment of qualifications. Then it reads as follows:
H3. Hypothesis of the structural reference between requirements and the
development of competence. A structural reference exists between the
qualificationally relevant vocational work tasks (skilled work or gainful
employment) and the individual competencies that need to be developed, the
acquisition of which provides access to the qualificational goal system (skilled
work or gainful employment).
Structurally speaking, what this means, is that the reference between the place where
requirements are experienced and the overcoming or fulfilling of these through
learning, also exists in situations where at the surface of the training, the significance
of such experience is not apparent.
It can thus be said, that the qualification requirements needed not only in skilled
work, in technologies and processes, and in the organisation and division of labour, by
which they are structured are objectified, but furthermore, that their procuration is also
teleologically located there.
In this respect, even though the difference between learning conditions and work
conditions will always remain from the perspective of the learning individual, the goal
of vocational learning is also, to overcome this difference through learning.
The organisation of the learning component of qualification through contents, The European
curricula, methods and teaching aids, has a teleological reference point, where from the aircraft and
perspective of the objective work requirements, the fulfilment of tasks is a no less
unavoidable condition of work. These conditions result as opposing variables in the space industry
dimensions of productivity, quality and cost-effectiveness, which can only be
reconciled on a professional level.
The learners are confronted by the standards of professionalism in the carrying out 199
of job tasks in each single one of them, by making the experience, that a longer course
of development is needed, in order to be able to offer acceptable quality, in an
acceptable time frame, and by the avoidance of specific costs.
In the face of all the prevailing national systemic conditions, it therefore makes
sense to look at these standards as qualification requirements, or more or less, hidden
norms of the goal system, the attainment of which, leads to occupational expertise, in
which the required skills presume a non-trivial, non-amateurish level.
By means of a type of interim resume, the following formulation can be made, on the
basis of the three hypotheses:
Appropriate access to the different systems of vocational qualification needs to
respect the requirements referred to in H1 on the one hand, and on the other hand, to
avoid the restrictions referred to in H2, so as to make sure, that the national
respectively, systemically characterised regional forms of vocational training are not
merely comparatively accessible.
A descriptive level of modern industrial work thus becomes necessary which
enables sufficiently deep access to skilled competency in both the broader and the
narrower sense. It is important here, to conceptualise the differing systemic
requirements indicated in H2 as a changeable frame of development, for every type of
attainable vocational competence.
The proprietary dimension then is, what has already been referred to as the
original characteristic structure of the training systems, with which they have to
make allowance for the fact, that every form of objectively demanded qualification is
based on learning processes, in the sense of the devolution of the processes of
competence development and consequently on individual performance.
Education and training systems are based on the one hand, on the response to
objectively set qualification requirements, and then again, always also, on the no less
objective learning conditions of the individuals.
It may be realistically assumed that system factors like provisions, rules and
regulations, up to rather informal influences, regarding their didactic-methodical
intelligence, have to be considered in terms of the context of potentially highly demanding
work processes. The latter provide access to empirical vocational contents. The
opportunity is provided by the hypothesis, regarding the universalisation of qualification
requirements formulated under H1, to infer their manifestation in complex vocational
work tasks the accomplishment of which presuppose cross-work place competency.
Without worrying about imposing vocations as normative constructs onto these
tasks, professional accomplishment can be recognised by such tasks, from the
background of the technology and organisation it was shaped by and which the
mastery of these tasks evokes, that cannot simply be reduced to general personality
traits by means of subjectification, or to benchmarking facts, by way of objectification.
JEIT In addition to the objective aspect, which requirements inherent in work and
organisation contribute, there is also a subjective response, which imbues an ensemble
32,2/3 or set of tasks with something like professionalism, at least, on the level of individually
distinctive competency and competences that are in principle, geared to the
accomplishment of specific tasks, which stand in an individually attainable context or
horizon.
200
References
Arbeitsunterlage der Kommissionsdienstellen auf dem Weg zu einem europaischen
Qualifikationsrahmen fur lebenslanges Lernen (2005), SEK, Brussel.
Bremer, R. (2004), Zur Konzeption von Untersuchungen beruflicher Identitat und fachlicher
Kompetenz ein empirisch methodologischer Beitrag zu einer berufspadagogischen
Entwicklungstheorie, in Jenewein, K. (Ed.), Kompetenzentwicklung in Arbeitsprozessen
Beitrage zur Konferenz der Arbeitsgemeinschaft gewerblich-technische Wissenschaften und
ihre Didaktiken in der Gesellschaft fur Arbeitswissenschaft am 23./24, Karlsruhe,
Baden-Baden, pp. 107-21, September.
Bremer, R. (2005), Das EADS-Vorhaben Move Pro Europe Eine Methode zur Erfassung
kompetenzforderlicher Effekte durch Systeme der Berufsbildung, in Eckert, M. and Zoller,
A. (Eds), Der europaische Berufsbildungsraum Beitrage der Berufsbildungsforschung, 6.
Forum der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Berufsbildungsforschungsnetz (AG BFN), Vol. 3, Universitat
Erfurt, AG BFN, Erfurt, pp. 19-20, September.
Bremer, R. and Jagla, H.-H. (Eds) (2000), Berufsbildung in Geschafts- und Arbeitsprozessen, Donat,
Bremen.
Dehnbostel, P., Holz, H. and Novak, H. (2001), Mitten im Arbeitsproze Lerninseln,
W. Bertelsmann, Bielefeld.
Grollmann, Ph. and Rauner, F. (2006), Einheitlicher Qualifikationsrahmen im
Brugge/Kopenhagen-Prozess zwischen Schulabschluss und Kompetenz, Die
berufsbildende Schule, Vol. 56 Nos 7-8, pp. 159-65.
Heursen, G. (1995), Kompetenz Performanz, in Lenzen, D. and Mollenhauer, K. (Eds),
Enzyklopadie Erziehungswissenschaft, Bd. 1, Theorien und Grundbegriffe der Erziehung
und Bildung, Klett, Stuttgart/Dresden, pp. 472-7.
Krogoll, T. (1991), Aufgabenorientiertes Lernen fur die Arbeit, Berufsbildung, Vol. 11/12 No. 45,
pp. 451-4.
Lenzen, D. (1973), Didaktik und Kommunikation, Athenaeum, Bodenheim.
Luhmann, N. (2002), Das Erziehungssystem der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main.
Rauner, F. (1999), Entwicklungslogisch strukturierte berufliche Curricula Vom Neuling zur
reflektierten Meisterschaft, in Dubs, R. (Ed.), Zeitschrift fur Berufs und
Wirtschaftspadagogik 95, Vol. 3, pp. 424-46.
Rohlfing, H. and Schenk, B. (1990), Einfuhrende Lernaufgabe Erste Erfahrungen in einem
integrierten Kollegschulbildungsgang, Die berufsbildende Schule, Vol. 42 No. 5, pp. 302-9.

Corresponding author
Rainer Bremer can be contacted at: bremer@uni-bremen.de

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com


Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0590.htm

Evaluating
Evaluating progress of European progress of
vocational education and training European VET
systems: indicators in education
201
Uwe Lauterbach
Deutsches Institut fur Internationale Padagogische Forschung (DIPF),
Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Abstract
Purpose The quality of an education system or a comparative international assessment refers more
and more to quantitative parameters, i.e. educational indicators. The paper aims to analyse the
structure of several educational indicators and indicator systems and answer the question What can
educational indicators achieve?
Design/methodology/approach Starting with a general consideration of the term indicator the
findings are applied to the educational area and the development of educational indicators is analysed
critically.
Findings Indicators allow for the illustration of outcomes and of system processes. Beginning in
the 1950s, following the empirical turn in research methods, and the growing significance of
approaches from economics of education, indicators are now applied in national and international
settings. The findings show that the combination of the quantitative and qualitative approach is more
successful as the isolated research.
Research limitations/implications The research is based on secondary analysis. A combination
of quantitative and qualitative research methodology should be undertaken in following the progress
of educational systems.
Originality/value The findings of quantitative research based on educational indicators determine
the general public and political discussion and often the discourse in the scientific community. The
analysis shows that a critical distance especially when preparing political decisions is a necessary
attitude.
Keywords Vocational education, European Union, Quality indicators, International organizations
Paper type Conceptual paper

1. The significance of indicators


1.1 Indicators as a quantitative parameter for governing system processes
The theoretical basis of a national education system and its philosophy constitute
crucial factors for its assessment as a unique instance in a real situation. When
extending this assessment to several national systems that exist in parallel, at a
particular point in time (cross-section), and by observing a longer period of time
(longitude) even for one particular education system only it will hardly be possible
to apply these soft factors that are analytical and descriptive as a basis for an
assessment that is grounded in defined criteria, and that permits an estimation of the
current real situation and the resulting need for action. These interpretations will Journal of European Industrial
certainly be criticised right away or even fundamentally doubted. Nowadays, the Training
Vol. 32 No. 2/3, 2008
clients who receive scientific expertises, usually policy-makers, will hardly reach such pp. 201-220
an assessment if the quality of an education system, or a comparative international q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0309-0590
assessment, refers to quantitative parameters that make statements on the quality of DOI 10.1108/03090590810861721
JEIT the education systems under inspection, allowing for the illustration of important
32,2/3 system processes and changes, i.e. educational indicators.
This is not a new challenge to technical science. Ever since technical developments
grew denser in the era of Industrialisation indicators have become indispensable here.
These parameters are, for instance, used for defining best possible effects of engines, as
the engineers and machinists steer their interventions towards optimising the systems
202 on the grounds of these data. Users direct their focus even more towards safety
indicators, such as the limit value for boiler pressure on a steam engine manometer.
The popularity of indicators is also increasing in economy, where they allow for
statements with regard to conditions of specific economic or currency regions. For
instance, the EU has established fiscal and monetary Maastricht criteria for the
creation of a common currency region. These define for the national economies that:
(1) the public deficit should not exceed gross domestic product by more than 3 per
cent; and
(2) the maximum level of public debts should lie below 60 per cent of the gross
domestic product.

By keeping to these parameters, and below them, the European policy-makers intend to
ensure price stability and prosperity, hence assuring the welfare of the population in
the Euro currency area.

1.2 An exact definition of indicator parameters and data assessment including a


contextualisation of quantitative results
These two examples from distinct areas of life are convincing, and they create a desire
to develop quantitative indicators for education systems, too, for governing decision
processes, and this idea is supported by educational policy. Indicators that can be
handled well and that are internationally comparable are more apt to be used as
arguments in educational policy discourse with political laymen than deep-rooted
analyses. A closer look at the transparent parameters from the technical and
economic fields soon illustrates that handy indicators and the resulting governing
processes need to be critically examined. The indicators of a steam engine that are
measured during the technical processes do not, when taken by themselves, allow for
any statements on governing processes: for instance, boiler scaling that may lead to
great safety risks cannot be ascertained directly. Only an assessment of all indicators,
along with a sound knowledge of quality regarding the system of steam engines, will
lead to adequate governing instruments. The practice of the Maastricht criteria in the
Euro currency area allows for a reference to the maximum of the correct and exact
ascertainment of parameters One or the other offender, that is a State that fails to
comply with the deficit criteria, will remain undiscovered as the assignment of public
tasks to the public budgets is heterogeneous. There is thus room for creative
interpretation, and diverse resulting macro-economic classifications can be decided
upon. This well-known example illustrates the need for an accurate definition of
indicators, their exact measurement and clear assignment. These criteria are defined in
empirical social research as validity, objectivity, and reliability. Furthermore, these
examples point towards the assessment of indicators in the field of education. Results
can only be used respectably if their systemic context is taken into account, too, and the
observation covers a longer period of time.
1.3 The quality of education systems and the role of indicators Evaluating
The discussion on international comparisons of outcomes in national education progress of
systems began in the late 1950s, following the empirical turn in research methods, and
the growing significance of educational economic approaches (Holmes, 1971, p. 362), European VET
see the large scale assessment performed by the IEA[1] (International Association for
the Evaluation of Educational Achievement). Furthermore, case studies and the
indicators of possible outcomes (both of intended and unintended) (Eckstein, 1988, 203
p. 9) became significant. These included a contribution to narrowing the gap between
research and the needs of pedagogical practice, including educational policy and
administration (Weinert, 1994, p. 5038).
The international importance of quantitative research can be attributed to the rapid
growth of national education systems in the 1960s, in consequence of implementing
fundamental educational policy targets such as equal opportunities for all and the
expansion of education. These new political priorities resulted in a growing need for
more information that could be better compared internationally, and data on national
education systems. A particular interest was paid to the consistent inequalities for
educationally remote classes, new manners of conduct and expectations regarding the
education systems, a greater awareness of quality issues in public education sectors,
and the search for excellence and effectiveness. The ascertained data were to become
the basis for national analyses, cross-national comparisons, and governing
processes[2].
Nowadays, these motivations for the development of educational indicators are
superposed by economic demands on the education systems. Economic growth and
employment increasingly depend on highly qualified populations (human capital).
Following this movement towards qualification, educational indicators that provide for
cross-national comparisons are an important basis for policy decisions (Bottani and
Walberg, 1994, p. 2985). Owing to their significance for society as a whole, these
comparisons are not limited to formal education systems. Rather, they extend their
focus to the qualification of the whole population. Hence, they integrate lifelong
learning and competencies that were informally acquired.
Besides these aspects, the chronic shortages in public budgets render focal
importance to an efficient use of financial resources. In this respect, education
indicators are viewed as an assessment for an economical use of budgets (Bottani and
Walberg, 1994, p. 2985) as measured by the output of qualification systems.
Policy-makers would like to know if resources are put to an effective use. Some of the
important aspects are: the status of quantitative and qualitative capacities of the
degree holders, the quality in a cross-national comparison, organisation and financing,
statistical data on the participants in the diverse educational careers, organisation of
the education process and quality of the results, and the status of the pertinent national
education system in a cross-national comparison with regard to these factors. Not only
the quantity, but also the quality (in terms of knowledge and skills) of the graduates is
of interest. Educational indicators from this area are used in national monitoring, for
choosing priorities in governing processes, and for the evaluation of reforms.
The system of educational indicators was systematically enhanced on a national
and an international scale, initially only by the UNESCO (since 1960) and the OECD
(since 1967). These were joined by EU statistics (since 1970) and the World
Development Reports published by the World Bank (since 1978). Nowadays, the basis
JEIT for governing activities is provided by results from internationally comparative
32,2/3 largescale assessments as well as annual publications such as the OECD reports,
Education at a Glance, or the EU assessments that are based on indicators, or the
education reports in Germany. Educational policy debates continue referring to these
sources. Typical governing efforts are not limited to the assignment of financial
resources but they also aim at altering soft factors, such as system philosophy or there
204 are efforts at reform measures based on exactly defined indicators.
What is the difference between an educational indicator and educational statistical
data? Statistical data can turn into indicators if they can be tested against several
reference points, such as social standards or regional or national differences. It is
always necessary to keep in mind that the educational indicators can merely offer a
rough outline of current conditions (Bottani and Walberg, 1994, p. 2986). Similar as in
technical science, individual indicators make sense when considered as a starting point
to reliable analysis, by tying these indicators to descriptive context variables for
further assessments. Results can only be used after a longer period of observation
(monitoring). Furthermore, the indicators must be adjusted to the pertinent regions, the
national system or the cross-national comparison. Experience with cross-national
analyses moreover shows that the planning stage requires a lot of time for the
international comparison, as the individual States need to make internal and external
adjustments. Further time is required for fine-tuning the methodical instruments and
finally, the assessment must be prepared, asserted, implemented and conducted.

2. Standardising national data for cross-national comparisons


Data can only be ascertained if their features and dimensions have been defined, these
plans have nowadays largely been implemented on a national level. The quality of
results suffers from distinct vocational training systems that have been installed in
diverse parts of the country, and from the lack of a national standard. Hence, a greater
effort concerning standardisation is necessary in Federal States. In cross-national
studies, chance often determines whether national statistical data correspond to the
required standards.
The problem that State borders do not correspond with the issue that is under
observation, which seems to occur more frequently due to the growing
internationalisation of business enterprises, has been under discussion for quite a
while now (Mitter, 1997, p. 1253).
The plan to compare indicators from different regions has mainly been promoted by
the activities of international organisations, that is UNESCO and OECD, since the 1950s
(Dieckmann, 1970, p. 19). This development started when university researchers from the
domain of Comparative Education went into competition with mission-oriented research
from these international organisations. These free-lance, independent researchers
supported collaboration by founding international associations which became adequate
partners to the international organisations. For instance, the IEA, with surveys such as
TIMSS (The Third International Mathematic and Science Study) and PISA (Programme
for International Student Assessment) that became hallmarks of international
comparisons of achievement, was founded by free researchers (Nooman, 1973; Loxley,
1994, p. 942; Postlethwaite, 1994, p. 1762). Furthermore, their incentives led to the
development of the ISCED classification [International Standard Classification of
Education], which is a standardised means of classifying national education careers
(Holmes, 1971, p. 89; Porras-Zuniga, 1994, p. 959). These initiatives result from the efforts Evaluating
of researchers at the time to further develop the international comparison in terms of its progress of
concept and method, in order to gain internationally comparable data as well as results
(Robinsohn, 1992, p. 7). Following comprehensive tasks and the resulting financial European VET
demands, the organisations such as OECD nowadays stand for international educational
reports by indicators, and international comparisons of achievement, while the UNESCO
stands for the ISCED classification system. The ISCED classification has been in use 205
since the 1970s for ordering educational statistics worldwide. It was approved for the
first time by the 1975 International Conference on Education in Geneva, a conference for
national governments that is held on a regular basis. Over time several adjustments were
required, particularly with regard to the growing diversity of educational opportunities.
To render the databases and classification systems comparable within the INES
framework (Indicators of Education Systems), UNESCO, EUROSTAT and OECD
cooperate under the OECD leadership (Steinert and Maier, 2001, p. 366). In 1997 the
UNESCO educational statistics division published the ISCED-97, as a collection,
collation and dissemination of national and international educational statistics. It has
since been adapted by OECD, and several updates have meanwhile been issued under
the heading Classifying Educational Programmes, Manual for ISCED-97
Implementation in OECD Countries[3]. In the meantime the OECD publishes detailed
manuals on the classification of educational degrees (OECD, 2004). These overviews
allow for internationally comparable categorisations of national educational careers.

3. Examples from educational reporting, quality control and governance of


education systems by means of indicators
These examples were chosen to illustrate the pertinent structures of quality control and
governance by educational indicators. Moreover, I intend to appraise the selection of
indicators and the quantitative results, which are based on interpretations, in terms of
a contextualisation (Lauterbach, 2003, p.146). In this sense, the following issues are
particularly interesting: single nation States with a federal structure (USA,
Switzerland, Germany), the OECD as the organisation that is most experienced with
applying indicators to educational reporting on an international scale, and the EU,
where governing supra-national education policy based on indicators continues to gain
significance. By contrast to the OECD, which publishes its results as mere
recommendations, the influence of the EU on the national educational systems is much
more direct (vocational and higher education), and more goal-oriented. In this case the
quality and the development are continuously assessed, for the area of vocational
training this is performed in the Lisbon-Copenhagen Process. To make matters more
difficult, the distinct structures and philosophies underlying the vocational education
and training systems in the 27 EU States do not contribute to facilitating the
construction of indicators, the interpretation of consequent results, and the
development of governing processes.

3.1 United States of America (USA)


There is a tradition to educational reporting by means of indicators in this country,
where the main responsibility for education lies with the 50 States. The Union can only
influence educational programmes at a limited scale, which includes documentation
and statistics (Johnson et al., 1985, p. 311; McNergney et al., 1998, p. 226). The
JEIT Conditions of Education (CoE), which have been published for decades by the National
32,2/3 Centre for Education Statistics (NCES). This Union organisation can be traced back to
the year 1867. The report offers annual comparisons of the quality of the educational
systems in the States, and the District of Columbia (Washington, DC).
The NCES gathers and publishes information on the status and progress of education in the
USA. The congressional authorization for these activities [. . .] that the purpose of the Center
206 is to collect and report [. . .] statistics and Information showing the condition and progress of
education in the United States and other nations in order to promote and accelerate the
improvement of American education Section 402(b) of the National Education Statistics Act
of 1994 (20 U.S.C. 9001) (National Centre for Education Statistics, 2005, p. iii).
For example, the 1996 edition of the CoE lists 60 indicators that highlight the status of
education in all of the USA. These indicators are meant to enable a comparison of
educational achievements between the Federal States. These indicators define the
status of quality in education, and they are the means by which the success of
educational policy is measured in the individual States, and for the educational
programmes issued by the Union.
In addition, 1 will discuss what we know about school quality and describe how the
conditions facing the schools have changed (Eckstein, 1988, p. iii).
This political perspective and the indicators accordingly, do not normally alter its
focus each year, but in periods. These periods themselves are determined by the
pedagogical zeitgeist and by relevant political topics. Some of the indicators, such as
the drop out rate of High School students however, remain consistent due to their
fundamental explanatory force. In 1996, educational reporting focused on four current
issues:
(1) education and worker productivity;
(2) preparation for work;
(3) minorities in higher education; and
(4) teachers working conditions.

The 60 indicators relating to (A) to (D) are assigned to six topical areas:
(1) access, participation, and progress;
(2) achievement, attainment, and curriculum;
(3) economic and other outcomes of education;
(4) size, growth, and output of educational institutions;
(5) climate, classrooms, and diversity in educational institutions; and
(6) human and financial resources of educational institutions.

