Headquarters of Voluntary Labour Corps talked about the operations of its: Educational Centres, Community Labour Corps, Mobile Vocational Information Centres and Youth Career Centres. Voluntary Labour Corps target youth coming from marginalised groups who thanks to support provided come out of the poverty, unemployment, and social pathologies.
Exchange of experiences by study visit participants Presentations and discussions relating to VET were not only staged by representatives of Polish centres and institutions, and presentations by study visit participants who outlined quality assurance solutions in VET applied in their respective countries 2 formed an equally important element of the visit’s agenda. Margarida ABREU (Portugal) highlighted the VET system reform launched in 2007 to comply with EU recommendations and aimed at promoting quality assurance within a new legal framework for education and training involving the implementation of the National Qualifications System (SNQ) and the quality certification of VET providers. So far the reform has largely contributed to increasing VET quality and guaranteeing proper use of European funding in VET. Mike RYAN (UK) described the constant change in the state of VET in the UK. Although quality controls and delivery standards are good, both changes in the economy and employers’ needs suggest that the entry level for getting a job with a VET qualification is steadily increasing. The new demands are for technical level people with good experience. Therefore the challenge in the UK is for promoting higher VET qualifications and raising the aspirations of their learners before they start work in order to improve the reputation of qualifications and meet employers’ needs. Daniel NERVENNE (Belgium) approached VET from the point of view of economic development. He analysed the integrated articulation of the 2.Green Marshall Plan aimed at boosting Walloon development on the basis of competitiveness poles and clusters, on the one hand, and both public and private VET providers, on the other, and focussed the role played by higher education, in general, and universities, in particular, in process monitoring and evaluation. Christos TANTELES (Cyprus) gave a general overview of the VET system in Cyprus. He put the emphasis on the policy priorities as regards VET and described the achievements made by the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture in order to improve the quality and attractiveness of secondary technical and vocational education. He also underlined
2
Presentations by study visit participants are posted on: http://www.koweziu.edu.pl/ vstudy/.
307 DEVELOPING COOPER ATION BET WEEN VET, HIGHER EDUC ATION AND ADULT LEARNING IN RESPONSE TO THE CHALLENGE OF LIFELONG LEARNING
SETTING GROUNDS FOR COOPERATION IN THE FIELD OF CONTINUING VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING