Live&Learn Issue 2

November 2004, No. 2

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THE ETF MAGAZINE

What is good for usis good forour neighbours

New EU Commissioner:

The EuropeanTraining Foundationis the EuropeanUnion’s centre ofexpertise supportingvocationaleducation andtraining reforms inthe context of theEuropean Union’sexternal relationsprogrammes.www.etf.eu.int

Education is the keyto development.Economics, politics,culture and socialwelfare all dependon education. Goodeducation givespeople work, a voiceand the ability tomake qualifieddecisions.

HOW TOCONTACT US

Further informationon our activities,calls for tender andjob opportunitiescan be found on ourweb site:www.etf.eu.int.

For any additionalinformation pleasecontact:

ExternalCommunication UnitEuropean TrainingFoundationVilla GualinoViale SettimioSevero 65I – 10133 TorinoT +39 011 630 2222F +39 011 630 2200E [email protected]

CONTENTS

COVER STORY

What is good for us

is good for our neighbours.............................3

IN FOCUS

Technology-enhanced learning......................6

Europass ..........................................................8

Financing human capital...............................11

Mainstreaming health and

safety into education.....................................15

FEATURES

Career guidance policies in acceding

and candidate countries ...............................17

Football for Peace..........................................21

Informal labour market activity

in partner countries .......................................24

National Qualification Frameworks..............28

LIVE and LEARN - The ETF MagazineCover photo: Brigitte Diewald, Vogus

WHAT IS GOOD FOR USIS GOOD FOR OUR NEIGHBOURSJán Figel’, the new EU Commissioner for Education and Training

Far reaching changes tosupport the development and

reform of education and trainingsystems are scheduled to beimplemented during the time thatthe new EU Commissioner forEducation, Training, Culture andMultilingualism, Jàn Figel’, willbe in office. In this interview heforesees that many of thesechanges will also impact thefuture work of the EuropeanTraining Foundation.

“As you will be aware, theCommission has proposed thatmore than one hundredinstruments – including Tempus– that govern EU activity inexternal relations should bereplaced by six broader onesafter 2006. Tempus itself isexpected to expand to coverschool and vocational educationand training as well as highereducation – although details ofthe actual form the programmewill take have yet to be finalised.It is clear, however, that three ofthese six broad instruments willconcern the future of Tempus.These are: the new EuropeanNeighbourhood and Partnershipinstrument, the newPre-accession instrument, andthe new Development andEconomic Cooperationinstrument,” Jàn Figel’ states.

We met the newCommissioner on home groundin his native Slovakia on theoccasion of the TransFairLeonardo conference inBratislava, and in our interviewJàn Figel’ offered a glance at

future developments that willimpact the work of the ETF in theyears to come.

“The new proposals allcontain articles which wouldexpressly include assistance ineducation and training as anobjective. They are designed toallow the adoption of thematicprogrammes within them, andthe new Tempus programme isintended to be one of these. Weexpect the European TrainingFoundation to play a key role inassisting the Commission in its

actions in all of these areas, andwe expect they will do so byproviding the relevantCommission services withinformation and expertise tosupport policy development,implementation and evaluation.

Although this is essentiallythe direction the EuropeanTraining Foundation has taken inrecent years, due to a clearerdefinition of strategies thatimpact on the work of theAgency, the organisation willchange,” Jàn Figel’ says.

LIVE and LEARN - The ETF Magazine 3

COVER STORY

“If we want to live in a good neighbourhood, we must help to develop it,and money spent on education and training is an investment on a parwith other economic investments”, EU Commissioner Ján Figel’ statesin this interview.

New EU Commisioner for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism, Ján Figel’, foresees manychanges in the field of vocational education and training.

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Enterprises areonly as good astheir humanresources

Earlier this autumn, incomingEuropean Commission PresidentMr José Manuel Barroso namedhis new team of commissionerswhich included Mr Figel’, who, asSlovakia’s Deputy Minister ofForeign Affairs, led the country’smembership negotiations in therun up to accession. In thepreparatory shadow cabinet,which hosted the nominees fromthe new Member States thisspring and summer, he workedside by side on enterprise policyand the information society withformer commissioner ErkkiLiikanen.

Although he would be thefirst to admit that education is

relatively untrodden territory forhim, Mr Figel’s nomination islikely to be good news forvocational education and trainingin the European Union andbeyond. His experience withenterprise development warrantsa thorough appreciation of theimportance of human resourcesdevelopment: “Enterprises areonly as good as their humanresources,” Mr Figel’ believes.His background in foreign affairswill help him appreciate the roleof education in the wider politicalperspective. As a citizen of aformer candidate country he hasfirsthand experience with theneeds of countries in transition.Last but not least, Ján Figel’ is avery sympathetic man who isclearly at ease among peopleand is unlikely to go into hiding inthe Commission’s refurbishedBerlaymont headquarters.

Copenhagen

Mr Figel’ believes theagendas set in Lisbon, and morespecifically Copenhagen,unambiguously mark the wayforward in European vocationaleducation and training. Theyshould be pursued. “TheCopenhagen agenda is veryclear in its priorities for VET:strengthening the Europeandimension; improvingtransparency, information andguidance; recognition ofcompetences and qualifications;and promoting qualityassurance,” he says. However,he stresses that theCopenhagen Declarationshouldn’t become a religiouslyfollowed dogma: if flexibility isrequired of vocational educationand training, politics must alsoset an example bydemonstrating flexibility.

“We have commissioned astudy, Achieving the Lisbon goal:the role of VET, which hasidentified gaps in theCopenhagen priorities that mustbe addressed by boostingefforts. Among them are lowparticipation rates in continuingVET – which doesn’t match withthe desire to promote lifelonglearning, insufficient levels offunding, insufficient attention onself-organised learning, and

insufficient exploitation of thepotential of ICT and e-learning.Finally, more needs to be doneto address the needs of peopleat risk – people whose positionin the labour market, or evensocial status, is under threat.”

“Much of this requires actionfrom the individual MemberStates; the Commission can dolittle more than keep themomentum, except in one verynotable area: there is still a lackof adequate data on input andoutcomes of VET. This is asevere problem because iteffectively makes reliablecomparisons between countriesimpossible. This deficit has to beaddressed urgently and must beadded to action at the Europeanlevel. All these issues will bediscussed at the Conference ofMinisters in Maastricht inDecember this year.”

Neighbourhood

Mr Figel’s roots and hisexperience with foreign policywill be an asset to the work ofthe European TrainingFoundation: he has firsthandexperience of the benefits ofmultilateral support to reform in acountry on the border of theEuropean Union.

“Well, yes, the advantage isobvious, but let me first point outthat in May this year myexpertise in foreign relations wassuddenly converted intoexpertise in European affairs.For me this is a very importantdetail. We must learn not to seeEuropean affairs as internationalaffairs. Viewing things from thisangle also helps explain thedistinction between our supportto potential future candidatecountries and current and futureneighbours.”

“Otherwise, I hardly need tostress how important I think theaims of the current neighbourhoodpolicy are. It’s all quite simple.We say we would like to live in agood neighbourhood. If we wantto live in a good neighbourhood,we must help develop it. Wehave devised a policy to help usdo this.”

“We know quite well what isgood for us. One of these thingsis good education. Awareness of

4 LIVE and LEARN - The ETF Magazine

WHAT IS GOOD FOR US IS GOOD FOR OUR NEIGHBOURSCOVER STORY

Commissoner Ján Figel’ believes the agendas set in Lisbon andCopenhagen mark the way forward in European vocational educationand training.

Photo: Getty Images

the benefits of education and ofsupport to educationdevelopment is now quite a bithigher than it was just five yearsago. Money spent on educationis, quite rightly, increasingly seenas an investment on a par withother economic investments.Surely, what we think is good forus must be good for ourneighbours too?”

“So yes, education andtraining clearly have a role toplay in developing ourneighbourhood. Good educationand training that respond to theneeds of society and theeconomy contribute toemployment, economicprosperity and social andpolitical stability. Closereconomic integration – one ofthe main aims of theneighbourhood policy – hasstrong implications for humanresources development. We willensure that support to the reformand development of educationand training systems, andsupport to human resourcesdevelopment in general, play acorrespondingly important role inthe European neighbourhoodpolicy.”

Thaw

The heritage of Ján Figel’stutelage shows in the potentialhe sees for education as anice-breaker in political dialogue –a potential the Tempusprogramme so adeptly exploited.

“I was in Caserta in Italy thisyear when, for the first time sincethe launch of the Barcelonaprocess, all ten participatingcountries agreed on one issueand signed the same charter.The subject was enterprisedevelopment, but that is not thepoint. What mattered was thatthis small field managed to gettheir heads together. They maydisagree on numerous otherissues, but agreement in onefield is, psychologically, a majorstep towards improvedcooperation in a much broadercontext. It nurturesunderstanding and tolerance.This shows how sometimeslong-term political aims can beserved tremendously byagreement on more narrow

areas such as enterprise, in thiscase, or education. In educationthe agreement underway withRussia may well show a similaryield. In education we cooperatewell with our eastern neighbours.This opens the road to furtherdialogue – on issues we perhapsstill disagree on today. I see animportant role for education heretoo.”

Paternity

For someone so recentlythrown into the EU arena, MrFigel’ displays a profoundunderstanding of the issues thatreally matter in education. He is,for example, acutely aware ofthe classic problem that, in apolitical world governed byregular elections, the incubationtime of education reform resultsoften works to its detriment.While it is precisely long-termplanning and vision that are sodesperately needed ineducation.

“I grew up in the country; myfather was a farmer. Undercommunism he didn’t have thekind of money that could buy him

any luxury, but one thing alwaysstood clear for him: he wantedhis five kids to be properlyeducated. Politicians are notalways good at this kind oflong-term planning. They havelimited terms; they like to bere-elected. That can beproblematic in education which istypically a long-term investmentfield. We need more of thisfatherly attitude to supportlong-term education planningand development. Learning toapproach education in this waywould bring us a very large stepcloser towards fulfilling ourEuropean ideals.”

Ard JongsmaInternational Correspondents

in Education

Find out more:Ján Figel’ - Member of theEuropean Commission -http://europa.eu.int/comm/commissioners/figel/index_en.htmEU Tempus Programme -http://www.etf.eu.int/tempus.nsfTransFair -http://www.saaic.sk/transfair/contact_public.htm

Good educationand training thatrespond to theneeds of societyand the economycontribute toemployment,economicprosperity andsocial and politicalstability


WHAT IS GOOD FOR US IS GOOD FOR OUR NEIGHBOURSCOVER STORY

The EU Commission’s new headquarters, the Berlaymont in Brussels, where Commissoner Ján Figel’ will havehis new cabinet.

Photo: Getty Images

TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCEDLEARNING

The e-learningmethodology hasa high potential

Technology-enhancedlearning, often in the form of

e-learning, has made persistentheadway in European education.This surge has been propelledby the increasing demands of alearning adult population.Continuous developmentthroughout working life will berequired from most Europeanadults if the ambitious aims ofthe European strategy ineducation, training andemployment (known as theLisbon strategy) are to be met.This has implications for thedevelopment oftechnology-enhanced learning inthe current and possible futurecandidate countries, such asBulgaria, Romania, Croatia andTurkey. ETF staff are currentlyresearching the results of asurvey of advances in e-learningin the countries of south-easternEurope.

One of the currentmedium-term objectives of theETF is to help candidate andpotential candidate countries toprepare for their integration intothe EU. As such, the ETF helpsthem prepare to contribute fullyto the success of the Lisbonstrategy. In south-easternEurope specifically the ETFsupports the development ofeducation and training policiesthat promote economicdevelopment and socialcohesion, which are considerednecessary preconditions for theintegration of these countriesinto the political and economicmainstream of Europe.

The ETF would not be doingits job thoroughly if, in all of thiswork, it did not take account ofthe application of technology toeducation and training. Indeed,since its launch in 1995 the ETFhas undertaken a number ofactivities in the field of distancelearning and e-learning on behalfof the European Commission.