The indicators are processed for these focal and topical areas of education reporting.
High school leavers without a degree (dropout rate) are illustrated by indicator 5
following the remark that the dropout rate is slowly decreasing and that the
differences between black and white school leavers are growing smaller. In some cases
not only US-American, but also international comparisons are performed. This
pertains to indicator 20 (reading literacy), or indicator 27 (attainment in higher
education). For indicator 20, internationally binding standards define what is meant by Evaluating
reading literacy, these agreements do exist for higher education, too, by the ISCED progress of
classification system (indicator 27). However, this only implies a formal perspective, in
relation to the educational institutions and their systemic position, and does not refer to European VET
the qualifications that are acquired, and their function in professional occupation.
The pronounced analysis and interpretation, which refers to political and societal
values, in the COE may easily lead to an emphasis of the results that are desired by 207
politics. This may be justified as besides COE, thee comprehensive and differentiated
Digest of Education Statistics (DES) is published by NCES each year. The structure
underlying the ascertainment of data, which relates to the individual Federal States,
territories and the Union, is continued on a yearly basis so that not only cross-section
comparisons are possible, but also longitudinal comparisons can be performed that
cover several years. Based on these data the users can appraise the data that are used
in COE, and perform contextualised analyses themselves.

3.2 Switzerland
The authors of the brochure cited below, from the Swiss Federal Statistical Office
(BFS), address the significance of indicators:
In analogy to other policy areas, the governance of system processes in the Swiss education
system is more and more based on indicators. Nowadays, educational indicators that mainly
describe the function of systems are well-founded, their initial purpose is to enable a
comparison at international or cantonal level] (Original in German: Bundesamt fur Statistik,
2004, p. 5).
The brochure refers to the OECD works performed since the mid-1980s and the original
motivation for developing educational indicators is mentioned, that is the description
of national education systems by internationally approved indicators in order to render
the structures of national education systems transparent, and allow for an international
comparison. This principle of transparency, and the conjunction of context, process
and result is based on the idiographic theory approach from comparative education. A
diligent description is thus a pre-condition to understanding and comprehending a
national education system by external, strange onlookers (Lauterbach, 2003, p. 108). In
these times when vast data are easily accessible, transparency seems easy to achieve.
Despite the necessary precaution whether this ideal framework might not lead to a
misjudgement regarding the interpretation of internationally comparable indicators
(Lauterbach, 2003, p. 171), the BFS resigns from the transparency approach. It affiliates
itself to further considerations by the OECD and the EU, for performing an
outcome-oriented and evaluating assessment of educational indicators.
Educational results and the way how education systems achieve their educational goals are of
focal concern (Original in German: Bundesamt fur Statistik, 2004, p. 5).
The BFS approves of the transition in educational reporting from an approach oriented
towards context, process and result to a topical approach as it enables a focus on
relevant political questions.
The BFS is well balanced in accepting this concept because it does not follow the
growing fashion of opting for economic efficiency as the leading argument. While
emphasising the adaptivity of the Swiss education system regarding current
challenges, it ties this into the central argument of a democratic society, the question
JEIT whether the achieved educational outcomes are socially just, equal opportunities
32,2/3 constitute a direct criterion. Besides these basic values, current indicators are brought
into focus, such as lifelong learning, but also efficiency and innovation in the education
system.

3.3 Germany
208 In Germany, there is no tradition of educational reporting based on indicators. Only the
international pressure following the large scale assessments by the IEA and the OECD,
and the supra-national dynamics that are supported by the Lisbon-Copenhagen
Process in the EU made the persons in charge of educational policy issue a first
educational report in 2003, which follows a context-process- and result approach (ten
years after Switzerland first became active in this area).
The education system has been of public interest for a while now, this can in particular be
attributed to international comparative assessments such as TIMSS, PISA, IGLU and the
internal supplementary study, PISA-E. These imply that we might know something about
the status and development of our education system, but a total perspective is lacking.
Against this background, the Standing Conference of Ministers of Cultural Affairs (KMK)
decided to issue regular reports on the status and development of the education system in
Germany in the future (Original in German: Bildungsbericht fur Deutschland, 2003, p. 3).
Since then, a second study has been published in 2006. The construction of indicators is
now more strongly based on political objectives, thus there is a closer focus on
individual problem areas or positive developments. The situation in Germany with
respect to general and vocational education is characterised by a high degree of
complexity. No standard reference publication, such as the DES that is issued annually
in the USA, is available in Germany. Therefore, the primary challenge and task of
educational reporting is constituted by developing a transparency of the system.
Indicators must be tied into systemic contexts of educational structures in each of the
16 Federal States and at the level of the state as a whole. The illustration of system
transparency is in particular challenged by vocational education and training, adult
education and the recognition of informal competencies.

3.4 The European Union (EU)


3.4.1 Political framework and vocational education and training policy. While the use of
educational indicators at a national State level usually is meant to support efforts
towards quality assurance by this instrument, at the EU level educational indicators
are used as parameters for the assessment of successes or failures in supra-national
policy. Furthermore, they are intended as a means of rendering the diverse national
general and vocational education systems more transparent without resulting in a
competition between the individual national concepts. The EU supports and enhances
the national endeavours to secure a high quality education by promoting
collaboration among its 27 member States, and by supporting national States,
programmes and measures. The significance of governing instruments, such as the
European educational indicators, constitutes a reflex reaction to the targets and the
status of general and vocational education in Europe, and the reality found in the
member States. To illustrate these correlations, an outline of the policy from the 1950s
up to today is presented below.
(1) Stage of convergence. At the time the European Coal and Steel Community had Evaluating
founded in 1951, the general and vocational education systems in the member progress of
States were already characterised by great disparities. Ever since, the member
States have undertaken a vast number of efforts to harmonise those educational European VET
careers that are relevant for entering the labour market. The Treaties of Rome
(1957) as the foundation of the European Economic Community did not only
lead to a European market in terms of removing trade and production barriers 209
and strengthening the cooperation between national economies. Moreover, the
labour market that was immediately affected was incorporated with a demand
for international mobility and flexibility[4]. A common educational policy for
supporting these goals was not intended. However, articles 118 and 128 offered
an opportunity to advance vocational education and training via social policy,
which is aimed at improving the conditions of life and work (article 127). Thus,
vocational education was the only area of education that allowed for direct
measures by the European Commission within the framework of the Social
Action Programme. In reality, this policy was never successful. Results from the
comparative studies, particularly those that were already commissioned by the
European Coal and Steel Community, confirmed over the decades that a
convergence of national systems of vocational education and training is not in
sight. In most cases, specific national profiles of initial and further training were
even enforced.
(2) Stage of transparency. In the mid-1990s the failed policy of convergence was
substituted for a policy of transparency (Frommberger, 2006). The
transparency of national systems and a common framework that is binding
to all member States is aimed at establishing and recognising formal,
non-formal and informal individual educational achievements according to
learning outcomes. This process is continued for general and vocational
education and training since 1999, on the basis of the EU Council decision on
developing new working methods for European collaboration in the area of
general and vocational education.

The Bologna Process (since 1999) introduced the European Credit Transfer System
(ECTS) for higher education in Europe. In connection with the provision of Bachelor and
Master study courses the foundations are improved for supra-national transparency, the
recognition of study achievements and degrees in other countries and hence the mobility
of the labour force in Europe. A harmonisation of vocational education and training
objectives has been undertaken since the formulation of the Lisbon Strategy (2000),
within the framework of the Bruges-Copenhagen-Maastricht-Process. The European
Credit Transfer System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET), which is an
equivalent instrument to the ECTS. ECTS and ECVET are to be connected via the
European Qualifications Framework, EQF, which covers both higher education and
vocational education and training[5].
3.4.2 Educational indicators as an instrument for analysis, quality and governance.
The fact that vocational education and training efforts in the EU were to no avail for
decades indicates that this field is difficult to introspect. The political agents (Council,
Commission, and Parliament) need to rely on information that is difficult to obtain for
their governing decisions. Since these data are tied into complex relations, there
JEIT nowadays seems to be a didactic necessity to plausible indicators that are relevant to
32,2/3 political decision-making as well as for a supra-national agreement. Prior to this stage,
it was necessary to conduct comparative studies in the initial stage (which occasionally
lasted several decades) in order to ascertain overviews of vocational education and
training systems and occupational degrees in the member States including
assessments of the theory of convergence of national systems. Furthermore, a
210 statistical system was introduced in cooperation with the pertinent organisation,
EUROSTAT, and statistical standards were developed[6]. With new members since
1973 and the large expansion in 2004 the situation grew even more complex.
In parallel to political efforts the European centre for the promotion of vocational
education and training (Centre europeen pour le developpement de la formation
professionnelle, CEDEFOP) began to install an educational research that subscribes to
the European concept of thought that is systematically described in the European
Research Reports in VET)[7]. The quality of vocational education and training is a
crucial topic here. Since apprenticeship and the alternating instruction are repeatedly
highlighted as a role model for vocational education policy in the member States, an
analysis assessed how up-to-date the concept of apprenticeship actually is. The
example of a comparative analysis of apprenticeship in the First Research Report
demonstrate the erroneous interpretations that occur if little consideration is paid to
national systemic contexts and characteristics of the educational streams that are
observed in the area of apprenticeship. Several EU member States were analysed by
the educational indicator modernity of apprenticeship to assess if the concept of
apprenticeship could be installed in innovative branches, and a further indicator was
used to assess whether the graduates from these educational careers enter further
training. The general factor of comparison (tertium comparationis[8]) is constituted
by data on the total working population. This is followed by a selection that relates to
the English term apprenticeship. In consequence, the following educational streams
are subsumed under the category of apprenticeship: the mainstream in Germany,
margins in France, Portugal, Spain and Greece, the alternative schools in the
Netherlands and Austria (i.e. as opposed to full-time vocational schools), modern
apprenticeship in the UK and the labour market-oriented measures in Italy. Neither the
integration of these streams into the system as a whole, or its underlying philosophy,
are acknowledged appropriately. A result following the metric comparison that is
based on two educational indicators of quality consequently proves that
apprenticeship is on its way to becoming a cul de sac. A brief reflection on the
categorisation that was performed prior to the metric comparison leads to the
conclusion that the assessment may follow a logical calculus, but it makes no sense in
the end: the development of the two educational indicators on the basis of the term
apprenticeship, which is hardly specified, was not conducted in a reliable manner. The
author seems to have intended a confirmation of existing prejudices by a seemingly
neutral empirical study. This process can be observed in comparative analyses of
educational indicators every now and again.
Following these initial attempts, the governance and quality assurance of education
were rendered more dynamic by the Lisbon Declaration (2000) and its specifications by
the Barcelona Declaration (2002) and the Copenhagen Declaration (2002). These
instruments of an open coordinating method, such as benchmarks, indicators, the
exchange of experience and peer reviews aim at a dissemination of proven practices
and at a convergence of the most important EU targets (EU Council, 2002), they further Evaluating
intend to support the member States in the step-by-step development of their policies. progress of
In a first step the European Benchmarks as a hands-on policy tool were put into
practice[9], within the framework of progress reports on the Lisbon Process[10]. These European VET
educational indicators constitute an implementation of the Lisbon Declaration on
general and vocational education, and they formulate quantified objectives that are to
be achieved by the year 2010. The relate to: 211
.
investment in general and vocational education;
.
school drop-outs in terms of compulsory school education;
.
higher education graduates in mathematics, the sciences and technical science;
.
completion of upper secondary school grade;
.
key competencies; and
.
participation in lifelong learning.

