POLICY LEARNING – APPLYING THE CHANGING LEARNING PARADIGM FOR POLICY ADVICE ON VET REFORMS

Sören Nielsen, ETF11 June 2007, Vilnius

What is the ETF ?

Agency of the European Union Centre of Expertise in VET, LM (plus HRD) Assisting EU neighbouring countries in reforming education and training systems, through

- dissemination of EU policies and good practices- policy advice/learning and capacity building- information and analysis

EU Member States

ETF’s partner countries

Eastern Europe and Central Asia: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan

South Eastern Europe: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo

Acceding and candidate countries: Croatia, Macedonia, Turkey

Mediterranean region: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, West Bank and Gaza Strip

The EU Policy context

The LISBON STRATEGY

Global strategy for economic and social development as a response to current and future challenges:

-Information society / ICT and increasing role of knowledge in all processes

-Globalisation / delocalisation, economic restructuring, e-commerce and economy

Acknowledgement of the important role of Human Capital / Education and Training

The LISBON STRATEGY

New strategic goal for Europe

to become by 2010 the mostcompetitive and dynamic

knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable

economic growth withmore and better jobs and greater

social cohesion.

The LISBON STRATEGY

European education and training systems as a world reference for

quality by 2010 (Barcelona Council)

Investment in people became central in Union’s policies

Decisive contribution of education and training to the success of the Lisbon strategy recognised

Better Interaction/coordination of economic, employment and HRD policies

EU Policy coordinationFlexible approach - comprehensive strategy – subsidiarity principle

Political cooperation on common goalsAgreement on quantified objectives (benchmarks)Clear timeframesVoluntary and decentralised implementationSupport by Community programmesSteering and monitoring role of the EU Council and the EC

EU Education and Training PolicyBologna process in Higher

education (1997)

Lifelong Learning (2001)

Objectives 2010 process in Education and Training (2001)

Copenhagen process in VET (2002) – political endorsement to EU cooperation in VETConverging processes…EQF

VET POLICY DEBATES IN THE EU

From subsidiarity to flexible policy co-ordination

From ‘no harmonisation’ to convergence

From ‘we are the champions’ to ‘what can we learn from each other’

VET POLICY DEBATES IN THE EU

Lisbon goals to be achieved through: Organising convergence towards

shared objectives Open method of policy co-

ordination1. voluntary and decentralised joint action

2. setting European benchmarks 3. time bound (target of 2010)

4. support by Community programmes

POLICY LEARNING

‘Policy’ is about visions for development and the ways to achieve goals

‘Policy learning’ concept developed in a critical discussion with more traditional approaches to policy transfer and policy copying

Basic assumption: active engagement of national stakeholders in developing their own policy solutions

POLICY LEARNING

Policy learning as seen by ETF is a cultural and social construct

Result of a critical mass of learning experiences Educationalists: the need for teachers to shift from

being transmitters of expert knowledge and skills to students towards becoming facilitators of learning processes of persons that want to become competent themselves

Derive guidelines from new learning paradigm for their application in the policy-making field?

The lessons learned from Lithuania

Four international VET Teacher Training projects running in parallel in 2000-01: Danish funded project Finnish funded project ETF project Leonardo da Vince funded pilot project (first project led by

Lithuania)

Kaunas University steered the whole process through the LdV project where they were in the driver’s seat

ETF experience from partner countries

Countries must develop capacities to formulate national reform agendas and to shape own reform intiatives

Focus to be placed on how to organise policy learning environments and policy learning platforms

EU membership does not reduce the need for policy learning – the challenge of policy interpretation as broad EU objectives have to be translated into own institutions embedded in national contexts

Policymakers as learners?

For policymakers learning is more than cognitive processes – learning is practice

Their learning is situated learning – and an integral and inseparable aspect of their social practice

The «context-boundness» of policies is always existing and completements the «situatedness» of learning

Policymakers we (ETF) see as active learners who try to make sense of their – always, always changing - policy environment

EC instruments and policy learning

EC instruments for assistance and co-operation can be used within a variety of conceptions and approaches

They are instruments and not an end in themselves The fundamental issue is: what are the expected

learning outcomes and how are these instruments used in practice to achieve these outcomes?

More reflection is needed on a better use of existing instruments within a policy learning perspective rather than on developing new ones

Policy Learning in External Aid Context

Guiding principles:

There is no best model for organising the education system, each system is based on historical, cultural, socio-economic and political factors

The importance of institutions for embedding policy reforms

Policy Learning in External Aid Context

Three Lessons:

• Local ownership

• Embeddedness (institutional fit into context)

• Sustainability

Policy Learning in External Aid Context

ETF Approach: From policy copying and policy taking to

policy learning Knowledge sharing and exchange of good

practice to enable decision-makers to design and implement their reform

Evolution more than revolution Reform projects need to reflect local reality,

take institutional structure into account and involve all relevant stakeholders

VET Reform process is at least as important as the final products

What does this mean for ETF?

Facilitating systemic VET reform implies a new approach:

-From knowledge and answers that are disseminated and transferred to the partners (controlling task master)

-Towards a broker/learning facilitator role (an enabling helper)

Thank you for your attention

For further information on the ETF and our work

Visit our website: www.etf.eu.int

Email: sni@etf.europa.eu