The very first was the PhareMulti-Country Programme inDistance Education, whichcontributed to the establishmentof centres of expertise andknow-how in 11 countries. Theprogramme, which ran from1995 to 2001, includedcomponents for the training ofspecialists in the design,implementation and delivery ofdistance learning courses.During the programme’s years ofoperation over 200 courses weredeveloped for a total of morethan 1,000 participants. Theclosure of the programme wasfollowed in 2001 and 2002 by anevaluative survey. This surveyshowed that most of the centresremained active; that stafftrained during the programmeremained committed; and thatequipment installed under theproject’s auspices was still inuse. Many of the coursesdeveloped during theprogramme were still beingdelivered, some withadaptations.

In 2002 an e-learning courseon project evaluation for projectmanagers in Russia, Serbia andAlbania was piloted by the ETF.The results of the pilot were sopromising that their scope wasextended soon afterwards.Results of the projects havebeen disseminated with a view toraising awareness in our partnercountries of the potential ofe-learning methodology.

A study on e-learning inIsrael carried out in 2003/04 wasaimed at stirring up the debate

on technology-enhancedlearning in the country. Itencouraged the exchange ofpositive experiences to identifyconvergent strategies betweenthe EU Member States andIsrael. In this particular study thefocus was on how e-learningcould be applied to thepre-service and in-servicetraining of teachers’ andtrainers’.

The above projects, coupledwith the lessons learned fromour management of numerouse-learning initiatives within theTempus programme, give staff atETF an insight into the practicalissues which surround the use oftechnology in VET reform. Thisinsight and the whole span of ourexpertise have been used in ourlatest venture in this field: asurvey collecting information onthe current position oftechnology-enhanced learning insouth-eastern Europe.

The scale of this survey isunprecedented: the countriescovered include Albania, Bosnia


IN FOCUS

It is important to take account of the application of technologyto education and training.

and Herzegovina, Bulgaria,Croatia, Kosovo,FYR-Macedonia, Romania,Serbia and Montenegro, andTurkey.

The prime aim of the surveyis, of course, to chart currentactivities in e-learning in theregion. Its results cansubsequently be used to boostthe reform processes in thesecountries, identifyingweaknesses and hopefullyreferring to good practiceelsewhere in the region.

Work on the survey started inJuly 2004 and focused on theuse of ICT in education andtraining. The survey mappedsuch issues as ICT penetrationin schools, the use of ICT in theclassroom, and potential andaddressed target audiences.Methodology, assessment andaccreditation are covered in thesurvey. Legislation supportingand promoting the use of ICT inthe classroom, and e-learning ingeneral, is being also taken intoaccount. The survey is carriedout through a combination ofquestionnaires and field visitsdesigned to collect informationon infrastructure, methodologyand the policy framework.

The results of the survey andan analysis of its findings will bepresented at Online EducaBerlin, the 10th InternationalConference on TechnologySupported Learning & Training,to be held in December 2004.They will be published on theETF Website shortly afterwards.

Muriel DunbarDirector of the European

Training Foundation

Find out more:E-learning in Israel -http://www.etf.eu.int/website.nsf/Publications?ReadForm&LAN=EN&Key=Mediterranean+Region~~IsraelOnline Educa Berlin -http://www.online-educa.com/en/


TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED LEARNINGIN FOCUS

The ETF is currently preparing a new survey on e-learning in South-Eastern Europe to be published in December.

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EUROPASSTAKING SKILLS AND COMPETENCES A STEP FURTHER

Europass willmake it a lot easierto directlycommunicatelearningachievementsacross differentEuropeancountries

Early next year closerintegration of European

education and training willreceive a formidable boost withthe launch of Europass, the newEuropean education and trainingpassport. The implications ofEuropass for the open EU labourmarket and, ultimately, as amilestone on the road towardsthe Lisbon aims are quiteobvious: Europass will make it alot easier to directlycommunicate learningachievements across differentEuropean countries. But thelaunch of the initiative has bothimplications and potentialpositive spin-off effects for manycountries beyond the boundariesof the current European Union.The European TrainingFoundation helps prepare futureMember States for the adoptionof the set of documents, but also

sees a potential for Europass asa model solution to a regular‘brain twister’ in many of itspartner countries: national orcross-border transparency invocational qualifications.

Europass has been on thedrawing board for two years andwill initially consist of a set ofdocuments, commonly referredto as the Europass, that will helppeople throughout the EuropeanUnion interpret achievementsmade in other Europeancountries. It contains a CV in astandardised format, recordslanguage skills, competencesattained through workexperience and formal learning,and so on. Its strength is that itstops short of providing theactual interpretation of thequalifications it describes. TheEuropass is an accreditationtool, not a formal accreditationitself. Accreditation andrecognition of training is still ahot potato throughout Europe,and the project would have beendoomed if it had dared to treadthis area. But its seeminglyunassuming nature – ‘just’translating nationalachievements into a commonformat and internationallanguage – is its strength. Thisalso applies when it comes toserving as a model for countriesin other parts of the world,because the Europass isunprecedented internationally inboth scale and scope.

The Europass’ fiveconstituent units (see inset onthese pages) have beendeveloped by differentcommunities in separateenvironments. As an example,one of the papers included in theEuropass – the DiplomaCertificate – is a direct offshootof the Bologna Process throughwhich European universities,quite independently from theEuropean Commission, havestriven for more integration inEuropean higher education.Other documents have been

developed on the back ofCommunity programmes such asLeonardo, or together with otherinternational organisations, suchas UNESCO and Council ofEurope, and pioneered byagencies such as Cedefop (theEuropean Centre for theDevelopment of VocationalEducation).

From the outset, theEuropean Commission hasmade it very clear that theEuropass is meant to be aframework model. It covers fivedocuments now, but nothingstands in the way of expandingor extending it in the future.

Vaclav Klenha is one of thepeople at the European TrainingFoundation who has helpedspread the news about theEuropass beyond the EuropeanUnion boundaries. “Our firstmandate is to help candidatecountries and possible futurecandidate countries prepare theground for adoption of theEuropass. In Bulgaria, Romania,Croatia and Turkey this is donewith the support of colleaguesfrom our National Observatorynetwork,” he says.

Seminars throughout thepartner countries have hadEuropass on the programme,and the meeting of NationalObservatories in Istanbul inOctober included a session onEuropass developments. “Weintroduce documents and tools,we explain the formats – whatcan be edited and what cannot,”says Vaclav Klenha. “We explainthe importance of the initiative,both in terms of providing muchneeded transparency, but also interms of achieving the aims ofthe Copenhagen process inwhich transparency is a majorobjective. They need thisinformation quite badly - to beinformed and able to respondproactively, but also because anumber of them have beenassigned the task of translatingthe documents into theirlanguages, none of which are


IN FOCUS

Education and Culture

Europass opens for greater mobility in Europe.

Photo: Getty Images

current EU Member Statelanguages.”

Another role of theobservatories is to disseminatethe information on Europassfurther into their relevant country.“The observatories are the ETF’sentry point. They have their ownnetworks and have in the pastproven effective at furtherdisseminating the information toministries, local and regionalauthorities, social partners andall who need it.”

Once Europass isoperational, national Europasscentres will start functioning ineach country. In the candidatecountries, the establishment ofsuch centres is in progress. Thenational authorities decide whowill host the centres but the ETFcould play an important role inpreparing staff at the projectedcentres. “We help them to getinformed and up to runningspeed. We even finance some ofthe preparatory activities. Andwe help introducecorrespondents into existingEuropean networks,” saysVaclav Klenha.

The ETF not onlydisseminates information. It alsomonitors how widespread is thecurrent use of some of theEuropass documents outside theEuropean Union. This may seemparadoxical, but aspects of theEuropass can fill a void intransition countries. This isperhaps best illustrated with thedevelopments that followed theintroduction of the EuropeanCredit Transfer System (ECTS).ECTS was initially far morereadily adopted amonguniversities in a number ofcandidate countries, some ofwhom developed national creditsystems built on the model ofECTS. The definition of VETqualification and certificationstandards is at an advancedstage in most EU Member Statesand it is not always easy to getthem to adopt new formats. Butsome of the ETF’s partnercountries are still struggling tofind a way of harmonisingqualifications even within theirown borders. For them, as wasthe case with ECTS, awell-designed model that has theadded benefit of beinginternationally intelligible can be

a welcome alternative toexpensive and time-consumingdevelopment work.

The same applies to someextent for internationaltransparency in the regions theETF works with. Some of these –most notably the southern and

eastern Mediterranean regions –have a history of far moreintensive labour mobility than theEuropean Union, but very little ofthis is reflected in the way eachof them individually organises itstraining or describes itsvocational qualifications.

Europass may wellhold a tremendouspotential becauseit is such auniversal tool


EUROPASSIN FOCUS

The original Europass-Training and how it came to be

Europass-Training is a standardised method of recording the training undertakenand the skills acquired through work by people across the European Union.

Through an agreement with the rather unappealing title ‘Decision on thePromotion of European Pathways in Work-linked Training, IncludingApprenticeship’ (1999/51/EC), in December 1998 the European Council ofMinisters agreed on the design of a document that was given ‘Europass Training’as its working title. Over the years this single document evolved into the set ofpapers that we now, somewhat confusingly, refer to as ‘Europass’. In fact, theEuropass is indeed meant to become a physical set of documents.

The Europass does not itself provide a formal accreditation of the experiencegained. It is aimed at improving transparency, helping employers and employeesunderstand the implications of experience gained both at home and abroad. Thestandard format of the document is intended to ensure a consistent frameworkfor the recognition of skills by training providers and employers throughoutEurope. The Europass will initially comprise five instruments, detailed in ‘TheEuropass Framework’ below.

The use of the Europass extends beyond training that takes place in the contextof Community programmes and initiatives. Thus, it can cover placementsorganised independently by private partnerships or through bilateral initiatives.

Europass is internationally in both scale and scope and has a potential as a model solution to a regular“brain twister” in many EU partner countries.

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Yet, at ETF conferences andworkshops in the region arecurring topic is the desire toimprove the international

transparency of nationalqualifications.

“In such situations andperhaps even beyond, Europassmay well hold a tremendouspotential because it is such auniversal tool,” says VaclavKlenha. “The need to makequalifications more transparent ispresent everywhere and onlyincreasingly so in ourinternationally-orientedeconomies. Especially forcountries in transition, theintroduction of the Europass willbe worth following closely.”

The political launch ofEuropass will take place on 15December 2004 during theConference of EducationMinisters in Maastricht. Anofficial launching event to beheld at the initiative of therotating EU presidency byLuxembourg at the end ofJanuary 2005 should gather upto 350 participants from across

Member States, EFTA andcandidate countries. Participantsin the Luxembourg conferencewill include the EuropeanCommission, nationalauthorities, social partners,chambers of commerce, NGOs,and others.

Pressure on the Europeantranslation services hashamstrung the actual start ofactivities, but Europass shouldbecome fully operational in earlyspring 2005.

Find out more:Europass Training -http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/europass/index_en.htmlEuropean Credit TransferSystem (ECTS) -http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/socrates/ects_en.html


EUROPASSIN FOCUS

“Europass has a great potential in partner countries,” says ETFprogramme manager Vaclav Klenha.

The new Europass framework

The Europass should be conceived as a frameworkwhose exact composition can be adjusted over time.Initially, the Europass will embraces five documents:

The European CV: the backbone of the portfolio

The European CV is a slightly improved version of thecommon European CV format established through aCommission Recommendation in March 2002.Improvements only concern the terminology; all otherfeatures remain unchanged. Like all CVs, this is apersonal document completed by the personconcerned.

The European Language Portfolio: recording languageskills

The European Language Portfolio adapts a modelpreviously agreed within the Council of Europe andbased on the Common Framework for Languages. It isa document where citizens can record the linguisticand cultural skills they have acquired. It contains inparticular a Language Passport, where holders cangive details on their proficiency in languages.Countries can adapt the common model, for instanceto better gear it to the needs of specific target groups.

The Diploma Supplement: transparency in highereducation

The diploma supplement concerns higher education: itis the document jointly developed with the Council ofEurope and UNESCO, to make higher educationdegrees more transparent.

The Certificate Supplement: transparency invocational education and training

The certificate supplement concerns vocationaleducation and training. This proposal does not makeany change to the common format agreed informallyby the Member States and used by national authoritiesto prepare the actual supplements for each certificate.This document has a different nature from the others,as it does not refer to its specific holder: a certificatesupplement clarifies the vocational qualification towhich it refers, and is the same for all those who holdthat qualification.

The Europass Mobility: making mobility visible

The current Europass-Training document will bereplaced by the MobiliPass. The MobiliPass is meantto record European learning pathways – periods oflearning in another country that satisfy certain qualitycriteria. Importantly, this learning needs be linkedneither to work nor to Community programmes.

Access to all information related to Eurpass willbecome available through a Europass portal,accessible in 25 European languages. The portal willbecome operational in 2005. The websites set up byNational Europass Centres will provide additionalvocational guidance and support to those seekingemployment in another European country.

(Edited from the December 2003 CommissionMemorandum on Europass.)

FINANCING HUMAN CAPITALTHE CONTRIBUTION OF THE

EUROPEAN INVESTMENT BANK

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is an international financial institution, and in terms of criteria such aslending volume, it is the largest in the world. Such institutions have significance macro-economically, in

terms of the magnitude of the capital flows they mediate, and micro-economically, because of the sectors andprojects they opt to support.

Supporting education and training

The Bank has been active inthe education sector since 1981.At first this was on a minor scalelimited to vocational training. Itonly expanded to generaleducation after the Amsterdamcouncil in 1997. The experienceindicates that, despite the highsocial and economic returnsfrom education, there are stillmajor shortfalls in the wayhuman capital investment isfinanced across the Union. Atthe outset, the educationinvestment initiative wasexpected to be small scale, for atemporary period, restricted ingeographic scope and reach,and centred around theconsideration of direct effects onemployment.

Following the outcome of theEuropean Council of Lisbon theEIB fostered its activities in thetwo sectors. Since 2000 humancapital lending has become apermanent feature of the bank’sportfolio, largely unrestrictedgeographically and treated as atop priority. This is especially inrelation to, on the one hand, theconnections between thedevelopment of human andsocial capital, and on the other,desirable outcomes pursued aspart of the Lisbon strategy, suchas employment, cohesion andeconomic growth.

Indeed, investments inresearch and development (R&D),education and downstreaminnovation projects are crucial tothe bank’s contribution to theLisbon strategy.

They support the socialcohesion activities, feed into thebank’s financing of innovation,and in general are pursuedbecause of their anticipatedeffects on employability, rather

than employment as such. In2003, loan approvals for humancapital projects accounted forabout 15% of the bank’sturnover, the bulk of which wasfor school and universityinfrastructure, vocational trainingcentres, and healthcare facilitiesand equipment. Many EIB loansbenefit from very long maturities(up to 30 years), with appropriategrace periods, and with anemphasis on projects located inassisted areas.

As a result of the Council ofThessaloniki in December 2002,in the perspective of aprogressively enlarged Europeanintegration, the bank’sorientation has been broadenedto also include investments inthe Western Balkan countries.


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The headquarters of the European Investment Bank (EIB) in Luxembourg.

The EIB at a Glance

As the EU’s policy-driven bank, the EIB wasestablished in 1958 under the Treaty of Romeat the same time as the other institutions inwhat was then known as the EuropeanEconomic Community (EEC). The EIB was setup to provide loans, financing itself byborrowing on capital markets rather thandrawing on the budgetary resources ofMember States. The European Commissionmanages the EU’s grant funds – in particularthe Structural Funds. The EIB oftenco-finances projects with the Commission.The new European Constitution confirms theEIB as an autonomous body of the Uniondirectly owned by the Member States. Thebank reports to its Board of Governors,which is made up of a government ministerfrom each Member State, usually the Ministerof Finance.

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The building of astrong humancapital base isconsidered a keyaspect of thecreation of a moreintegratedEuropean Unionwhere sustainableeconomicdevelopment goeshand-in-hand withthe creation of anenlarged andintegrated area ofconvergenteconomies

The main target remained thefostering of the level ofeducational attainment and thedevelopment of human capital.However, this objective includedan area not yet inside theEuropean Union, althoughgeographically positionedbetween several Membercountries.

The EIB has already made acontribution, albeit a modestone, with respect to the financingof youth and education policiesin the Western Balkans. It isclear, though, that the bank hasmuch more important challengesstill to meet in the coming yearsto help all the countries of theregion ensure adequate accessfor all children, youth and adultsto high quality education andtraining programmes.

The benefits ofinvestments inHuman Capital

The consensus view defineshuman capital as the knowledge,skills, competencies and otherattributes of individuals that arerelevant to productive activity,and to participation in community

based activities that promotesocial cohesion. Much of thestock of human capital is inpractical terms measured ineducation and health status.

The EIB’s focus oninvestments in youth andeducation policy is justifiedbecause of the expectedfavourable impacts of skillformation and employability onproductivity, innovation, andsocial cohesion. Moreover, thebuilding of a strong humancapital base is considered a keyaspect of the creation of a moreintegrated European Unionwhere sustainable economicdevelopment goes hand-in-handwith the creation of an enlargedand integrated area ofconvergent economies.

The economic evidencestrongly suggests two importantstylised facts. The first is that thebulk of society’s capital stock isnot inanimate but human.Estimates vary, but it is likelythat more than half of society’scapital1 – valued at replacementcost – is human capital ratherthan physical infrastructure. Thisis the reason why societies canoften recover from war rapidlyeven if there is severe damageto the physical fabric. But they

will not do so if their people areuneducated or sick. The secondfact is that increasing people’slevels of human capital yields ahigh return relative to competinginvestments. Accumulatedresearch evidence has shownconclusively that there is asignificant link, for bothindividuals and societies, toinvestment in an additional yearof schooling, and that this returnin most circumstances exceedsthat of alternative investments inother sectors.

Traditionally, the EIB hasmostly supported human capitalformation indirectly, byco-financing large-scale projectsin sectors such as transportation,energy, water, industry, andurban renewal. It was thoughtthat the economic benefits wouldtranslate to better livingconditions and, more gradually,create room for increasedexpenditure on ‘social’infrastructure, including schools,vocational training centres, andpublic hospitals. History showsthat this is what has happened inmany cases.

In the early years since 1997,the bank’s preferred approachwas to invest directly in theinfrastructure that supports thedevelopment of human capital –school buildings, trainingcentres, multimedia laboratories,university libraries, and evenstudent hostels. This is asupply-side response, improvingthe facilities in which oneexpects individuals toaccumulate their own productiveknowledge and skills. There was– and today still is – a large needfor capital-intensive investmentin neglected schoolinfrastructures in all Europeancountries.

Experience has shown thatwhilst investments in thephysical infrastructure ofschools and training centreshave a key role to play, it is alsoimportant to integrate theseinvestments with complementarystrategies such as teachertraining, SME support andservice management. For thisreason, not all of the EIB’shuman capital interventions havebeen in supply-side measures,and not all have involved ‘bricksand mortar’.


FINANCING HUMAN CAPITALIN FOCUS

The EIB has in the last five years invested 186 billion Euro, particularly in poorer regions and in the newEU Member States.

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1 54% HC, 7% physical assets, 38% financial assets. Estimates by MIUR (Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research).

To give some examples, theEIB has co-financed elements ofe-Learning in schools,universities, and researchcentres. Other options we havesuccessfully used are globalloans and venture capital via theEIF (a member of the EIBGroup) for employment creationand active labour markettraining. Another demand-sideoption that has been considered,for instance, are student loanschemes, which directly financeindividuals during theiraccumulation of human capital.

As part of its contribution tothe Lisbon strategy, the EIB hasalso become increasinglyinvolved in the co-financing ofresearch, development andinnovation projects conductedwithin both corporate andacademic settings. Therefore, inrelative terms, one can say thatthe bank has reduced itsfinancing of ‘conventional’industrial plants in favour offunding education and healthinfrastructure and researchprogrammes of innovativeindustrial enterprises and publicsector institutions.

Priorities forinvestments in thenations of theWestern Balkans

In the late 1990s and early2000s, EIB interventions in thecountries of the Western Balkansfocused essentially on highpriority needs related to therestoration of basic infrastructuresthat had suffered from wardamages. In particular, severalEIB operations in those yearscontributed to the financing

behind the rehabilitation oftransport connections andelectricity networks.

After the first phase ofpost-war reconstructionprogrammes, the investment inhuman capital in the countries ofthe Western Balkans is now bothimportant and timely, and issomething that still needs to becontinued in subsequent phases.More recently, with the gradualeconomic development of theregion, EIB loans wereearmarked for the modernisationand upgrading of infrastructurefacilities with a view to raisingthe quality standards of nationalsystems to a morehomogeneous level, and therebyfostering the integration of theWestern Balkan countries into awider market.

There are, indeed, fewmatters more critical to publicpolicy in the nations of theWestern Balkans today thanemployment, growth and socialcohesion. In the EIB it isconsidered that one of the keylevers to attaining thesedesirable policy goals is throughthe fostering of human capital,defined as the sum of eachpopulation’s stock of education,and vocational and professionalskills, as well as health status.

The Western Balkancountries’ transition towardsEuropean integration andeconomic liberalisation isoccurring alongside the effort torestore peace and social stabilityin the region. However, thesuccess in these areas largelydepends on the speed at whichthe recovery phase isimplemented so as to producetangible improvements in thequality of life of the population.

As the Western Balkancountries move towards modernknowledge economies,significant investments in thearea of health and education areurgently required. Deficiencies inthe schooling infrastructure, lackof adequate training programmesfor teachers and managers, andinsufficient use of informationand communication technologies(ICT), are common features ofthe Western Balkan countries.

Poor school facilities andweaknesses in the educationsystem are reflected in a highlevel of illiteracy andunemployment throughout theRegion. In Serbia for instance, itis estimated that nearly 60% ofthe population is at the minimumlevel of educational attainment orbelow. Use of ICT in the schoolsis quite insufficient: in Serbia theratio of pupils to computers is1:230 in primary schools and1:64 in secondary schools.

Therefore, the challengesthat lie ahead are considerableand can only be met througheffective cooperation betweenthe donor community and thegovernments and the authoritiesconcerned.

Against this background, andin keeping with therecommendations of theEuropean Union summit inThessaloniki, in the WesternBalkans the EIB has pursued anactive dialogue withgovernments, the EuropeanCommission, the EuropeanAgency for Reconstruction(EAR) and the other internationalfinancial institutions active in thearea, with the aim of identifyingand preparing operationstargeted to the enhancement ofthe health infrastructure andhuman capital resources.

This activity of the EIB is nowbearing fruit. In October 2003 thebank signed a finance contractwith Serbia and Montenegro tocontribute to the funding of aninvestment programme to restorebasic services in regional hospitalslocated throughout the countryand to modernise a researchcentre specialised in producinganti-polio vaccines. This operation,prepared and co-financed with theEAR, the European Commissionand the World Bank, is now underimplementation.

The challengesthat lie ahead areconsiderable andcan only be metthrough effectivecooperationbetween the donorcommunity andthe governmentsand the authoritiesconcerned



The Bank’s Lending Portfolio

In the last five years (1999 to 2003), � 186 billion hasbeen provided by the EIB for investment, particularlyin poorer regions and in the new European UnionMember states. This finance has supported projectsranging from research, development and innovation,to roads, bridges, urban light railways, large- andsmall-scale industries and businesses, wastetreatment, water supply, renewable energy schemes,hospitals, and education and training investments.

Other operations aimed atreinforcing healthcare servicesand infrastructure have beenidentified and are underconsideration in certain countriesof the region, including Serbiaand Montenegro, BosniaHerzegovina and Albania.

In Serbia, within the contextof a government plan forsystemic educational reformfocused on decentralisation, andthe improvement of educationstandards and reinforced trainingfor teachers, the EIB, togetherwith the EAR and the WorldBank, is considering thefinancing of an investmentprogramme comprising themodernisation of primary andsecondary schools, andrefurbishment of special needsschools.