The progress reports record these benchmarks for the individual member States, and
for the EU as a whole.
They are compared with results for the OECD countries, the USA and Japan. A
ranking of EU member States is performed for each indicator. In addition, the three
countries with the best results are evaluated according to three methods of assessment
(last year, average in the last five or ten years respectively). Nevertheless, this ranking
of EU countries raises a problem as it is no longer concerned with recommendations for
governing processes, but with naming a victor in the combined assessment for
national education systems (general, vocational and higher education). Only eight out
of 15 participating member States are among the best achievers. A first introspection
of context variables would soon have made clear that even though the statistics are
true, the priority of vocational education lies, for instance, in the areas of higher
education or continuing education, because the upper secondary level does not
integrate an extensive, highly challenging vocational training, and vice versa. This
soon explains the winner indicators of Germany, Ireland or the UK. The first two
countries, Denmark and Sweden, bear the advantage of being fairly straightforward,
and the profiles of their education systems are congruent to the six hands-on
education indicators.
The EU benchmarks are exploited at a national level when this seems opportune.
When taking a closer look at these findings and comparing them with the OECD,
divergences are apparent that should be a warning on statements. The EU statistics for
the completion of the upper secondary school level offer several educational indicators
(EG, Eurostat, 2005, p. 311) for instance, the school degree of persons aged 20 to 24.
The ranking for Germany is different depending on the chosen indicator. In the issue of
Education at a Glance (OECD, 2005, p. 40) the German results for the 2003 upper
secondary graduation rate occupy a top position. These results can only lead to a
demand for a critical evaluation of educational indicators and for a recurrence to
statistical data prior to an evaluation.
These examples point out the correlations between political frameworks,
benchmarks and educational illustrators as well as their evaluation and ranking. It
is further evident that without a contextualisation of results in the national States, and
without the definition of functional equivalences for the miscellaneous concepts of
JEIT vocational education, (including higher education systems), reliable and scientifically
32,2/3 grounded results can hardly be expected[11].
3.4.3 Foundations of a common reference framework for quality assurance in
vocational education and training in the EU and its Member States. In the meantime,
the EU Commission, its Council and the Parliament have considered this area in more
detail. Within the Bruges-Copenhagen-Maastricht Process the European Commission
212 installed a technical working group for the quality of vocational education, i.e. the
Technical Working Group Quality Assurance in VET, TGW], this group published an
annual progress report on the quality of vocational education and training in the years
2002 to 2004. Furthermore, a series of other documents was published[12]. The
documents operationalise the objectives formulated in the
Bruges-Copenhagen-Maastricht Process, in order to support the individual member
States in their establishment of quality assurance systems[13].
The central document for supporting these activities is called the Fundamentals of
a Common Quality Assurance Framework for Quality of VET in Europe, CQAF
issued by the TWG in 2004[14]. This paper presents a definition of indicators for
monitoring vocational education and training systems in the member States. Related
general objectives are determined in the following indicators:
.
heightening employability;
.
improving the harmonisation of supply and demand; and
.
promoting access to lifelong vocational education and training, particularly for
disadvantaged groups.

The scope of these output-oriented criteria for quality assurance refers to national VET
systems as well as individual VET providers.
The document focuses on suggestions for the process of quality assurance
including:
.
a model for planning, executing, evaluating and checking the systems of the
member States; and
.
process methods such as quality criteria and self evaluation (system and
provider level), monitoring system (with reference to State regulation and
administration bodies).

The individual areas are summarised according to a cohesive catalogue of general


quantitative and qualitative indicators.
This suggestion can only be put into practice after a phase of intensive research[15].
Until then, the European Benchmark system I described earlier will remain a reality
with its rough, non-contextualised indicators.

3.5 Organization for economic co-operation and development (OECD)


The contribution of national education systems to the economic success of a national
economy is undisputed. Along with the assignment of social-societal positions in
relation to educational degrees, this constitutes a main reason for the increasing
significance of national education systems regarding national and international
analyses (Bottani and Walberg, 1994, p. 2984). Within the framework of global national
economies, the correlation between economic prosperity and a high level of
qualification in the population constitutes an international advantage in competitions. Evaluating
Following this framework of globalisation, an assessment of national education and
vocational education systems accompanies this process as a governing instrument that
progress of
is widespread in both industrial and developing countries, particularly in terms of European VET
large-scale assessments. Hence, reports on the success and quality, but also the failure
of national educational systems, have become a matter of fact. International
organisations such as OECD and UNESCO can take credit for their work in these 213
processes. Since the 1960s they have created instruments, by way of educational
indicators, for observing, analysing and comparing this global process, as well as
national and supra-national areas.
In the late 1980s educational indicators reached a status of development that
enables policy-makers to apply them to decisions in governing processes. Reference
publications such as the Education at a Glance OECD Indicators, which is issued
on a yearly basis since 1992, are highly significant in this context. Moreover, the
political analyses and outlooks relate to these publications directly. The EU
Benchmarks are still far from reaching such a status as a reliable basis for national
governing decisions.
The worldwide use of the OECD indicators as a data base and reference system
clearly illustrates that national societies, economic regions and labour markets
continue to erode due to their international opening, thus they become more
comparable. While until the 1970s decision-making was based on value orientations
these are more and more substituted by educational indicators. These are meant to
offer a far more neutral survey of national education levels and the qualifications in a
population. In this sense priority is given to economic aspects of education (utilising
the acquired knowledge) as well as the outcomes of national education systems with
regard to achievements, that is knowledge and skills, in an international comparison:
Governments are paying increasing attention to international comparisons as they search for
effective policies that enhance individuals social and economic prospects, provide incentives
for greater efficiency in schooling and help to mobilise resources to meet rising demands. As
part of its response, the OECD Directorate for Education devotes a major effort to the
development and analysis of the quantitative, internationally comparable indicators that it
publishes annually in Education at a Glance. These indicators enable governments to see
their education-systems in the light of other countries performances and, together with
OECDs country policy reviews, are designed to support and review the efforts that
governments are making towards policy reform. Education at a Glance addresses the needs of
a range of users, from governments seeking to learn policy lessons and academics requiring
data for further analysis to the general public wanting to monitor how its nations schools are
progressing in producing world-class students. The publication examines the quality of
learning outcomes, the policy levers and contextual factors that shape these outcomes, and
the broader private and social returns that accrue to investments in education (Organisation
for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), 2005, p. 3).
This OECD policy does not constitute a solo practice of the OECD headquarters in
Paris. Rather, the indicators are processed in the INES network (Indicators of
Education Systems). The individual member States support this construction of
educational indicators for focal areas of education with sometimes alternating foci:
demographic and socio-economic context, expenditure in education and human
resources, costs and outcomes/returns, participation in education, decision makers and
decision structures, student achievement and school degrees, participation in
JEIT employment. The support and promotion of research activities and the introduction
32,2/3 and practical test of innovations in education are conducted by the Centre for
Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), an OECD subdivision that was founded
in 1968. CERI also conducts the OECD project for international indicators.

214 4 What can educational indicators achieve?


A financially exhaustive international system of educational indicators cannot aim at
being the basis for ranking national education systems and spotlighting the best
system. Instead, educational policy and administration should be enabled to gain a
deeper understanding of those factors that influence educational quality. Thereby, they
can obtain diverse opportunities for governing educational systems (Oelkers, 2000b,
p. 1). Oelkers points out that governing (in terms of steering) requires a movable unit
that reacts according to instruction such an idea can hardly be followed considering
the complexity of our subject. Education systems do not constitute a closed unit that
reacts according to a command (Oelkers, 2000b, p. 1). Despite similar system
organisation charts, individual differences exist as they are determined by culture. In
this context it should suffice to point out the distinct positions of vocational education
systems in the individual countries. For instance, Germany places VET careers at the
upper secondary level, or somewhere in the tertiary sector, between the upper
secondary level and higher education while in the USA or England a tertiary level will
always be apt, often even the higher education status. The meaning of apprenticeships
or the dual system, too, depends on the national contexts of education systems as well
as many decisions on values that express cultural ties.
Germanys geographical neighbours have developed distinct systems of
apprenticeships, see France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic,
Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg and Belgium. The pertinent logics of systems further
indicate that the education systems constitute relatively self-contained units with
regard to their educational levels and areas of education. All of these factors are crucial
to the definition and interpretation of educational indicators:
.
Can the quality of a VET programme actually be assessed by indicators such as
the successful number of participants or value of the degree certificate or does it
not rather concern the clients in terms of the labour market and the occupational
use? Would it not make more sense to assess transitions, and interview and
evaluate the clients, i.e. the future employers and the graduates?
.
How should the indicators be interpreted? Do large class sizes indicate the poor
quality of a national education system, or does a high expenditure regarding the
social product indicate the high quality of a national education system?
Obviously, there are no straightforward answers to these questions. We can
always find national examples that prove the contrary. This takes us close to an
aspect that should always be considered, i.e. a long-term observation of
educational indicators and their sluggishness in terms of a capacity for change
with regard to governing decisions. The utilisation of results from educational
indicators for governing processes requires an immense time of planning and the
governance of many elements of a system, such as the curriculum, teacher
training, the system of tests and the influence on other aspects of an educational
system.
Following the theory of cultural relativity (Lauterbach, 2003, p. 142) the results might Evaluating
lead to the conclusion that international statistics and educational indicators should progress of
always be put into perspective due to the required consideration of national contexts,
hence, they should be viewed with scepticism and they cannot really be assessed in a European VET
comparison. Even sceptics answer this argument when using educational indicators by
pointing out that the internationalisation leads to standards in educational offerings,
and to international competition (Oelkers, 2000a, p. 12). Therefore, educational 215
indicators are developed that enable an illustration of the continuous process of quality
assurance and its competition.
A critical distance to the assurance of quality by means of educational indicators
cannot only be observed in educational research, but it is also subject to public debate
and to policy whenever the results from an international comparison do not seem to fit
into the national landscape. This distance is soon given up and a contrary position is
taken when the findings are suited to shed a positive light on a national education
policy, in this case usually only those results that are particularly good are named, and
only those countries are referred to that match the effect. We thus address the role of
educational indicators in the daily business of politics, and their selection and use for
political action[16]. The reliability of educational indicators is therefore not supported
by presenting their results on a platter in a ranking, as this is the case in the example
quoted above, i.e. the European Benchmarks. On the other hand, the contextualised
OECD indicators were perceived in selective fashion in Germany (relating to one school
year), because the governance of the so-called higher education quota and an increase
of secondary school degrees that qualify for entering higher education were considered
a major federal educational policy goal in Germany in 2003.
Further similar examples might be supplied as extracts from context, as the
complexity and diversity of an educational system leave only limited information to an
educational indicator. When developing and using educational indicators and
interpreting their results, educational researchers should therefore always keep in
mind (Bottani and Walberg, 1994, p. 2985) that policy-makers will interpret the results
from this research without considering the precautions and arguments voiced by the
researchers themselves, in their own terms. Usually, policy-makers will prepare a
short-term goal, in better cases a strategic governing decision.
In order to meet these circumstances, and to balance the single dimension of an
educational indicator, it is necessary to construct the whole system of indicators in a
way that it contains comparable and complete information. Ideally, a system of
indicators should provide information regarding the relations of the individual
indicators, and create a full perspective of the education system that is analysed. The
information that is provided by this interaction is greater than the sum of data derived
from the individual educational indicators. For such a full perspective, the indicators
are connected logically, empirically or politically. This connection is based on a model
or a framework. These describe in theory how an education system should function.
The framework itself contains a fundamental assessment of the relevance of indicators,
and it constitutes the basis of a system of indicators, for instance as to the current
situation of a problem area or for future developments. Moreover, analyses on current
or prospective situations can be performed.
If fundamental features of education systems are observed over a longer period of
time by means of defined indicators, tendencies can be recognised and described. It is
JEIT also possible to use educational indicators for describing effects that are grounded in
32,2/3 specific political governance decisions, such as the efforts towards improving the
situation of schools. Nevertheless, it is impossible to state a direct causal relation
between the input and outcome of a political decision owing to the complexity of the
situation.
Coming back to our original hypothesis whether it is possible to assess the progress
216 of European vocational education systems, we must ask the following questions prior
to operationalising: What is progress, What are the national vocational education
systems? After a consensus has been agreed upon for the 27 EU States, it will surely
be possible to find indicators. However, this thematic input-output approach (which
aims at relating vocational education to its results), requires an indicator-based system
of educational reporting following the paradigm of transparency, process, and context,
see, for example, the USA with its Digest of Education Statistics.
Despite the many precautions we can conclude that educational indicators
contribute important information to educational policy, and they provide an incentive
to reform actions. However, it is not possible to refer to indicators directly and to quote
them as evidence in terms of an exact interpretation of self-contained processes, a
current situation or a governing activity. Educational indicators have created a
fundamentally new understanding of the functioning of an education system, and
achieved a lasting discussion on what a nation expects from its education system and
how educational objectives may be achieved by altering existing conditions.

Notes
1. For the IEA see Lauterbach (2003, p. 78); Lauterbach and Hellwig (2001, p. 359).
2. For the distinction of international and cross national comparison, (Lauterbach, 2003, p. 138).
See also Maurice comments on cross-national comparisons: If in many cases references to
micro and macro levels can be found, these levels do not really connect. They are placed in
opposition and brought together mechanically rather than organically. They serve
societal context conditions or they often provide a general analytical framework, a cultural
context that allows for deducting observed differences. In other words: At best this is a
description that permits an assignment of the investigated object to a national context. The
observed similarities and differences are directly related to this context. Hence, the
comparison is limited to a description, without interpreting or explaining the similarities or
differences- Maurice.
3. Original document, UNESCO International Standard of Classification of Education, INCED
1997. Available at: www.uis.unesco.org/ev.php?ID 3813_201&ID2 DO_TOPIC. For the
classification of degrees in European countries, see Eurydice: European Glossary on
education, examinations, qualifications and titles Second edition Volume 1, European
glossary on education, available at: www.eurydice.org/portal/page/portal/Eurydice/
showPresentation?pubid 046EN. See also OECD publications such as the Handbook for
Internationally Comparable Education Statistics (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation
and Development (OECD), 2004), and Education at a Glance. This publication provides a
reasoned assignment of national educational careers to ISCED standards.
4. For a good overview of policy developments in thee area of promoting mobility since the
foundation of the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic
Community, see Frommberger (2006).
5. See EU web site, Towards a European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning,
available at: http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/2010/consultations_en.html
6. Key data on education in the EU since 1994, available at: www.eurydice.org/portal/page/ Evaluating
portal/Eurydice
7. Tessaring (1998); Descy and Tessaring (2001); Descy and Tessaring (2005).
progress of
8. Two objects are only equal with regard to specific features. These are analysed by a
European VET
particular interest (research question), i.e. a third, external dimension known as Iertium
comparationis It is differentiated in terms of the intention and the basis of the comparison
hypothetically (assumed equality), Lauterbach (2003, p. 130). 217
9. Benchmarks concern the construction of a relation between internal findings (working
results) and external data that are used as a reference that can be compared in a meaningful
way. Benchmarking can be performed at different levels, e.g. students in a class, class-school
year, school in comparison with other, similar schools.
10. European Commission (2002): European benchmarks for general and vocational education.
11. For the area of vocational education the concept of functional equivalence enables us to
equate differences with regard to the function at the workplace. The comparison of four
economically prosperous regions in Germany, Italy, France and Spain with similar economic
structures rendered clear that it is possible to produce formally distinct human resources in
four different education systems and their distinct political, cultural and historical contexts
(Lauterbach, 2003, p. 103).
12. The TWG was installed in 2002 by the General Directorate for Education of the EU
Commission to advance the development and implementation of common objectives in the
area of vocational education and training, it was commissioned until the end of 2004. Its
tasks included the documentation of the current state of affairs, a development of quality
development, a construction and description of quality indicators for VET at system level,
and the design of a general reference framework for developing and reforming quality in
VET systems, the Common Quality Assurance Framework. Moreover, the group had to
describe methods and instruments for supporting self-evaluation and quality assurance. For
a full documentation, see Virtual Community an Quality Assurance in VET: http://
communities.trainingvillage.gr/quality
13. These documents can be accessed via the web site, available at: http://communities.
trainingvillage.gr/quality, a simple registration procedure is required.
14. See www.bmbfde/puh/alleemeine
15. See Jens Henrik Haahr, Hanne Shapiro, Signe Sorensen, Danish Technological Institute
(managing partner) Cathleen Stasz, Erik Frinking, Christian vant Hof, RAND Europe
Francis Green, Ken Mayhew. Rosa Fernandez, SKOPE (2004) Defining a Strategy for the
Direct Assessment of Skills. This study supplies an overview of Large Scale Assessment
approaches and practices for the area of adult education.
16. This long-standing phenomenon is known in comparative educational research as learning
from abroad, best practice, international argument, etc. (Lauterbach, 2003, p. 99).

References
Bildungsbericht fur Deutschland. Erste Befunde (2003), Hermann Avenarius; Hartmut Ditton:
Hans Dobert; Klaus Klemm; Eckhard Klieme: Matthias Rurup; Heinz E. Tenorth:, Horst
Weishaupt; Manfred Weiss, Leske Budrich, Wiesbaden, p. 364 S.
Bottani, N. and Walberg, H.J. (1994), International Educational Indicators, in Husen, T. and
Postlethwaite, T.N. (Eds), The International Encyclopaedia of Education, Pergamon,
Oxford, pp. 2984-9.
Bundesamt fur Statistik (BFS) Schweiz (2004), Bildungssystem Schweiz: ausgewahlte
Indikatoren, Schlusselstellen des Bildungserfolgs ein kantonaler Vergleich, Neuchatel.
JEIT Descy, P. and Tessaring, M. (2001), Second report an vocational training research in Europe,
Synthesis report.
32,2/3 Descy, P. and Tessaring, M. (2005), Third report an vocational training research in Europe.
Synthesis report.
Dieckmann, B. (1970), Zur Strategie des systematischen internationalen Vergleichs, Klett Verlag,
Stuttgart.
218 Eckstein, M.A. (1988), Concepts and theories in comparative education, in Postlethwaite, T.N.
(Ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Comparative Education and National Systems of Education,
Pergamon, Oxford.
Europaische Gemeinschaften, Kommission, Eurydice, Eurostat (2005), Schlusselzahlen zum
Bildungswesen in Europa 2005, Luxembourg. 401 S (Amt fur amtliche Veroffentlichungen
der Europaischen Gemeinschaften).
Europaische Gemeinschaften, Rat (2002), Detailliertes Arbeitsprogramm zur Umsetzung der
Ziele der Systeme der allgemeinen und beruflichen Bildung in Europa, 2002/C 142/01),
Amtsblatt der Europaischen Gemeinschaften C 142/1 vom 14.6.2002, DE. 22 S.
Frommberger, D. (2006), Europaische Union: Berufsbildungspolitik (1), Aktuelle Situation und
historische Entwicklung, in Lauterbach, U. (Ed.), Internationales Handbuch der
Berufsbildung (Loseblattsammlung), W. Bertelsmann, Bielefeld.
Holmes, B. (1971), Comparative education, in Deighton, L.C. (Ed.), The Encyclopaedia of
Education Vol. 2, Macmillan, New York, NY, pp. 357-63.
Johnson, J., Collins, H.W., Dupuis, V.L. and Johansen, J.H. (1985), Introduction to the Foundations
of American Education, Allyn and Bacon, Boston. MA.
Lauterbach, U. (2003), Vergleichende Berufsbildungsforschung. Theorien. Methodologien und
Ertrag am Beispiel der Vergleichenden Berufs- und Wirtschaftspadagogik mit Bezug auf die
korrespondierende Disziplin Comparative Education/Vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft,
Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden.
Lauterbach, U. and Hellwig, W. (2001), VET research in other European and non-European
countries, in Descy, P. and Tessaring, M. (Eds), Training in Europe. Second Report on
Vocational Training Research in Europe 2000: Background Report, Volume 3, Office for
Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, pp. 319-73.
Loxley, W. (1994), Comparative and international education: organizations and institutions, in
Husen, T. and Postlethwaite, T.N. (Eds), The International Encyclopaedia of Education,
Pergamon, Oxford, pp. 933-42.
McNergney, R.F. and Herbert, J.M. (1998), Foundations of Education The Challenge of
Professional Practice, Allyn und Bacon, Boston, MA.
Mitter, W. (1997), Padagogik. vergleichende, in Lenzen, D. (Ed.), Padagogische Grundbegriffe,
Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek, pp. 1246-60.
National Centre for Education Statistics (2005), The Condition of Education, Washington, DC,
(from 1984).
Nooman, R. (1973), Comparative education methodology of the International Association for the
Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), in Edwards, R. (Ed.), Relevant Methods in
Comparative Education, UNESCO Institute for Education, Hamburg, pp. 199-207.
Oelkers, J. (2000a), Schule und Bildung im Prozess der Globalisierung, speech, 22 May,
available at: www.paed.unizh.ch/ap/home/vortraege.html
Oelkers, J. (2000b), Uber die Steuerung von Bildungssystemen, paper presented at the
Conference Bildungsindikatoren Nutzung und Nutzen, organised by Bundesamt fur
Statistik, 28 August, available at: www.paed.unizh.ch/ap/home/vortraege.html
Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) (2004), OECD Handbook of Evaluating
Internationally Comparative Education Statistics Concepts, Standards, Definitions and
Classifications, OECD, Paris, available at: www.oecd.org/ progress of
Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) (2005), Education at a Glance European VET
OECD Indicators, OECD, Paris, pp. 2000 ff.
Porras-Zriihiga, J. (1994), Comparative statistics in education, in Husen, T. and Postlethwaite,
T.N. (Eds), The International Encyclopaedia of Education, Pergamon, Oxford, pp. 958-64. 219
Postlethwaite, T.N. (1994), Educational achievement comparative studies, in Husen, T. and
Postlethwaite, T.N. (Eds), The International Encyclopaedia of Education, Pergamon,
Oxford, pp. 1762-9.
Robinsohn, S.B. (1992), Comparative education. A basic approach, in Robinsohn, H. (Ed.),
A Selection of Writings, Magnes Press, Jerusalem.
Steinert, B. and Maier, H. (2001) in Lauterbach, U. (Ed.), Organisation for Economic Co-Operation
and Development (OECD), pp. 366-7.
Tessaring, M. (1998), Report on Vocational Training Research and Development in Europe,
Synthesis report.
Weinert, F.E. (1994), Research into practices: translating, in Husen, T. and Postlethwaite, T.N.
(Eds), The International Encyclopaedia of Education, Pergamon, Oxford, pp. 5038-43.

