Europass

PHOTO: KRZYSZTOF PACHOLAK

Europass is an easily accessible way to effectively present citizens’ competences on the education and labour markets in the European Union. Its greatest advantage is that it operates in a coherent form throughout the Union, the member states of the European Free Trade Association and the European Economic Area as well as in the candidate countries

Career docs and more

Europass is an initiative of the European Commission aimed at increasing the transparency of qualifications and supporting learning and professional mobility of citizens across Europe. It has operated in Poland since 2008. In 2014, it became an element of the Erasmus+ Programme. For many years Europass consisted of the following elements: Europass CV – enabled to gather all educational and professional experience in one place; Europass Mobility – confirmed periods of study and training abroad; Diploma Supplement – presented the acquired knowledge and competences of a higher education graduate, and Certificate Supplement – issued after the completion of vocational education and training, which facilitated understanding of the skills that the holder of the diploma possesses. Each of these elements functioned independently and from 2020 they have been combined into one e-career portfolio, which now also includes information formerly given in the Europass Language Passport. Qualifications in the Europass Portfolio are presented in a coherent form in all participating countries. This contributes to their greater

legibility and increases the chances for continuing education or taking up employment in the European labour market.

Throughout the seven years of Erasmus+ operation, Polish Europass Centre organised more than 460 training, information and promotion events attended by more than 312,000 people who learnt about the documents. Coupled with more than 844,376 views of the www.europass.org.pl portal, one can talk about a powerful promotion and information campaign. This impact was achieved thanks to co-operation with many other initiatives carried out by the FRSE. The Europass National Centre regularly participated in trainings and information meetings for beneficiaries of mobility and youth programmes and for systemic projects carried out within the European Social Fund. Innovative advertising campaigns based on rich media were also of importance. The use of interactive elements, which directly involve users in interaction and learning has produced very good results.

The National Europass Centre presented an attractive co-operation offer to representatives of human resources management teams in companies and private enterprises. The aim has always been to attract partners to the Europass set as well as an invitation to use specific tools available online, e.g. CV comparison engine.

The effects of promotion activities can be seen in the numbers summarising the past seven years. Between 2014–2020, Polish citizens created online 1,437,090 Europass CVs and 29,273 Europass Language Passports. The Europass Mobility documents were awarded to 136,132 students. Moreover, 801,670 certificate supplements for graduates of vocational schools, 62,843 certificates for master craftsmen and apprentices and 1,937,300 diploma supplements were issued.

Supplements issued by awarding bodies are documents in print or in digital form. Europass CV can be created by users themselves on the initiative’s website. Since 1 October 2019, the Europass Mobility has also gone digital. The IT environment used to create this document is called EMOL. It allows to shorten the waiting time for documents and reduces the costs of obtaining them. In addition, access to the document is protected by a non-qualified electronic signature and any interested user, e.g. an employer or university verifying the candidate’s competences for work or study, has the possibility to authenticate it in real time.

The operation of Europass as a supporting element of the Erasmus+ Programme should be considered a success, and the use of more than one million euros of the 2014–2020 budget should be viewed as innovative and efficient.

Poland took the 14th place in terms of the number of Europass CVs issued, out of 35 countries participating in the initiative

The first Erasmus+ framework ends up with over 4.4 mln Europass documents issued by Polish students

2014 the Foundation for the Development of the Education System is appointed as the National Europass Centre in Poland. A digital advertising campaign is launched. It significantly increases the recognisability of the initiative in Poland

2015 the first edition of the brochure   entitled Success with Europass is published. It presents profiles of European users of Europass documents. One of them represents Poland

2016 the training of 19 educators begins with the first edition of the “Career docs” project, carried out together with the Eurodesk Poland Network. By the end of the 2014–2020 Erasmus+ framework, almost 1,100 lessons on Europass were conducted for more than 20,000 students

2017 the National Europass Centre in Poland launches its Facebook profile. In the first few days, it attracts over one thousand followers

2018 a decision is taken   at European level on a common framework aimed at the provision of better quality information services on skills and qualifications, which transforms Europass set of documents into a modern, comprehensive online service

2019EMOL is launched. It is a fully digitised application for issuing Europass Mobility documents. It reduces the waiting time to a few days

2020 the European Commission officially implements the new Europass digital service, which aims to support citizens looking for work and training in the upcoming Erasmus+ framework for the programme scheduled for 2021–2027