Such projects will providebetter infrastructure andequipment, including ICT tools,preparation and set up. Specialefforts will be devoted to health

vocational schools which have awider effect on welfareimprovement for thecommunities concerned and theregion as a whole. In particular,ethnic minority groups will betargeted by the EIB’s projects.These are seen as pilotoperations that may be followedby subsequent investmentschemes in the coming years inthe framework of governmentinitiated investmentprogrammes.

Similar interventions in favourof the upgrading of schools havebeen identified in Albania wherea project is now underpreparation in cooperation withthe Council of EuropeDevelopment Bank and theMunicipality of Tirana.

Some concludingobservations

The EIB stands ready toscale up its commitment andsupport to the governments ofthe Western Balkans, incooperation with theCommission, the EuropeanAgency for Reconstruction, andother concerned InternationalFinancial Institutions.

The effort to reform andmodernise the education andtraining systems of the countriesin the region to increase access,improve quality and relevance,and optimise efficiency, shouldbe treated as a top priority forbank lending, since successfulEuropean integration dependson the sustained development ofthe human capital stock of allassociated countries.

A good example of the EIB’s‘intangible’ contribution to theproduction of relevant sectorknowledge was the conferenceon “VET Reforms in the WesternBalkans: How to Finance andImplement?”, which was held inThessaloniki, Greece in March ofthis year.

This conference, which thebank’s services co-sponsoredwith the European TrainingFoundation and Cedefop,provided a welcome opportunityto exchange views with officialsfrom all the countries and learnabout their priorities for reformand the associated requirements

in terms of finance, managementand implementation capacity.

This certainly helped torefocus on the human capitalneeds of the Western Balkans,and as a consequence severalnew investment projects are nowbeing discussed. We lookforward to deepening thiscooperation with theCommission, the ETF and otherspecialised agencies over thecoming years.

In conclusion, over the nextfew years, the EuropeanInvestment Bank can beexpected to become an evenmore important partner for thecountries of the Western Balkansin their quest to reform andmodernise their educationsystems, and to investadequately and wisely in theyoung population and itsvaluable stock of human capital.

Albert TuijnmanHuman Capital Division

European Investment Bank

Find out more:European Investment Bank -http://www.eib.orgEuropean Agency forReconstruction -http://www.ear.eu.intCouncil of EuropeDevelopment Bank -http://www.coebank.org/homeen.htm



Albert Tuijnman, Human CapitalDivision, EIB.

How does EIB invest inhuman capital?

The EIB Group can provide both traditionalmedium- and long-term financing and equityfunding. Loans, in a number of currencies,can be made on a fixed, variable or revisablebasis. Depending on the client’s needs andthe project size, the EIB can advanceindividual loans for investment costing morethan � 25 million, normally for up to half thefixed investment cost of the projects. The EIBgenerally prefers to advance individual loansof no less than � 12.5 million. Smaller loansare available through global loans via partnerbanks. Global loans are temporary creditlines opened with banks or other financialinstitutions operating on a European,national or regional level. Theseintermediaries draw on the global loanproceeds to finance, in accordance with EIBcriteria, projects undertaken by small- andmedium-sized enterprises, and infrastructureschemes usually promoted by localinstitutions. In principle, the EIB can lend toany creditworthy borrower in the public,private or not-for-profit sectors. In the humancapital sector, typical borrowers includeuniversities, hospitals, regional or municipalauthorities, central governments, researchbodies and private companies.

Photo: EIB

MAINSTREAMING HEALTH ANDSAFETY INTO EDUCATION

Integrating occupational safetyand health into school and

university education is the key toreducing work-related accidentsand illnesses, claims a newreport published by theEuropean Agency for Safety andHealth at Work.

To integrate or ‘mainstream’occupational safety and healthinto education means tointegrate one policy area(occupational safety and health)into another (education).Different systems with differentinstitutions and different cultureshave to communicate with eachother and take joint action. TheEU strategy on health and safetyhas identified education andtraining as key factors tostrengthen the preventionculture. Education about healthand safety should not start withentry into the world of work; itshould be part and parcel of theschool curriculum or a vocationalsubject in its own right.

The European Agency forSafety and Health at Workstarted its project ‘Mainstreamingoccupational safety and healthinto education’ in 2002 with theslogan ‘Start young, stay safe’.The project is driven by the ideathat the sooner children andyoung people get acquaintedwith the concept of safety andhealth, the sooner can they

develop risk awareness andshape their own safety andhealth environment in their futureworking and private lives.

The latest report,Mainstreaming OccupationalSafety and Health intoEducation, is one of theyoungest of the project’soffspring. It reviews examples ofhow groundbreaking initiatives indifferent EU countries havemanaged to provide a saferworking life for thousands, andoutlines how their achievementscan be translated into asystematic strategy forintegrating occupational safetyand health into education andtraining.

The 152-page document isaimed at both policymakers andpractitioners within theeducational system. It consists ofthree main parts: a description ofgood practice; an analysis of thekey elements of a successfulmainstreaming processillustrated within a model; and a‘road map’ for the futuredevelopment of a coherentstrategy to mainstreamoccupational safety and healthinto education at European level.

According to the report,young employees under age 25in industrialised countries are50% more likely to have awork-related accident than the

average staff member. Theauthors argue that one of themain reasons for this is that mostadolescents enter the labourmarket with only little knowledgeof the risks. This is mainly due toa lack of education in preventivemeasures.

To help policymakers andpractitioners work towardsresolving this, the reportdescribes and analyzes 36examples of how different EUcountries have successfullyintegrated occupational safetyand health into different levels ofthe education system. Of these,14 are presented as full casestudies.

Examples of good practicecovered in the study include aUK initiative to educate childrenabout the dangers of buildingsites; a methodology to helpteachers in Italy introduceoccupational safety and healthinto the school syllabus; and ascheme in France where pupilson work placement are invited tofind ways to improve their hostcompanies’ health and safetyenvironment.

The examples are dividedinto three different groups: thosewith a holistic approach, thosewith a curriculum approach, andthose with a workplace approach.

Education abouthealth and safetyshould be part andparcel of theschool curriculumor a vocationalsubject in its ownright


IN FOCUS

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work suggests thateducation about health and safety should be part of the schoolcurriculum.

Many schools in the EU already educate children about dangers and teachershelp to strengthen the prevention culture.

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‘Start earlyto stay safe’

Case studies based on theholistic approach have a morecomprehensive understanding ofsafety and health, includingphysical, mental and socialwellbeing. Furthermore, theyfocus on the whole schoolsystem and address the ‘schoolculture’, the learningenvironment of pupils/studentsand the working environment ofteachers.

The case studies that stressthe integration of safety andhealth into the curricula do notlimit safety and health to onespecific subject. They advocatethe integration of safety andhealth as a ‘transversal’ topicinto the curricula, in other wordsthrough all levels of educationand in different subjects, forexample in languages andliterature.

The ‘workplace approach’case studies focus on thetransition from school to workinglife, for example making studentsresponsible for real safety andhealth matters in an enterprise,or raising awareness for futurerisks that will have to be dealtwith at a general or sector level.

The report presents a draftmodel illustrating howoccupational safety and healthcan most effectively be mergedinto all levels of education. Themodel was developed not only

on the basis of the case studies,but also on the results of a 2002seminar on the topic in Bilbao,as well as the draft of an internalreport, and the results of the firstmeetings of the Agency’soccupational safety and healthcontact group meeting in 2003.

Although the writers of thereport argue that health andsafety need to be integrated incurricula during all stages ofeducation, they also confirm thatcourses alone are not enough.“One of the lessons of the studyis that health and safetyeducation has to be a lifelongprocess, from pre-schoolonwards, to succeed,” says

Hans-Horst Konkolewsky,Director of the European Agencyfor Safety and Health at Work. “Itis about developing a preventionculture, and an integral part ofthis is ensuring that youngpeople are qualified in the coreprinciples of risk awareness andprevention before they enter theworld of work – they have to‘start early to stay safe’.”

A first step to implement themodel into European OSH andeducation policy was undertakenduring a seminar on the topic inOctober 2003 in Rome.Participants there agreed on theneed for a European strategy tomainstream occupational safetyand health into education andtraining. They issued adeclaration which becameknown as the ‘RomeDeclaration’. The full text of thisdeclaration is available at:http://europe.osha.eu.int/good_practice/sector/osheducation/rome.stm

The Agency’s website has asection devoted to providingfurther information related toOSH and education at:http://europe.osha.eu.int

The full title of the report isMainstreaming occupationalsafety and health into education.Good practice in school andvocational education. It isavailable in PDF format from theagency’s website at:http://agency.osha.eu.int/publications/reports

OSHA in collaboration withInternational Correspondents in

Education


MAINSTREAMING HEALTH AND SAFETY INTO EDUCATIONIN FOCUS

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work is located in Bilbao, Spain.

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CAREER GUIDANCEPOLICIES INACCEDING ANDCANDIDATECOUNTRIES

Career information, guidanceand counselling are moving

up the policy agenda at nationaland international levels, and‘lifelong guidance’ has become akey phrase in expert forums inthe field. This development hasbeen stimulated by thediscussions on the emergingknowledge economy and theresultant lifelong learningperspective to education andtraining, as well as by a numberof policy initiatives at Europeanlevel.

International context

The European Commissionhas developed a number ofpolicy documents in recent yearsthat reflect the different aspectsof current policy thinking incareer guidance. The earliest ofthese, the Memorandum onLifelong Learning (2000) and therelated Communication (2001),already confirmed recognition ofthe importance of information,guidance and counselling asbuilding blocks in thedevelopment of a culture oflifelong learning, and as priorityareas for further action. TheEuropean Social Partners, ontheir part, have identifiedinformation and guidance as oneof four key goals in theimplementation of theFramework of Actions for theLifelong Development ofCompetencies and Qualifications(2002) – asserting the principleof the shared responsibilities ofplayers. The CopenhagenDeclaration (2002) – reconfirmedand updated by the forthcomingMaastricht Communiqué onenhanced European cooperationin VET also specifies as one of

its aims the strengthening of thepolicies, systems and practicesthat support information,guidance and counselling in theMember States at all levels ofeducation, training andemployment, in order to facilitatethe occupational andgeographical mobility of citizensin Europe. The EuropeanCommission has initiated anExpert Group on LifelongGuidance that has operatedsince December 2002. One of itsoutputs will be a CareerGuidance Handbook forPolicymakers, jointly publishedby the OECD and theCommission by the end of 2004.In May 2004, the EU Counciladopted its first Resolution onStrengthening Policies, Systemsand Practices in the field ofGuidance throughout life.

UNESCO recently publishedthe results of a project on thenew role of career guidance inrelation to technical andvocational education andtraining. This report, by BryanHiebert and William Borgen, iscalled Technical and VocationalEducation and Training in the21st Century: New Roles andChallenges for Guidance andCounselling.

Career guidance is alsobecoming a more importanttheme on the policy agenda ofthe World Bank. It has alreadyfinanced the development ofrelated policies and services in anumber of developing andtransition economies, amongthem Poland and Romania, andis planning to do so in Turkey.The World Bank also recognisesthe importance of careerguidance in its publicationLifelong Learning in the GlobalKnowledge Economy –

Challenges for DevelopingCountries (2003).

The OECD review of careerguidance policies in 14 OECDcountries (2001/2002) was thefirst international comparativestudy on the topic. It was alsothe first time the OECD looked atcareer guidance from a lifelonglearning perspective. The studybecame a very importantstimulus for increasedinternational cooperation in thefield. It also sparked the launchof similar reviews by theEuropean Commission (throughthe ETF and Cedefop), and theWorld Bank.

The OECD questionnaire,which was also used in laterreviews by other organisations,looked at key issues such aspolicy goals and instruments,delivery settings and methods,roles of stakeholders, targetingof and access to guidance,staffing, quality assurance,financing and the evidence base.It formed the basis of the mostextensive harmonisedinternational database everdeveloped on guidance policyand practice.

Careerinformation,guidance andcounselling aremoving up thepolicy agenda atnational andinternationallevels


FEATURE

Career guidance is becoming a more important theme on thepolicy agenda.

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Career guidancedoes not yet seemto be considered apart of the overallorganisation of theeducationalinstitution

The ETF reviews

In mid 2002, at the request ofthe European Commission (DGEAC), the ETF started collectinginformation on guidance andcounselling policies in 11acceding and candidatecountries (ACCs). The researchwas based on theabovementioned OECDquestionnaire.

The ETF commissionedindependent national experts inall countries, and country reportswere prepared with the supportof National Observatories.During the research stage theETF organised an experts’meeting in Turin in September2002, to which representatives ofthe OECD, EuropeanCommission and the World Bankwere also invited. Aninternational expert prepared asynthesis report for the ETF andnational experts added countryannexes.

Before publication, both thecountry reports and thesynthesis report were validated

through a consultation processwhich involved the educationand labour ministries of allcountries involved. Thesynthesis report was publishedin October 2003 and is availableon the ETF website.

‘Policy borrowing’

Overall, the countriesinvolved have demonstrated ahigh level of commitment tolearning from EU policies, goodpractice and standards. Severalcountries reported that policies,strategies, tools, resources andtraining in delivering guidanceservices had in part beenadopted from other countries.The Czech Republic ‘borrowed’from Austria and, to a lesserextent, from France. Poland,Romania and Bulgaria foundmost of their inspiration inGermany. Malta, Slovakia andSlovenia looked at the UK.Finally, Lithuania adopted asystem based on that ofDenmark.

Awareness

There are substantialgeopolitical, economic andcultural differences among thecountries. At the same time, allface a broad set of similarchallenges for education, labourmarket and social policies. Thecountry reports indicate anincreasing awareness amonggovernments of the value ofcareer guidance as a tool forachieving key education, labourmarket and social objectives.

Initiatives developed in thefield of guidance include:� the development of legal

instruments promoting careerguidance, stipulating it as aright of citizens (in Estonia,Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,Hungary and Slovakia);

� the planning andimplementation of reforms inguidance (in most ACCs);

� the enhancement of accessto services through ICT andinternet provision (inpractically all ACCs –through regional provision inPoland and Estonia);

� the extension ofguidance-related services inthe education sector (forexample, increasing service

provision in Poland, andintroducing school-to-workissues across the curriculumin the Czech Republic andSlovenia);

� the extension of careerguidance services to newclient groups such as highereducation students (Romania,Lithuania, Poland), studentsor registered unemployedwith disabilities (Bulgaria,Lithuania and Slovakia),those already in employment(Latvia), and parents(Cyprus);

� the commissioning ofresearch and reportsinvestigating differentaspects of guidance serviceswith a view to theirimprovement (Bulgaria);

� the articulation of professionalqualification and servicestandards for careercounsellors (Malta, Estonia,Poland, Slovakia);

� the establishment (orrevitalisation) of careerguidance associations(Estonia, Latvia, Poland,Romania);

� attempts to enhancecross-sector collaboration inorder to provide a moreeffective service and to makethe best use of resources(Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland –the latter even developedstrategies to build up anintegrated career guidancesystem through theestablishment of nationalguidance forums oragencies).

Effectiveness

In most of the countries thatwere reviewed career guidancetakes place within the context ofsecondary and higher education.Except for Hungary, Sloveniaand Slovakia, little guidance isprovided at primary school level.A number of countries report thatcareer education, informationand guidance are also offeredthrough the curriculum(Romania, Cyprus), or acrossthe curriculum (Latvia, Malta andPoland). However, in most casesguidance staff are still merelyexpected to help young peopleto make immediate choices inrelation to further study, training


CAREER GUIDANCE POLICIES INACCEDING AND CANDIDATE COUNTRIES

Countries involved in career guidance have demonstrated high levelof learning from EU policies, good practice and standards.

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and work, rather than promotingthe skills and attitudes that arerequired for continued learninglater in life. Career guidancedoes not yet seem to beconsidered a part of the overallorganisation of the educationalinstitution.

Some countries provideso-called ‘work shadowing’ andwork experience opportunitiesfor secondary level students.There is some evidence thatthese kinds of activities are onthe increase.

In Hungary and Latvia classteachers are key players in theprovision of services, althoughthey may not necessarily betrained in school-to-worktransition matters. Many of thecountry reports note that schoolsare generally failing to satisfy thestudent demand for guidance.This is in part due to the lownumber of guidance staffavailable to pupils. In Cyprusand Romania the ratio is 1:800,while in Turkey it is 1:900. Inseveral countries this is true alsofor public employment services.In Polish local public employmentservices, for example, there isonly one employment counsellorfor every 1,700 unemployed.

Services for adults

Career guidance services foradults, mainly provided withinpublic employment services,tend to be remedial in nature andnarrowly targeted to theunemployed with the immediategoal of finding thememployment. Within currentpolicy contexts the aim must bea proactive approach,addressing a much wider groupand utilising the whole range ofguidance functions to help alladults sustain employability andrespond flexibly to change.

Public employment servicesstaff are typically overburdenedwith multiple roles, and onlysome of these offer furtherservices that are more directlyconnected to career guidance.While most countries producetheir own career information,some others buy, translate andadapt software or evenprint-based material. Slovakiaand Slovenia, for example, usean adapted UK programme.

Little is known about the extentto which clients access careerinformation, understand it, andconnect it to their own frames ofreference.

Staffing career guidance

The level and nature ofqualifications and trainingrequired from those who providecareer guidance varies widelywithin and throughout thecountries involved. It rangesfrom hardly anything to thestipulation of high levels oftraining. Many countries requirecareer guidance staff to have afirst degree, often in psychology,pedagogy, sociology or socialwork. However, specificuniversity level degrees ordiplomas in career guidance arerarely offered. At best, as inLatvia, those with a psychologydegree may have followed amodule on the psychologicalbases of guidance. On a sidenote, in most countries theprofession is dominated bywomen. In Poland, for example,around 90% of career guidancecounsellors are female.

Partnership

The role of social partners inregulating or funding information,guidance and counsellingservices tends to be limited andad-hoc even in the best cases. Amajor weakness in the area ofcareer guidance is the lack ofcross-sector collaboration, withthe education and labour marketservices often working in parallelrather than in convergent andmutually beneficial ways.However, there is a general

trend towards more cooperationin a few countries, such asPoland and Estonia.

Funding

In most countries, careerguidance is almost entirelyfunded by the state, withservices being provided free ofcharge. Only rarely are (minimal)charges made to clients forcertain types of guidance. Insome cases service delivery issubcontracted to communityorganisations, private companiesor, as is the case in Estonia, tonon-profit organisations.

Data

It is almost impossible to getan overview of nationalexpenditure on career guidancein the countries concerned. Thisis due to a variety of reasonsand is a commonly encounteredproblem even within the EU.Government budgets rarelyprovide this kind of information. Itis often not recorded separately;career guidance is only one of awhole range of activities that therelevant staff provide.

Even harder to gather isevidence and data on theoutcomes and impact of careerguidance. Guidance is not aninsular activity and there are somany variables that have animpact on careerdecision-making that causality isdifficult to establish, especiallywhen issues of effectiveness arebeing considered. There are nospecialised institutions or centresin the reviewed countries whichcarry out systematic research inthis area.

A major weaknessin the area ofcareer guidance isthe lack ofcross-sectorcollaboration, withthe education andlabour marketservices oftenworking in parallelrather than inconvergent andmutually beneficialways

CAREER GUIDANCE POLICIES INACCEDING AND CANDIDATE COUNTRIESFEATURE

Photo: ILO/J. Maillard

More effort mustbe made toprovide guidancestaff withpre-servicespecialisedtraining

Conclusions

The reports identified anumber of key challenges that lieahead in the area of careerguidance.

Leadership

Career guidance still tends tobe seen by governments as amarginal activity. As a result, it israre to find determinedleadership with provisionsustained by a clearly articulatednational policy framework that isboth dynamic and adequatelyresourced.

Legislation

Most country reports notethat while legal provisions havebeen made to widen access toguidance services, often thesehave not yet been implemented.

Cross-sector collaboration

There is a clear need toenhance cross-sectorcollaboration. The relevantministries need to be broughtcloser together. Professionalbodies and stakeholders need tobe involved, allowing local,regional and national levels tointeract for the benefit of theclients.

Stakeholder involvement

Involvement of employers,trade unions, students, parentsand consumer organisationsneeds to be strengthened inmany countries – partly becausethe public is not fully aware ofthe benefits of a well-functioningcareer guidance service, andpartly because somepolicymakers have not yetembraced the styles ofleadership that involve socialpartnership.

Guidance delivery

The mode of guidancedelivery in education needs tomove from its focus on keydecision-making points towardsa stronger integration into thegeneral curriculum throughdifferent subject areas. There isalso plenty of scope for thefurther development of linksbetween the world of education

and the world of work. There is atendency to emphasise theprovision of information ratherthan guidance. There aresignificant gaps in guidanceprovision for adults and theparticular needs of specificgroups – the disabled, migrants,and refugees, for example. Thelatter will have to be addressedmore effectively.

Staffing

More effort must be made toprovide guidance staff withpre-service specialised training,possibly in the form of certificateor diploma level coursesfollowing on from a first degreein fields such as psychology,economics or the humanities. Inboth the education and labourmarket sectors guidance staffoften suffer from a task overloadthat severely limits theireffectiveness. Despiteinadequate staff-to-client ratios,much of the guidance activitiesare still aimed at the individual,when group approaches wouldensure greater access to theservices.

Research

There is a need for moreresearch – in particular on theimpact, benefits andeffectiveness of guidance.

The work continues

As a follow-up to the careerguidance reviews, the ETForganised a career guidanceconference in Bratislava inDecember 2002, at which 13acceding and candidate

countries (10 of them now EUmember states) developedaction plans for furtherdevelopment of their guidancesystems. With ESF support,these action plans are now beingimplemented in a number ofcountries (Poland, Slovenia,Lithuania and others). Mostactivities are heading towardsimproved cross-sectoralcooperation (the establishmentof working groups, NationalGuidance Fora), NationalStrategy development, improvedcareer education in schools andenhanced training for guidancepractitioners.

The ETF is now carrying outa similar career guidance reviewin the Western Balkans.

Helmut Zelloth,Dragana Gligorijevic,

ETF and Ronald Sultana,University of Malta

Find out more:Memorandum of LifelongLearning -http://www.bologna-berlin2003.de/pdf/MemorandumEng.pdfTechnical and vocationaleducation and training in the21st century: New roles andchallenges for guidance andcounselling -http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=35522&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.htmlLifelong learning in the globalknowledge economy -Challenges for developingCountries -http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDS_IBank_Servlet?pcont=details&eid=000094946_03062104054940


CAREER GUIDANCE POLICIES INACCEDING AND CANDIDATE COUNTRIESFEATURE

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FOOTBALL FOR PEACETEACHING AND PLAYING SPORT FOR

CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN THE MIDDLE EASTThe only thing necessary

for the triumph of evil is forgood men to do nothing(18th century politicalphilosopher, Edmund Burke)

The conflict between thePalestinians and the Israelis

is age old, having many causesand multiple expressions. It is aserious local problem withmassive global impact. It existson such a scale that despite aplethora of treaties, politicalpacts, peace accords and roadmaps, the challenge of achievinga mutually acceptable politicaland military solution has hithertoproven to be overwhelming andimpossible to achieve. In theresulting hiatus, chaos andcarnage have prevailed in theHoly Land, fuelling and sanctifyingbloodshed beyond the borders ofIsrael and Palestine.

Football for Peace (F4P), asport-based co-existence projectfor Jewish and Arab children thathas been running in towns andvillages of the Galilee region of

Northern Israel since 2001,represents a modest attempt tomake a difference. Outside ofthe Middle East, good examplesof how sport can contribute topeace processes can be found inSouth Africa and NorthernIreland. In the former case, sportwas one of the most importantfronts in the struggle againstapartheid. In the post-apartheidera, sport has a new role as amedium through which thediverse and formerly antagonisticelements of the ‘rainbow nation’are reconciled and harmonised.In Northern Ireland, where sportwas once a theatre for theexpression of cross-communityanimosity, sport is now formallyrecognised as a key element inthe peace process.