Further reading
Europaische Gemeinschaften, Statistisches Amt (eurostat) (1995), Schlusselzahlen zum
Bildungswesen in der Europaischen Union Ausgabe 1994, 110 S.
Europaische Gemeinschaften, Statistisches Amt (eurostat) (1996), Schlusselzahlen zum
Bildungswesen in der Europaischen Union Ausgabe 1995, Vol. 183, 183 S,.
Europaische Gemeinschaften, Statistisches Amt (eurostat) (1997), Bildung in der Europaischen
Union, Daten und Kennzahlen 1996, Luxembourg, 349 S. (Themenkreis 3. Bevolkerung
und soziale Bedingungen, Reihe A: Jahrbucher und jahrliche Statistiken.
Haider, G. (2001), System-Monitoring und Qualitatsentwicklung in der Schule, Salzburger
Beitrage zur Erziehungswissenschaft, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 5-19.
Hegelheimer, A. (1971), Berufsbildung und Arbeitswelt. Berufsbildungsforschung, Ziele
Methoden Forschungsprogramm. Schriftenreihe des Bundesministeriums fur Arbeit und
Sozialordnung, Heft 17, Stuttgart u.a.: Kohlhammer.
Hellwig, W. and von Kopp, B. (Eds.) (2001), Innovationen nationaler Berufsbildungssysteme von
Argentinien bis Zypern Berufsbildungsprofile im Blickfeld des internationalen
Fachkrafteaustausches (IFKA), Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, BadenBaden.
Internationales Handbuch der Berufsbildung (IHBB) (2006), Deutsches Institut fur
Internationale Padagogische Forschung, Herausgegeben von Uwe Lauterbach (DIPF)
in Zusammenarbeit mit Felix Rauner (Universitat Bremen) und Botho von Kopp (DIPF).
Bielefeld: Bertelsmann. 1995 ff. 30. Erganzungslieferung 2006 (Loseblattsammlung,
3 Bande, ca. 4 400 S.).
Lauterbach, U. (1994), Apprenticeship, history and development of, in Husen, T. and
Postlethwaite, T.N. (Eds), The International Encyclopaedia of Education, Pergamon,
Oxford, pp. S310-S318.
Maurice, H. (1991), Methodische Aspekte internationaler Vergleiche. Zum Ansatz des
gesellschaftlichen Effekts, in Heidenreich, M. and Schmidt, G. (Eds), International
vergleichende Organisationsforschung, Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, pp. 82-90.
JEIT National Centre for Education Statistics (2003), Digest of Education Statistics, National Centre for
Education Statistics, Washington DC, available at: http://nces.ed.gov/ (from 1998).
32,2/3 Scholz, B. (1994), Die berufliche Bildung in westeuropaischen Landern unter dem Gesichtspunkt
der Vereinheitlichung, Lang, Frankfurt am Main. 164 S. (Europaische Hochschulschriften.
Reihe XI Padagogik, Bd./Vol 597).

220 About the author


Uwe Lauterbach has worked as a senior researcher in the German Institute for International
Educational Research (Centre for Planning and Financing in Education) for over 20 years. He is
the Editor of the International Handbook of TVET (Internationales Handbuch der Berufsbildung,
IHBB); His main research interests lie in the following areas: Systems of TVET; Apprenticeship;
Comparative Education; European VET and programmes. Uwe Lauterbach can be contacted at:
lauterbach@dipf.de

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com


Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0590.htm

VET in Europe
Vocational education and training
in Europe
An alternative to the European qualifications
framework? 221
ITB Working Group
Institute of Technology & Education, Bremen University, Bremen, Germany

Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address the development of a European architecture of
vocational education and promotes and alternative proposal.
Design/methodology/approach This paper is the result of discussions of researchers in the
Institut Technik und Bildung on a European Qualification Framework.
Findings The paper provides an alternative approach to the European Qualifications Framework
that accepts learning in professional and occupational practice as a form of learning in its own right.
Research limitations/implications Even though the European Council has made a decision on
the adoption of the EQF, this paper is a worthwhile contribution to the further dialogue that
emphasises the notion of learning in settings of professional and occupational practice.
Practical implications The practical question arises if the accreditation and assessment methods
for learning through experience on the one hand and learning in formalised settings on the other can be
the same.
Originality/value The paper provides an alternative approach to the European Qualifications
Framework and will be of interest to those in that field.
Keywords European Union, Qualifications, Vocational training, Organizational structures
Paper type Conceptual paper

1. The common roots of European VET: re-establishing vocational


education and training between divergence and convergence
Depending on the temporal perspective under which the development of vocational
education and raining in Europe is viewed, the assessment of the extent and difficulty
of the task of setting up a European space for vocational education leads to quite
different conclusions. If the period prior to the emergence of the European nation-states
is included into the historical retrospect, the education of master craftsmen within the
framework of apprenticeship training arises as one common European tradition in
vocational education and training. It was only upon the enforcement of the economic
system of mercantilism that the travelling of craftsmen, which was an integral part of
this European tradition that contributed to the widening of ones horizon in any regard,
was impeded by the increasingly impermeable borders between nation-states. The
development of the European nation-states and of national economies were the most Journal of European Industrial
important factors that contributed to the establishment of highly diversified systems of Training
Vol. 32 No. 2/3, 2008
pp. 221-234
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
The ITB Working Group consists of Graham Attwell, Rainer Bremer, Ludger Deitmer, 0309-0590
Philip Grollmann, Bernd Haasler, Ines Herrmann, Felix Rauner and Georg Spottl DOI 10.1108/03090590810861730
JEIT vocational education and training for a period of about 300 years (Hanf and Greinert,
32,2/3 2004).
Academic education after the establishment of universities and the academic
system of science and learning was oriented towards internationality from the very
beginning. The relatively easy exchange of high school students, undergraduates,
graduate students and scientists as well as the relatively unproblematic
222 standardisation of academic programmes within the so-called Bologna process give
evidence of this fact in the most convincing way.
In vocational education and training, on the contrary, the situation is completely
different. The tradition of apprenticeship training and further education of master
craftsmen and technicians, as it has remained in practice in certain central European
states, finds itself in competition with school-based systems of VET and
marketoriented schemes of qualifications based on modularised systems of
certification.
The processes of internationalisation in virtually all social spheres, especially in the
domains of technological and economic development, as well as the creation of a single
European economic area and labour market require the establishment of VET structures
for the middle-level employment sector. The time when vocational education was
targeting predominantly regional labour markets has passed once and for all. The
interdependency of industries all over Europe and beyond requires comparable schemes
of organisation and qualification. The so-called ban on harmonisation stipulated in the
European treaties with regard to the educational systems of the Member States cannot
come into effect, given the close interrelationship between educational and employment
systems as well as the crucial importance of VET for the competitiveness of the
European economy. Thus, the initiative of European education ministers towards the
development of a European Qualifications Framework EQF) gives expression to an
ongoing process of European integration driven by economic and technological
development and promoted by the political project of the European Union: VET is seen
as a means of up-skilling the workforce, changing work practice and as a motor of
innovation. Governments see VET as a means of increasing competitiveness,
employment and growth by securing the supply of skills to the economy[1].

2. A European Qualifications Framework


As the national traditions of vocational education and training have diverged from each
other quite far, the establishment of an EQF is of particular importance. An instrument
of this kind would help to compare the different forms of vocational education in the EU
Member States against the background of a common measurement scale.

2.1 Qualification levels in the employment systems


As a first approach to the notion of qualification levels it is sensible to draw on the
results of labour market and qualification research. Accordingly, one can distinguish
three to four different levels in nearly all sectors of the employment system:
(1) unskilled and semi-skilled workers;
(2) skilled workers (employees with intermediate qualifications); and
(3) highly qualified employees (employees with a university degree).
In small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) research it is quite common to draw a VET in Europe
distinction within the intermediate sector between skilled workers and employees on
the one hand and professionals with management responsibilities such as masters,
technicians and Fachwirte on the other. In most of the craft trades as well as in other
parts of the SME sectors there exist in fact only two levels of qualifications, namely,
skilled workers and masters/technicians. Important examples for this situation are car
vendors and maintenance services, the construction sector and large parts of the 223
mechanical engineering industry.
During the past two decades considerable changes have occurred on the level of
unskilled and semi-skilled workers. The proportion of unskilled and semi-skilled
workers has continuously declined. It is expected by labour market research that in the
long run a figure will be reached that is considerably below 10 per cent for semi-skilled
workers. However, there is a huge variance between economic sectors and enterprises.
The skill requirements for semi-skilled workers in the mechanical engineering sector,
for instance, have clearly increased. The proportion of semi-skilled workers in highly
developed national economies has declined:
.
due to an ongoing process of automatisation; and
.
due to the relocation of strongly assembly-based enterprises into countries with
lower wage levels.

In general, the employees affected perform highly specialised and quite demanding
tasks that cannot simply be located within existing occupational profiles and formal
curricula. These workers qualify for their jobs exclusively via in-company training,
and there is no alternative to the established practice of training on the job.
Therefore, the integration of semi-skilled workers into a European Qualifications
Framework is hardly possible[2].
Conclusion. The results of labour market and qualification research suggest a
vertical differentiation into four qualification levels:
(1) unskilled and semi-skilled workers;
(2) intermediate level 1;
(3) intermediate level 2; and
(4) highly qualified employees.