The work of F4P builds uponthe experiences of South Africaand Northern Ireland in that itseeks to make grass-rootsinterventions into the sportculture of Israel and Palestinewhile at the same time making acontribution to political debates

and policy development aroundsport in the region. Its aims arefourfold:

1. Provide opportunities forsocial contact acrosscommunity boundaries;

2. Promote mutualunderstanding;

3. Engender in participants adesire for and commitment topeaceful coexistence;

4. Enhance soccer skills andtechnical knowledge.

F4P is not a new programme.It was the brainchild of GeoffreyWhitefield (MBE), a retiredBaptist minister with extensiveexperience of working in theMiddle East, and David Bedford,former 10,000 metres worldrecord holder and currently RaceDirector of the London Marathon.They had the vision and thedrive but lacked access to thetechnical expertise required forthe successful execution ofsport-based community relationsprogrammes.

Sport was oneof the mostimportant frontsin the struggleagainst apartheid


FEATURE

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We set out todesign a soccercoaching manualthat would provideopportunities forsocial contactacross communityboundaries

The University of Brighton,with its large sports department(Chelsea School), track record inthe education and training ofsports teachers, coaches andleaders, and a global reputationin researching sport and society,was brought onboard as apartner in 2000.

Upon this foundation the firstformal phase of the project tookplace in 2001 when, operatingunder the label of WSP (WorldSport Peace project), sixvolunteer coaches from theUniversity of Brighton and onestaff leader conducted aweek-long coaching camp in theArab town of Ibillin forapproximately 100 Muslim Araband Christian Arab children(between 10 and 14 years old).The original plan had been topartner Ibillin with a nearbyJewish community, but in thewake of a bus bombing in theneighbourhood the ensuingsecurity situation caused theJewish community to withdrawtheir children from the project atthe eleventh hour.

The 2001 project went aheadnonetheless, helping coachesand leaders understand thatcommunity divisions in theregion were not confined toArabs and Jews. It alsodemonstrated from a logisticalpoint of view (fund raising,planning, travel, provision ofequipment, and programexecution) that a project such asthis could be carried outsuccessfully.

The following year a secondproject took place involving aslightly expanded team of eightcoaches and two staff leaders.

This time, in addition to Ibillin,the cooperation of the Jewishcommunities of Misgav andTivon was secured allowing 150Arab and Jewish children,including 20 girls, to share thecoaching and playingexperience. Local volunteercoaches and community sportleaders were involved in theplanning of the 2002 event andparticipated fully in the coachingproject.

It was also at this point thatthe British Council began to takean interest in the project.Working closely with key figuresfrom local partner towns andvillages, the British Council wereable to provide vitalon-the-ground support for theplanning and development of the2003 programme, which was onan even larger scale thananything we had tried before.

It involved twelve UKcoaches and three leadersrunning three simultaneousprojects, working with 300children and 30 volunteercoaches from six communitiesspread throughout Galilee. Italso involved a pre-projecttraining day during which the UKvolunteers worked alongsidetheir Arab and Jewish colleaguesin preparation for the comingweek’s programme.

While the 2003 project was agreat success, during thepost-project evaluations and inanticipation of a further project in2004, two significant factorsemerged. Firstly, it wasdetermined that, even though thefootball coaching had been muchappreciated by the children, wehad to ensure that what we wereachieving was more than simplyimproving football skills. Theteam felt that they needed to do

more to ensure that the contentof the football programme wasclearly underpinned by valuesand principles that fed a broadercommunity relations agenda,and that those values andprinciples were appreciated bythe local coaches andexperienced by the children inpractice.

With this in mind we set outto design a soccer coachingmanual that would provideopportunities for social contactacross community boundaries;would promote mutualunderstanding; and engender inparticipants – children andcoaches alike – a desire for andcommitment to peacefulcoexistence. In addition, ofcourse, we aimed to enhancesoccer skills and technicalknowledge, but this was verymuch secondary to the broadercommunity relations aims. Themanual emphasises thefollowing principles and containsa series of practices andexercises through whichchildren’s learning andunderstanding of these principlescan be made manifest:1. Neutrality2. Equity and Inclusion3. Respect4. Trust5. Responsibility

A pilot version of the F4PCoaching Manual was producedin March 2004 and was used inthe next phase of the project inIsrael in July later that year.While this manual has beendesigned within the context ofthe contours of division in Israelisociety, it is envisaged that itmay be adapted and used forsimilar purposes in othertroubled and deeply dividedsocieties elsewhere in the world.


FOOTBALL FOR PEACEFEATURE

The sport provideds opportunities for social contact across communityboundaries.

One of the F4P projects involved besides coaches and leaders 300children from six communities.

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The second theme to emergefrom the evaluation of the 2003project was a perceived need todo more work year-round withadult volunteer coaches andcommunity sports leaders fromthe participating towns andvillages. While not insignificant,the impact that a week-longcoaching project can have onlonger term cross communityrelations is necessarily limited.The one-day training event in2003 had been extremely useful,and we were concerned to keepdeveloping links and networksamong those people who werenot only key in terms of planningfor the 2004 event but were alsosignificant in the development ofcommunity sport policies in theregion.

To further this aim, in March2004 we organised a week-longtraining event in the UK at theUniversity of Brighton attendedby 30 invited Jewish and Arabcommunity leaders. In addition,from the UK we invited the 28student volunteer coaches andseven leaders facilitating the2004 project. After anintroductory day of trust gamesand adventure activities, theremainder of the week wasdedicated to working through thedraft F4P Coaching Manual, andculminated in an escorted visit toArsenal football club.Evaluations indicated that thistraining event was an unqualifiedsuccess, and our Israeli guestsleft with a strengthenedcommitment to the values andprinciples that drive the F4Pintervention. This traininginitiative enhanced the deliveryof the project itself in July 2004and is a dimension that we planto build into any future projects.

The 2004 main event wasmore than twice the size ofanything that had been donepreviously. It involved 700children from 16 communitieswidespread throughout NorthernIsrael. In its execution, a team of28 student-volunteer coachesand seven leaders from the UKworked alongside 60 localJewish and Arab-Israelivolunteers at seven differentproject sites, including agirls-only project in Tiberias onthe banks of the Sea of Galilee.The project began with a further

training day for all of the localand UK coaches held at theIsraeli national sports university,the Wingate Institute. Then, afterfour days of coaching at theseparate sites, all 700 childrenwere brought together in mixedteams to enjoy a grand finals dayat the stadium of Nazareth FC.After the awards ceremony,when the winning teams werehanded their trophies and everychild given a medal, as theanthem-like song ‘all togethernow (in no-mans land)’ blastedout from the stadium’s loudspeaker system, all 700 children,relatives and friendsspontaneously flooded onto thepitch to dance and sing incelebration with the coachingteams.

The whole project wassubjected to detailed researchand evaluation, involvingsurveys, interviews and morein-depth, ethnographic studies.Preliminary findings suggestthat, at least in the short tomedium term, participation in theproject can have a positiveimpact on children’s andcoaches perceptions of ‘theother’ community. Moreover, thisresearch indicates that F4P isnot only a valuable vehiclethrough which children can beginto think about co-existence andmutual understanding, but it isalso an important vehicle forchanging the way communityleaders and policymakers thinkabout how sport can be utilisedas a cross-community resource.

In addition, on-going evaluationsconfirm that the UK volunteerswho participate in F4Pexperience a horizon expandingadventure that enhances theirown personal and socialdevelopment. On this basis, solong as adequate funding can besecured, F4P is scheduled to berepeated in 2005 following thepattern of the 2004 project, whilealso expanding into one or moreurban environments.

Clearly, the key dimensionsof any peace plan have to bepolitical, military and economic.However, if proposals articulatingat these levels do not resonatewith the feelings and aspirationsof the people, if they are notsympathetically received at thelevel of community, then it isunlikely that such grand schemescan succeed. Therefore, it isimportant that work taking placeat the level of political society ismatched and complimentedthrough efforts being made withinthe multiple spheres of civilsociety and culture, includingsport. F4P is making a small, butnonetheless significant,contribution to this effort.

John Lambert, Gary Stidder andJohn Sugden

University of Brighton

For further information aboutF4P please [email protected] visit our website (currentlyunder construction) at,football4peace.co.uk

It is important thatwork taking placeat the level ofpolitical society ismatched andcomplimentedthrough effortsbeing made withinthe multiplespheres of civilsociety andculture, includingsport


FOOTBALL FOR PEACEFEATURE

The manual from the F4P project in the Middle East can be used for similar purposes in other troubled anddeeply divided societies elsewhere in the world.

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INFORMAL LABOURMARKET ACTIVITY INPARTNER COUNTRIESAN UNEXPLORED AREA THATNEEDS CLOSER ANALYSIS

Informal incomegeneration hasbecome therecourse and thesocial safety netfor many people inthe majority ofETF partnercountries

This article follows on from amore general description of

the conceptual framework of theinformal sector, published in thefirst issue of Live & Learn in July2004. This second exploration ofinformal labour market activitieswill deal more specifically withtransition societies, withparticular emphasis on the CISzone. As in the first article, it isimportant to distinguish theinformal economy from purelyillegal and underground businessactivities.

There are several ways toexamine this growing socialphenomenon. One of them issimply to observe, whether youare in your neighbourhoodmarket, in the city park, ortravelling through the rural landsof Central Asia or the Caucasus.Real street labour markets forconstruction services are a dailyscene in Tbilisi and Baku, forexample.

Another way to find out is byexamining studies, reports andstatistics. But what if the reliableprocessed information oninformal labour market activitiesis limited to a few analyticalstudies, based on the nationallabour force and householdstatistics dated 2000 at best?

The increasing importance ofinformal work and businessactivity justifies moreinvestigation of this key aspect ofmany transition labour markets.The informal economy is notconfined to a certain social orprofessional group or to aspecific region. Informal incomegeneration has become therecourse and the social safetynet for many people in the

majority of ETF partnercountries.

In the absence of morespecific and up-to-dateinformation on thesocio-economic picture behindthe informal economy, we musttell the story with the data wehave2.

The International LabourOffice (ILO) has been the maininitiator of studies and policyrecommendations on theinformal sector and the informaleconomy. It is now more than 30years since the ILO mounted aseries of multi-disciplinary‘employment missions’ to variousdeveloping countries, the first ofwhich was to Kenya in 1972.This mission recognised thattraditional production and serviceactivities had not only not beenabsorbed by the moderncapitalist economy, but also hadpersisted and become morevigorous through newmicro-enterprises. To highlightthis fact, the Kenya missionrenamed the ‘traditional sector’the ‘informal sector’, using theterm coined by Keith Hart in theprevious year.

The informal economyattracted renewed attention inthe 1990s, when the worldwitnessed one of the mostsignificant instances of economicand social transformation of agroup of countries with highhuman development profiles,which moved from centrallyplanned economies tomarket-based economies(Central and Eastern Europe(CEE) and the Commonwealth ofIndependent States (CIS)). Thisgrowth of the informal economy

in countries with high humandevelopment profiles attractedthe interest of internationaldonors, although studiesfrequently took a legal approach,focusing on the issue ofnon-compliance with taxationand regulations.

A new stimulus to furtherresearch was provided by thegeneral discussion on theinformal economy at the 90th

International Labour Conferencein June 2002. A limited numberof papers analysing the origins ofand trends in the informaleconomy in the CIS zoneappeared. These proposed newconcepts that were tailored tothe social and economiccharacteristics of the regionrather than those of developingcountries, where the bulk ofprevious research on theinformal sector had been carriedout. Selected references aregiven in this article.

One of the central features ofthe transformation to marketeconomies was the rapid andstrong contraction of output andthe longer than expectedrecovery in the majority of thecountries concerned. The outputrecession was accompanied bysignificant resource dislocation,affecting the level and dispersionof income and leading toinequality and poverty.


FEATURE

The informal sector needs closer analysis.

2 Acknowledgements to my colleague Natalia Popova for this reflection.

Transition was a sudden andsignificant shock for social,economic and employmentstructures. It rapidly led tounder-funding and lack ofperformance in the publicservices and social securitysystems, and to theinformalisation of employment.The latter was linked to fallingemployment rates and revenuesin the severely affected formaleconomy, although theintroduction of new non-standardforms of jobs and production byinternational firms has sincebeen recognised as anothermajor cause. The effects oftransition on the labour marketmust be seen in relation to theeffects of globalisation andlabour flexibilisation, complicatedby the institutional and regulatoryconfusion of the transformationprocess.

The depth and duration of thetransformation recession is aresult of various factors,particularly the pattern of‘under-reform’ in the majority ofthe CIS. Although privatisationhas occurred, it has failed toprovide a major stimulus togrowth. Governments haveannounced private sector andSmall and Medium sizeEnterprise (SME) supportpolicies and programmes, andintroduced improvements to theregulatory framework for

business. However, theinvestment and entrepreneurshipenvironment (includinglegislation and enforcement,taxation and registration, costs ofcomplying with regulations,access to information andaccess to appropriate financing)remains contradictory, unevenand complicated. The pace ofeconomic restructuring has notbeen matched by consistent andcomprehensive market reforms,and this has resulted ineconomies with advancedde-industrialisation, butapparently less well-developedentrepreneurial capacity(attitude, culture and skills) thanexists in CEE countries, forexample. Privatised stateenterprises rather than newentrants into the market (newfirms) continue to dominatemany of the CIS economies. Thegrowth of SMEs, particularly insectors that rely heavily onadded value and expertise, hasbeen hampered by a lack ofappropriate financing and bycomplicated licensing andbureaucracy. Consequently,much of the private sectoractivity in the CIS is concernedwith exploiting either arbitrageopportunities or countries’natural resources. Many SMEsavoid growth and, in the mostdifficult business environments,even established medium-sizedfirms limit their promotioncampaigns in order to avoidattracting attention (and newcontrols) from state bodies.

To summarise, uncertainmacroeconomic environmentswith inadequate marketstructures do not encouragedomestic or foreign investment,and adversely affect output andemployment growth. Formalenterprises suffer, and as aresult, many are tempted toconduct informal businessactivities alongside their formalactivities. The association of aformal registered enterprise withvarious informal businesses orpractices is an increasinglycommon situation. The formalenterprise is necessary in orderto have access to bankingservices (mainly credit andforeign currency operations) andto maintain an official set ofbooks and tax reporting. The

associated informal businessesare necessary in order to avoidtaxation and punitive controlsthat would reduce the revenue ofthe business as a whole anddamage the profitable sides ofthe enterprise.

The motives for participationin the informal economy willdiffer according to the stage ofreform that has been reached ina particular country. Analystssuggest that in countries that areat more advanced stages ofreform (CEE region),informalisation tends to be drivenby market causes (as a way ofavoiding taxes and escapingbureaucracy and over-regulation).In contrast, informal activities inthe CIS are associated with alack of opportunity in the formaleconomy; hence, they representa coping strategy for survival.The Europan Bank forReconstruction andDevelopment (EBRD) TransitionReport (2000) supports the viewthat informality for survival ismore common in the CIS than inCEE countries. Both motivesmay also co-exist.

Why is the growth ofinformality in labour marketactivities a matter of policyconcern? For societies with highhuman development profiles onlya decade ago, economicdevelopment strategies thatdeliberately rely on or build on theinformal sector and informalemployment represent abackward step and will guaranteea low level of competitiveness forfuture generations.

The association ofa formal registeredenterprise withvarious informalbusinesses orpractices is anincreasinglycommon situation


INFORMAL LABOUR MARKET ACTIVITY INPARTNER COUNTRIESFEATURE

is.

The pace of economic restructuring has not been matched byconsistent and comprehensive market reforms.

The proliferationof the informalsector is a wakeup call togovernments

Tolerating informal labourmarket activities as part of anecessary coping strategy,promoting the seeds of anentrepreneurship culture that areinherent to informal businessand promoting self-employmentas a promising alternative tonon-existing wage employmentare not the same as promotingthe informal sector as a strategicpart of social and economicdevelopment, or relying on theinformal sector to create thosejobs that the mainstreameconomy, atrophied byexcessive bureaucracy and rentseeking, cannot create.

The proliferation of theinformal sector is a wake up callto governments. Large informalsectors have the potential todistort key economic indicators(GDP, employment and

unemployment rates), and anydecisions that are based onthem. The informalisation of thelabour market may lead to a lossof public revenues that couldotherwise contribute to the socialsector. However, some analystsargue that in the poorestcountries in the CIS the largeinformal labour market primarilyhas a subsistence character, andcan hardly be seen as a sizeableuntapped tax resource. Provisionof social security based onincome levels becomes moredifficult as informal employmentspreads and becomes commonpractice for poor households. Buta more serious and longer-termnegative effect is the risk of skillserosion and the resulting inabilityto adapt to technology changesfor the large numbers ofeducated people forced bycircumstances into the typicallylow-skilled activities of theinformal sector.

Recent research (Yoon et al.,2003; Barnabè, 2002), based onnational labour force andhousehold surveys and usingadjusted informal sectordefinitions, presents thefollowing picture of informallabour market activity in CIS-7(the poorest seven countries3).� The level of informal activity

is very high, and iscomposed primarily of‘own-account’ workers insmall-plot farming, multiplejob holding (secondary jobs),unpaid family workers infarms and businesses,self-employed workers innon-agricultural householdenterprises and informalemployment (which is wellrepresented in formalenterprises and even in stateorganisations).

� Almost 16 million individualsaged 15 years and older areengaged in informal activityof one kind or another.Formal employment rates areactually higher than theinformal rates. Many formalemployees have multiplejobs, typically in the informalsector.

� Approximately three quartersof all informal employment isin agriculture.

� Self-employment in ’off farm’business is of lessimportance than in CEEcountries, possibly reflectingless emphasis onentrepreneurial initiative andculture.

� Poverty affects firstly theunemployed and inactivepopulation. However, thestudy shows that in all thecountries concerned, informalemployees and farmers aremore affected than those inthe formal sector. Tajikistanis the exception, since herepoverty affects those informal labour marketcategories more than thosein the informal self-employedsector.

� Extreme poverty appears tobe much more common inhouseholds that are basedon informal activity.The research concludes that

in CIS-7, households areresorting to informal activities inorder to ‘make ends meet’,rather than to exploitwealth-enhancementopportunities.

CIS societies inherited highlevels of human capital, assetsthat are the most valuable anddifficult to accumulate. In thecontext of the very highunemployment rates amongyoung graduates and first-timejob seekers in general, informalbusiness appears to be one ofthe few possible ways to enteractive life. But if conditions donot encourage young graduateswith, for example, high levels ofInformation and CommunicationTechnology (ICT) skills and agood business idea, it is clearthat new-technology ventureswill be quickly forgotten in favourof survival schemes within thetypical buy-and-resell business.‘The high level of industrialdevelopment, technology,applied research anddevelopment capacity, technicalskills and market savvy of thepopulation – a societal asset thatmost developing countries aredesperately striving to attain –will be further abandoned sincethe informal sector actually haslittle need for such an inheritance.’(Bateman, 2004, p 12).



Almost 16 million individuals are engaged in informal activity of onekind or another in CIS-7 countries.

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3 Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan

Georgia has one of thehighest informal employmentrates in the CIS, estimated at41.5%. Although its populationhas significant rates of higherand secondary education, theeconomy is now basicallydependent on low-skill sectors,low-productivity self-employmentand farming. Agriculture in verysmall family plots is essentiallynon-monetary and of lowproductivity: products areself-consumed and only rarelysold for cash. Poverty in ruralareas is therefore less a problemof insufficient food supply thanone of a deficit of financialresources and of under-developedinfrastructures and social services.In urban areas poverty is afunction of unemployment, thoughrecent research has highlightedthe serious problem of the ‘pooremployed’. In the absence of apromising private sector, urbanyouths opt for longer educationpaths, and subsequently forexternal migration.

Demographic trends inGeorgia are striking: a) between1989 and 2002 there was areduction in the absolute size ofthe population by more than onemillion (the 2002 census showeda population of over 4.3 million);and b) the population is ageingsignificantly, particularly in theover-65 age group, a trendlinked partly to externalmigration. In a climate of failurein governance, which hascontinued for years, there is agrowing perception among thepopulation that good jobopportunities have little to dowith a good education, sincejobs with salaries that reallymake a difference betweenpoverty and decent livingstandards are not usuallyacquired through competition.Education seems to be losingground as an important variablein determining whether a familystays above the poverty line.This rather negative pictureshould not be taken to mean thatGeorgians have abandoned theirrespect for knowledge andeducation. However, it doesillustrate the reasonableconcerns of citizens about thevisible damage that weakinstitutions and unequalopportunities produce.

Tajikistan is a state-dominated and agriculturaleconomy. This is the only CIS-7country for which there arerecent results of a specificsurvey on informal activities. Thesurvey concluded that the salaryfrom official state employmentprovides only around a third ofthe average household income,with the rest coming mainly frominformal agricultural activities,migrant remittances and somestate benefits. Another strikingaspect of the country’s economyis the scale of child labour ininformal farming. Thisphenomenon has an impact onhuman capital formation, sincethe opportunity costs ofparticipating in education areclearly high in circumstances ofhousehold survival. There arealso future consequences interms of skills inequality betweencertain categories of thepopulation, with resultingdiscrimination and inability toadapt to labour markets.

The established survivalpattern of the majority of informalsector activities in CIS-7countries suggests that theseactivities have limited potential tograduate to more formal sectorsand thereby become integratedinto the mainstream economy.Consequently, they can havelittle positive influence on thestimulation of economic growthor on enhancing employmentopportunities for others.

The ETF has only recentlyturned its attention to the issueof poverty, the informal economyand the role of skills and trainingin enabling working people tomove out of the informal sectors.Albania was selected for asurvey on the informal economyand training. The Enlargementand South Eastern Europe(EESE) department initiated thestudy in September 2004 andthe project manager is NataliaPopova. The survey results areexpected in the second quarterof 2005. Given the importance ofthe informal sector to most of thepoorer CIS countries, surveysthat are specifically designed togather better information oninformal and independenteconomic activity, and that willcontribute to a human resourcesdevelopment policy for a future

society with a growing economy,can only be a positive step.

Eduarda Castel-BrancoExpert in training for the

labour market andlocal development

in transiation economiesETF

List of selected references� Bernabè, S., A Profile of

Informal Employment: TheCase of Georgia, ILO, 2002

� Musiolek, B., Decent work inthe Informal Sector: CEE /CIS Region, ILO, 2002

� Yoon, Y., Beilly, B., Krstic, G.and Bernabè, S., A Study ofInformal Labour MarketActivity in the CIS-7, WorldBank, 2003Unpublished

� Bateman, M., ‘Formalisingthe Informal Sector Economyin the Western Balkans:Policy Recommendationsand Economic and SocialEffects’, Final reportcommissioned by theEuropean Union andStrategic Studies in theCARDS Region, 2004

Find out more:International Labour Office(ILO) - http://www.ilo.org/90th International LabourConference -http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc90/index.htmEBRD Transition reports -http://www.ebrd.com/pubs/tr/main.htm

Education seemsto be losingground as animportant variablein determiningwhether a familystays above thepoverty line



Recent research shows that extreme poverty appears to be muchmore common in households that are based on informal activity.