2.2 Vocational qualification and competence


The notion of qualification denotes all those skills that are objectively necessary to
master the tasks inherent in the work process. This is why the term skill
requirements is frequently used. Competences, on the other hand, denote the
subjective prerequisites that employees possess and that enable them to meet the
objective skill requirements. The demands put on the skills of the workforce by the
work processes can be investigated by means of work process analyses. What is
decisive as an intervening variable is the social organisation of work, i.e. the definition
of tasks and thus the organisation of the work process. This relationship can be
demonstrated using the example of the car service sector. The FORCE sector survey
came to the result that, e.g. in Greece there were more than 13 different occupational
profiles in this sector, whereas in the USA the same tasks were fulfilled by only one
all-round mechanic (car mechatronic). This means that it is not so much technology
JEIT that serves as a criterion for the definition of skill requirements, but the interplay
32,2/3 between work organisation, subject of work and the occupational competence of the
employees. With regard to the definition of vocational qualifications in the shape of
occupational profiles there is thus a considerably broad scope of discretion. The
development of occupations in different countries shows that the introduction of new
models of organisation in enterprises, which is oriented towards business processes of
224 the company, goes in line with a clear reversal of the horizontal division of labour and
thus to a reduction of occupational profiles. In accordance with the goal of more and
better [sic!] jobs stipulated in the Lisbon strategy (European Council, 2000) this
observation suggests the introduction of comprehensive occupational core profiles
[Kernberufe ], which would provide opportunities for further development, as a
primary goal with regard to the establishment of a common European framework.

2.3 Domain-specific competence


In the 1980s and 1990s sociological research on qualifications put an emphasis on the
observation of a systematic devaluation of professional knowledge
(de-professionalisation) and an accompanying enhancement of so-called
interdisciplinary knowledge. From this situation emerged, among other things, the
initiative to establish so-called soft skills or core-skills, an enhancement of formal
education and a particular attention in research for the learning transfer between domains.
In the meantime the hypothesis of the priority of formal strategies of thought in the
successful application of knowledge has been refuted by expertise research. One
becomes an expert by reflected practice in a specific domain, e.g. in an occupation[3].
Many of the competences acquired in one occupation cannot be transferred to another
domain. In a new domain one starts therefore anew as a novice and has to develop into
an expert step by step. The foundations of occupational competence are
domain-specific knowledge and skills:
Auch in Gesellschaften, die eine zunehmende Diskontinuitat von Berufslaufbahnen mit
multiplen Berufslaufbahnmustern charakterisiert, sind Bildungsprozesse notwendig, die das
Konnen mit dem intelligent organisierten Domanenwissen verbinden [Even in societies
characterised by an increasing discontinuity of occupational careers with multiple career
patterns there is the necessity for educational processes that combine skills with
well-organised domain-specific knowledge] (Gerstenmaier, 1999, p. 67).
Learning in work contexts structured by occupational profiles is therefore of crucial
importance (Boreham et al., 2002).

2.4 Competence development: from novice to expert


The domain-specific development of competences leads in different steps from the novice
to the expert. In competence research there is normally a distinction between four or five
levels of competence. The five-stage model of competence development introduced by
Dreyfus has acquired a certain reputation in expertise research (Figure 1).
Domains can most easily be conceived of as occupations. In this respect it is of no
importance whether the occupation in question is an academic profession or a
non-academic occupation. A nurse might just as well reach the level of an expert
according to this novice-expert paradigm as a medical doctor. Both represent domains
which are relatively independent from each other and which differ remarkably on the
level of expertise: the medical doctor is by no means the better nurse. A hierarchical
VET in Europe

225

Figure 1.
Five steps from the novice
to the expert

structuring of different levels of qualification cannot be justified by reference to expertise


research. The criteria proposed by Esser and others for the description of complex
situations of agency (complexity, intransparency, dynamics) is appropriate for the
characterisation of the development from the novice to the expert and thus for
expertise- and domain-specific qualification research as well as for the foundation of
vocational training curricula that are built after the novice and expert model (Esser et al.,
2005, p. 3). One can become an expert in any occupation, provided that the working
conditions allow for the development of expertise. Expertise and competence research
therefore recommend the design of occupational curricula based on the model of novices
and experts. The theoretical frameworks of situated learning, cognitive
apprenticeship and community of practice summarise findings from the fields of
developmental and learning theory which suggest that vocational education and training
should be organised in the tradition of apprenticeship and master training instead of an
academic concept with a sequence of elementary and specialised education[4].

2.5 Domain-specific employability and occupational competence


The primary feature of vocational education and training is the goal of achieving
domain-specific employability (Berufsfahigkeit) in the occupation one was trained for.
This distinguishes vocational training in a fundamental way from any kind of
school-based and academic education. Vocational education and domain-specific
employability therefore by necessity include reflected work experience and thus
learning in the work process. On all levels of qualified work this is either explicitly and
formally regulated or at least a common informal practice. At the level of skilled
workers and employees the acquisition of employability, the integration into the
relevant community of practice and the accompanying development of occupational
JEIT competence is linked to a dual organisation of vocational education which is based on
32,2/3 reflected work experience. In a modern comprehensive occupation the acquisition of
occupational competence takes between three and four years. To be sure, the
development of occupational competence on the basis of work experience is a process
extending beyond this period, which above all ensures that the attained level of
qualification can be maintained.
226 If the phases of school-based and practical or work-based learning are arranged in a
sequential order, the training period usually is extended. The same is true for
university studies. These are, by definition, not on par with vocational education and
training. An academic degree does not lead to domain-specific employability. It is only
after a period of practical training following graduation, e.g. in the shape of a two-year
preparatory service (Referendariat) or some years of professional experience, that
graduates attain domain-specific employability. Traineeship programmes for
university graduates in bigger enterprises are another example.
Conclusion. The criterion of domain-specific employability offers the opportunity to
develop a qualifications framework and to relate the different levels of vocational
qualifications to each other. Without this criterion competences acquired in dual
courses of vocational education and training cannot be compared with competences
that emerge from school-based vocational education or university studies. The concept
of Berufsfahigkeit corresponds to the findings on professional competence of expertise
and qualification research. According to these occupational skills is the result of a
process of competence development, which in turn requires domain-specific, reflected
work experience (Schon, 1983; Roben, 2004; Fischer and Rauner, 2002; Chi et al., 1988;
Gruber, 1999)[5].
The structure of qualification levels as it is being suggested by labour market
research can now be formulated more precisely. According to the concept described
above, a highly qualified person is somebody whose university degree is followed by
an approximately two-year period of practical training or work experience in the
respective domain. The British tradition of the Chartered Engineer or the second
Staatsexamen (upon completion of a preparatory service after university studies) in
Germany is examples that put this insight into practice. Moreover, from the
perspective of expertise and qualification research it appears reasonable to divide the
qualifications at the intermediate level into two, namely the levels of skilled workers
and operative professionals.
The differences between the qualification levels do not result from the degree of
expertise, but from the range and depth of the professional knowledge and skills
characteristic for a particular domain or occupation. This is what the extent of
qualifications is based on, and this extent manifests above all in the amount of time
spent on the training.

3. A framework for qualifications


3.1 Description
Occupational competence is defined as the ability to perform, within a specific
(occupational) domain, job tasks that are considered typical or characteristic for the
respective occupation. In each occupational domain there is the possibility of becoming
an expert. From the point-of-view of examinations and assessment procedures this
provision is an advantage in that all across Europe occupational competences could be
assessed according to the criterion of domain-specific employability (Berufsfahigkeit). VET in Europe
Assessment methods can be based on two general rules:
(1) Evaluation of the competences which are indispensable or mandatory for the
exercise of a particular occupation. This criterion is of crucial importance for
professional tasks and occupations where security-related, health-related and
environmental competences are parts of the occupational profile. In case that a
trainee is not in possession of the competences defined as necessary, the 227
respective qualification level has not been achieved.
(2) Evaluation of the competence level that has to be attained for a specific
(occupational) domain. Considering the novice-expert concept it would be
sensible to assess whether besides the acquisition of mandatory competences at
least the fourth competence level has been attained (Figure 1).
The qualifications framework draws a distinction between three levels of
qualifications (Figure 2).
Level 1: Skilled workers (180 credit points (CP) with a range of 150 210 CP). The
following qualifications are located on this level:
.
Dual vocational training of 2,5 to 4 years.
.
Skilled workers who have, following a programme of school-based vocational
education of two years, completed a programme of practical training of another
two years or acquired comparable work experience.
.
Similar programmes of vocational education and training that integrate or link
practical and theoretical education. In this case practical training must include
learning in real work processes.

Level 2: Operative professionals (300 CP). The following qualifications are located on
this level:
.
Technicians and Fachwirte who attend a two-year programme at a Fachschule
after having finished initial vocational training and having gained at least one or
two years of work experience.
.
Technicians and Fachwirte who attend a two-year dual study programme at a
Fachschule subsequent to their initial vocational education; Master craftsmen
(industry and craft trades).
.
Graduates with a Bachelor degree who have added an appropriate two-year
programme of vocational training to their studies or are in possession of
reasonable work experience.

The level of operative professionals includes skilled workers and qualified employees
whose levels of qualification are comparable, but who remarkably differ from each
other in respect of their competence profiles and educational careers. The competence
of a master craftsman, for instance, is based on prior dual vocational training followed
by domain-specific work experience and a supplementary programme of theoretical
education which aims at extending the ability to take over entrepreneurial
responsibilities. In the case of the education of technicians, on the other hand, the
emphasis is put rather on deepening the theoretical foundations of process-related
knowledge. Finally, the contents of undergraduate programmes normally focus on
JEIT
32,2/3

228

Figure 2.
Three-level European
qualifications framework
theoretical education with a scientific background, which means that the Bachelor VET in Europe
degree itself does not yet constitute a level 2 qualification profile. Upon graduation,
participants of Bachelor programmes achieve the qualification to continue their studies
within an appropriate Masters programme.
The equivalence of qualifications on the second level does not mean that the
diplomas and job titles in question are interchangeable. The passing of a master
craftsmans or technicians examination does not entail the assignment of a Bachelor 229
degree. Conversely, graduates with a Bachelor degree do not have the right to assume
the title of a master craftsman.
Level 3: Strategic professionals (420 CP). The following qualifications are located on
level 3:
(1) Graduates with a Masters degree who have completed a two-year programme
of practical vocational training or acquired appropriate work experience.
(2) Graduates with a Masters degree who qualify for academic positions by
obtaining a doctorate.
(3) Operative professionals who qualify for management positions by means of a
programme of continuing vocational education and training of 120 CP. Typical
examples would be the planender Baumeister in Austria or the German
Kapitanspatent fur groe Fahrten:
.
Competences acquired in the general educational system are not taken into
consideration within the present framework. School certificates in general
education are a prerequisite for the development of occupational
competences in the domains of work[6].
.
A level of competence is achieved when domain-specific employability can
be proved. School-based and academic programmes of (vocational) education
lead to domain-specific employability only after an additional period of
practical vocational training lasting two years on average.
.
Unskilled and semi-skilled workers are not being included in the present
framework since their training is beyond formally regulated vocational
education and training and beyond the certification of acquired competences.
.
The different qualification steps are weighted according to the European Credit
Transfer System, which is proven in the academic sector and which allows for
the appropriate consideration and weighting of different forms of learning.
.
The weighting of different kinds of education takes place in accordance with
the experiences from the academic sector. In general phases of practical
training are given the same weight as phases of theoretical instruction or
studies.
.
To the extent that work experience is a prerequisite for the attainment of
domain-specific employability only half of the respective time is taken into
consideration in the calculation of credit points. Thus, a two-year
preparatory service (Referendariat) is equal to 120 credit points, whereas
two years of work experience without formal regulations are worth only 60
credit points.
JEIT .
Positions above the three levels of the present framework are characterised
32,2/3 by the fulfilment of functions with: higher responsibility; higher risk; and
higher added value.
.
This goes along with competences that emerge from the professional career,
ambition and motivation of the individual and cannot be covered by formal
vocational and academic education. Accordingly they are not represented in
230 the present framework.
.
Domain-specific work experience cannot be replaced with theoretical studies
or school-based learning. Competences acquired at the level of skilled work
can be taken into account for the qualification of operative or strategic
professionals only to a limited extent. The recognition of qualifications
therefore takes place with reference to the context of the respective
(occupational) domains.