NATIONAL QUALIFICATIONFRAMEWORKS

A PART OF THE POLICY LANDSCAPE

NationalQualificationFrameworksprovide greatertransparency

National QualificationFrameworks have been

discussed in different parts of theworld for almost twenty years.They are part of the policylandscape in many countries.New Zealand, Estonia, Scotland,the Netherlands, Ireland,Australia, Spain, South Africa,and Romania all have or aredeveloping frameworks for theissuance and management ofqualifications. This interest atnational level is also reflected inpolicy work and projects withinternational organisations – theInternational LabourOrganisation, the European

Union, and the OECD all haveprogrammes underway in the field.The ETF has been operating inthis area since 2002, and in2005 will coordinate projects onNational Qualification Frameworksin three of its regions – SouthEastern Europe, the Medaregion and in Eastern Europeand Central Asia. The interest inNational Qualification Frameworksarises from a perception thatthey provide greater transparencyof what qualifications ‘mean’,and that they offer a way ofdeveloping learning pathwaysthat people can followthroughout their lifetime.

What are NationalQualificationFrameworks?

National QualificationFrameworks are so calledbecause they are national inscope, they deal with theissuance and development ofqualifications, and they providefor each country a common setof principles and referencesagainst which all kinds ofqualification can be aligned.

In the main part, NationalQualification Frameworks areperceived as a way wherebygreater coherence and clarity


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can be brought to the area ofqualifications in terms of whatqualifications mean with regardto knowledge and learning.Greater clarity about whatqualifications mean offers usersand developers of qualificationsthe opportunity to make informeddecisions on the relevance andvalue of qualifications, therelationship between differentkinds of qualification (forexample, qualifications fromhigher education, secondaryeducation, and vocationaleducation), and whether or not aqualification opens upopportunities in the labourmarket or in terms of furtherlearning.

Approaches to achieving thiscoherence and clarity throughNational QualificationFrameworks vary from country tocountry depending oncircumstances. In somecountries, National QualificationFrameworks are mainlyvocational frameworks aimed atfacilitating links between thelabour market and vocationaleducation, or linkingqualifications at initial andadvanced vocational levels. Inother countries, NationalQualification Frameworks aremore encompassing and attemptto provide a set of principles thatembrace qualifications from allsectors of education – thesecondary general and highereducational sectors as well asthe vocational sectors.

Despite the differences infocus, there appear to be threemain elements that are commonto all NQFs. These are:� A series of reference levels

describing types of skill andknowledge contained invarious qualifications;

� A set of quality assuranceprinciples to guideimplementers and developersof qualifications; and

� Methods for recognisinglearning gained in differentprogrammes and contexts.

Reference levels

Reference levels provide aset of common benchmarksagainst which differentqualifications can be aligned.

The levels identify the types ofskill and knowledge found inqualifications. They alsodescribe the level of skill andknowledge that the holder of aparticular qualification could beexpected to have, that is,whether or not the skill andknowledge is at a basic level, anadvanced level or whether it isdeep or specialised. Thepurpose of reference levels ismainly to promote clarity andcoherence between differentkinds of qualification byindicating what they contain.

Different NationalQualification Frameworks havedifferent numbers of thesereference levels and there is nostandard number for a country,for example, the framework inNew Zealand has 10 levels, theScottish Framework - 10 levels,the Spanish VocationalFramework - 5 levels, the IrishFramework - 10 levels, theAustralian Framework - 13Levels, and the framework in theNetherlands - 5 levels. It seemsthat the number of levelsdepends on the scope of theframework, in that the moresectors of education covered bythe framework, the morereference levels that framework

has. Early discussions on acommon European set ofreference levels for VET hasindicated that 7 or 8 referencelevels may apply at theEuropean level.

Reference levels generallystart with the identification of theskills and knowledge expected tobe found in a qualification. Thisis followed by arranging theseskills and knowledge into levels.To see how this works, it isuseful to examine a countryexample.

The Scottish framework isone of a number in which allqualifications – secondarygeneral; initial and continuingvocational education; and highereducation – are expected to beincluded. There are fiveidentified areas that areimportant to all the qualificationsexpected to fall within theframework. These are:� Knowledge and

understanding,� Practice: Applied knowledge

and understanding,� Generic cognitive skills,� Communication ICT and

numeracy skills,� Autonomy, accountability and

working with others.

The purpose ofreference levels ismainly to promoteclarity andcoherencebetween differentkinds ofqualification byindicating whatthey contain


NATIONAL QUALIFICATIONFRAMEWORKSFEATURE

Photo: Getty Images

All qualificationframeworkscontain guidelinesfor qualityassurancepractices

These reflect the type of skilland knowledge contained inqualifications.

In developing the referencelevels, each of these is furtherdescribed in terms of whetherthe knowledge and skill isexpected to be applied in abroad or limited context, isdeeply held or is specialised, isexercised in routine or complexenvironments, involves the useof judgements to evaluatesolutions or solve problems, orwhether or not a person could beexpected to exercisemanagement or supervisoryresponsibilities. Manydimensions are used toelaborate each of the aboveitems. The resulting elaborationeventually produces a series oflevels – each one based on thesame group of skills andknowledge, but distinguishedaccording to degree. In Scotlandthe framework for qualificationshas 10 levels, each potentiallyaligned to a qualification, forexample, at level 6 the groupingof knowledge and skill is alignedto vocational qualification and toupper secondary generalqualifications, and at level 9 thegrouping of skills and knowledgeis aligned with first universitylevel degrees and graduatecertificates.

Each level has a uniquedefinition. Qualificationdevelopers can align theirqualifications to the levels. Usersof the qualification are then ableto see the expected knowledgeand skill the qualification

contains, the level it operates at,and also the relationship it mighthave to other qualifications. Thisenables users to make informeddecisions. Individuals may usethe information to make adecision about a qualification tostudy by identifying if it leads onto an another qualification. Atraining institution may use it todecide what qualification to offerstudents, and a government mayuse the information to identifywhich qualifications to fund, forexample, does it want to supportqualifications at the upper,middle or lower end of theframework.

In the Scottish example, thedefinitions used at each level aregeneric. They are intended toprovide a general, sharedunderstanding of each level andto allow broad comparisons to bemade between qualifications andlearning at different levels. Theyare not intended to give preciseor comprehensive statements,and there is no expectation thatevery qualification or programmeshould have all of thecharacteristics. The NewZealand, Spanish, Irish,Australian, Dutch and SouthAfrican frameworks all followsimilar processes of leveldefinition and alignment.

Quality Assurance

The second feature that iscommon to all qualificationframeworks is the use of acommon set of references for thequality assurance ofqualifications. These generallydeal with two main issues: thecontent of qualifications and theawarding of qualifications. Interms of content, quality isincreasingly promoted throughthe specification of qualificationsin terms of learning outcomes.Learning outcomes describewhat an individual is expected tobe able to do and know as aresult of the learning that he orshe has undertaken in thecourse of study. The use oflearning outcomes isincreasingly common in allsectors of education as a meansof emphasising the capacity tointegrate skills and knowledge inthe application of learning.

Programmes seeking to berecognised within a framework ofqualifications usually have toidentify the learning outcomesthey contain. This providesgreater transparency in thecontent of learning and allowsusers of the programme toevaluate if the qualification’sspecific content is relevant totheir purposes, or how it mightlink up with other availablequalifications.

The use of learningoutcomes to describe what aperson needs to be able to do atthe end of a programme of studyintroduces the possibility ofgreater flexibility in howprogrammes can be used tosupport qualifications. LearningProgrammes can be designedaround groups of learningoutcomes. The use of learningoutcomes in this way offers theopportunity for the developmentof module-based learning with achoice of entry and exitpathways into a qualification.

All qualification frameworkscontain guidelines for qualityassurance practices. Thesesupport the verification oflearning and its delivery in termsof the competence of teachingpersonnel, the assessment oflearning, the materials used toprovide the learning, and thelearning processes themselves.

Methods forrecognising learninggained in differentprogrammes andcontexts

The final element found inNational Qualificationframeworks are the methods torecognise learning obtained indifferent contexts andprogrammes. This relates to twomain themes: the validation ofprior experiences and informallearning, and the provision ofcredit between learningprogrammes.

The validation of priorlearning and experiences meansthat where possible qualificationsare expected to includeprocesses that recognise theexperiences and prior learning ofindividuals as contributing to theachievement of the learning



Photo: ILO/P. Deloche

outcomes in the qualification. Asan example, a person who hasacquired experience andknowledge of a subject field inthe course of his or her workingcareer should have theopportunity to have theexperience recognised if theyenroll in a learning programmethat leads to a qualification. Thisavoids a situation where aperson has to relearn and atrainer/teacher re-teach what theperson already knows and isable to do. The use of learningoutcomes that clearly specify theknowledge and skills containedin a qualification greatly reducesthe possibility of this occurring.The recognition of prior learningis well established in manycountries and is seen aspotentially a strong contributor tothe participation of adults incontinuing learning.

A further method ofrecognising learning that iscommonly found in NationalQualification Frameworks is theuse of credit transferarrangements that enable peoplewho have undertake onequalification or learningprogramme to obtain recognitionfor it in another. This differs fromthe validation of prior learningand experience in the sense thatthe focus is more on courseparticipation. The use of credittransfer arrangements enhancesthe potential portability oflearning between institutions andbetween different sectors ofeducation. In a Europeancontext, such processes offer thepromise of greater mobilityacross the EU.

European Developments

Each of the three majorelements of NationalQualification Frameworks –Reference Levels, QualityAssurance, and Credit Transfer– are currently being elaboratedfor possible use in a broadEuropean context by the variousworking groups establishedunder the Lisbon process.Progress to date has beensignificant, and many of thesupporting elements areexpected to be in place during2006. This work at the Europeanlevel is generating both a great

deal of information about thetechnical elements of NationalQualifications and the issues thatcan arise during the course ofimplementation. Many of thedevelopments can be accessedthrough Cedefop’s trainingvillage website.

ETF projects

The experience of countriesthat have developed frameworksfor their qualifications indicatesthat the process does take timebut can proceed most adroitlywhen there is thoroughconsultation with andparticipation of the variousstakeholders. Thesestakeholders are critical to thesuccessful implementation ofNQF. They include thesecondary education community,unions, employers, employerassociations, the vocationaltraining community (includingprivate and public trainingproviders), different governmentministries (such as the ministriesof labour and education), and theuniversity sector.

The ETF will be running threeprojects on NQF in 2005 in itsSEE, MEDA, and EECA regions.These projects will aim not todevelop National QualificationFrameworks, but rather toresearch and facilitate thedevelopment of strategies forNQF by countries in the regions.These strategies will focus onthe main elements of NQF –reference levels, methods forrecognising learning gained indifferent contexts, and qualityassurance processes as well asthe consultation process. Thefocus on NQF in ETF’s workarises from the growingmomentum behind lifelonglearning that is occurring inMember States and partnercountries. ETF projects will alsoassist partner countries in theirparticipation in theNeighbourhood Policy.

Vincent McBrideETF

Find out more:EU http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/lll/life/supportlll_en.html#9

Cedefophttp://communities.trainingvillage.grILOhttp://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/skills/recogn/Unescohttp://www.unesco.org/iau/globalization/qf.htmlScotlandhttp://www.scqf.org.ukEnglandhttp://www.qca.org.ukAustraliahttp://www.aqf.edu.auSouth Africahttp://www.saqa.org.zaNew Zealandhttp://www.nzqa.govt.nzUnited Stateshttp://www.nssb.orgMalaysiahttp://www.trainingmalaysia.com/mlvk/profile(english).shtmlFrancehttp://www.cncp.gouv.frEstoniahttp://www.kutsekoda.ee/

A good overview ofinternational practices andissues in the field of NQF isavailable in The Journal ofEducation and Work, Volume 16,No. 3, September 2003.

The stakeholdersare critical to thesuccessfulimplementation ofNQF



Processes of credit transfer offer the promise of a greater mobilityacross Europe.

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HOW TO CONTACT US

Further information can be foundon the ETF website: www.etf.eu.int.

For any additional information, please contact:

External Communication UnitEuropean Training FoundationVilla GualinoViale Settimio Severo, 65I – 10133 TorinoT +39 011 630 2222F +39 011 630 2200E [email protected]

Publications Office

Publications.eu.int

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Live&Learn Issue 2

Documents

Transcript of Live&Learn Issue 2