4. The ECVET concept and the recognition of qualifications


4.1 The recognition of qualifications and the transition between qualification levels
The qualification process for the first level should be organised in such a way as to ensure
that a subject-specific or general qualification for university studies ( fachgebundene or
allgemeine Hochschulreife) can be attained. This extended vocational qualification would
give access to academic education as well as to continuing vocational education leading to
a qualification as technician, master craftsman or Fachwirt. As these vocational
qualifications presuppose an initial vocational education, which thus becomes an integral
part of the CVET system, two-thirds of the credit points gathered in the initial training are
taken into account in the subsequent further education. It is assumed that approximately
two thirds of the competences acquired on the first qualification level contribute to the
competence development on the second level.
In the context of the Bologna process not only the structures of study programmes
are reorganised by the universities, but also the requirements and opportunities for
admission change. Internal instruments of the universities such as special tests of
language or mathematical skills are becoming more and more important. It is
necessary to anticipate this development in order to strengthen the lateral permeability
of educational systems. Skilled workers are given the opportunity to participate in
advisory and admission procedures for places in undergraduate programmes. The
responsibility for organisational details would then be with the universities or,
respectively, their administrations.
The access of technicians, master craftsmen and Fachwirten (qualification level 2) to
university studies concerns the admission to an appropriate Masters programme.
Operative professionals have to be admitted to appropriate Masters programmes. In
the case of graduates with a Bachelors degree this applies already immediately after
completion of their undergraduate studies.
On the third qualification level a distinction is drawn between four kinds of
professional qualification subsequent to the Masters degree:
(1) the doctorate for academic positions;
(2) the preparatory service (Referendariat) for functions which require a second
Staatsexamen;
(3) practical work experience as a prerequisite for the attainment of VET in Europe
domain-specific employability (Berufsfahigkeit); and
(4) Alternatively this level of qualification can be achieved by means of continuing
vocational education and training.

4.2 Modular structure and ECVET


The organisation of educational processes in VET is oriented at occupational curricula 231
whose contents and objectives refer to characteristic work tasks and situations from
the respective occupational domain. These correspond to the Berufsbildpositionen
(components of the occupational profiles) specified in the training regulations and
occupational profiles or, respectively, to learning objectives and fields of action.
Accordingly every modern occupation can be described by reference to 15 to 20
professional tasks. Traditional curricular and curricular frameworks are replaced with
a description of modules, which defines the occupational competences to be transferred
by the module in question (outcome). Moreover, the description includes the definition
of learning methods, the collaboration between the learning sites, and the criteria for
assessment, i.e. the evaluation of the competences to be transferred.
The instrument of module description allows for a far better co-ordination between
the learning sites within the system of dual vocational education and training,
including the assessment. The module description for a vocational training programme
also provides an instrument to describe the contents of the relationship between the
different levels of competence development much more clearly than before.
The description of modules is combined with a system of credit points. Here, we
concentrate on non-academic vocational training exclusively since the universities,
following an agreement reached within the Conference of Education Ministers in Germany,
have already implemented these structures or are involved in the process of doing so.
Core and additional modules. A distinction is being drawn between core modules
and additional modules. The core modules describe the core curriculum for a
programme of vocational education and training or continuing vocational education
and training. The additional modules are assigned to the elective and compulsory
elective parts of the curriculum. They serve the purpose of localising vocational
education (e.g. company-specific implementation). Open training regulations require
an implementation process that takes the educational potentials of the enterprises into
account. It must be decided on a case-by-case basis which additional modules are
defined as elective or compulsory elective subjects.
Modules. Modules normally have an extent of six to a maximum of twelve credit
points. They are linked to each other via the occupational profiles and may temporally
overlap in practice when they simultaneously become the subject of vocational
training. Modules are assigned to the characteristic work tasks in a given occupation
(units, learning fields, and components of the occupational profile). As stated above,
educational programmes with duration of three years can be described by
approximately 15 to 20 characteristic tasks.
Description of a VET programme. The description of a programme of vocational
education and training can follow the traditional method in the training regulations.
Apart from the occupational profile (Berufsbild ) the programme description contains
the job title, the module descriptions developed on the basis of the novice-expert model,
the learning objectives, the assessment methods, the description of opportunities for
JEIT
Module type A distinction is being drawn between core and additional modules
32,2/3 Additional modules are differentiated into elective subjects and
compulsory elective subjects
Workload Courses and teaching are measured in credit points as well as in
teaching hours. In addition, work-based learning, preparation and
review as well as the preparation for examinations are measured in
232 credit points. The amounts of time for practical and theoretical
education are given equal weight
Teaching and learning Here a distinction is drawn between the usual training and learning
methods, learning sites methods in vocational education and training. A particular emphasis
is laid on learning in the context of work processes (orders, projects
etc.). In the case of dual vocational training the co-operation between
the learning sites has to be described
Duration of modules The workload for one module should not exceed two semesters,
supposing that parallel work on some modules is also possible
Contents Here, the educational or learning contents of the work tasks (modules)
have to be outlined. It would be reasonable to conform to the following
framework:
subject of (skilled) work;
forms, methods and organisation of work; and
requirements of work.
This way an adequate process-related description of educational
contents can be ensured
Learning and qualification The description of educational objectives has to differentiate between:
objectives professional skills;
knowledge governing agency;
knowledge explaining agency; and
knowledge reflecting agency.
Explanation and reflection aim at understanding and evaluating
professional agency
Position within the It must be defined whether a module represents the situation of a
curriculum beginner, an advanced learner or an expert
Requirements for the Here, information must be given upon what conditions the members
assignment of credit points of the target group can obtain the defined number of credit points. In
case that practical training takes place via orders or project, this
procedure simplifies considerably since the completed project also
documents whether the required qualifications have been attained. In
this case it would make sense to adapt the traditional learning diary
(Berichtsheft) to the new learning methods. If necessary, the
assessment can be supplemented by presentations and expert talks.
At school the common procedures for assessing the relevant
knowledge are available
Information on media, In particular, cases information can be given on these matters. This is
literature and training especially important when security-related subjects are affected
material
General education modules Usually, vocational education also has a mission that goes beyond the
transfer of professional skills. It is reasonable either to include these
objectives of general education explicitly or implicitly in the module
Table I. descriptions or to define special modules for this purpose. The latter
The module description would be appropriate, for instance, in the case of language training
continuing vocational education or the transition into programmes of higher education VET in Europe
and studies, the qualification level, the regular duration of the programme and the
admission requirements.

4.3 The module description


The module descriptions can be seen in Table I. 233

Notes
1. Achieving the Lisbon Goal: The Contribution of VET: Final Report to the European
Commission 1-11-04, p. 8.
2. The levels 1 and 2 of the QCA proposal for an eight level European Qualifications
Framework do not characterise work-related qualifications. Level 3 describes tasks which
are typical for semi-skilled workers. These three levels consequently do not constitute
qualification levels which should be included in a European framework.
3. In expertise research this is labelled deliberate practice.
4. Cf. in this regard the European project car mechatronic (Rauner and Spottl, 2002).
5. As the criterion of learning outcomes does not differentiate between competences acquired
in school or university settings and those that are decisive for occuopational competence or
employability, it is not appropriate for the definition or foundation of qualification levels.
6. The authors thank Georg Hanf for his useful comments and remarks.

References
Boreham, N., Samurcay, R. and Fischer, M. (2002), Work Process Knowledge, Routledge Research
Studies in Human Resource Development, London.
Chi, M.T.H., Glaser, R. and Farr, M. (Eds.) (1988), The Nature of Expertise, Hillsdale, Erlbaum, NY.
Esser, H., Kloas, P.-W., Brunner, S. and Witt, D. (2005), Uberlegungen fur die Konstruktion eines
integrierten NQF-ECVET-Modells, ZDH, Berlin.
Europaischer Rat (2000), Schlussfolgerungen des Vorsitzes, Europaischer Rat, Lissabon.
Fischer, M. and Rauner, F. (Eds.) (2002), Lernfeld: Arbeitsprozess Ein Studienbuch zur
Kompetenzentwicklung von Fachkraften in gewerblich-technischen Aufgabenbereichen,
Nomos, Baden-Baden.
Hanf, G. and Greinert, W. (Eds.) (2004), Towards a History of Vocational Education and Training
in Europe in a Comparative Perspective, Vol. 1, Office for Official Publications of the
European Communities, Luxembourg.
Gerstenmaier, J. (1999), Denken benotigt Wissen Die Bedeutung des bereichsspezifischen
Wissens fur Wissenserwerb und Leistung, GdWZ, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 65-7.
Gruber, H. (1999), Erfahrung als Grundlage kompetenten Handelns, Verlag Hans Huber, Bern.
Rauner, F. and Spottl, G. (2002), Der Kfz-Mechatroniker Vom Neuling zum Experten.
Berufsbildung, Arbeit und Innovation, Vol. 12, Bertelsmann Verlag, Bielefeld.
Roben, P. (2004), Kompetenzentwicklung durch Arbeitsprozesswissen, in Jenewein, K. (Ed.),
Kompetenzentwicklung in Arbeitsprozessen, Nomos, Baden-Baden.
Schon, D.A. (1983), The Reflective Pracitioner How Professionals Think in Action, Basic Books,
New York, NY.
JEIT Further reading
32,2/3 Benner, P. (1997), Stufen zur Pflegekompetenz From Novice to Expert, 2nd ed., Hans Huber
Verlag, Bern.
Dreyfus, H.L. and Dreyfus, S.E. (1986), Mind Over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition and
Expertise in the Era of the Computer, Blackwell, Oxford.
Rauner, F. (2002), Berufliche Kompetenzentwicklung vom Novizen zum Experten, in
234 Dehnbostel, P. (Ed.), Vernetzte Kompetenzentwicklung. Alternative Positionen zur
Weiterbildung, edition sigma, Berlin, pp. 111-32.

Corresponding author
Felix Rauner can be contacted at: felix.rauner@uni_bremen.de

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com


Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

Potrebbero piacerti anche