The second round of the Torino Process, officially announced at the conference Learning from evidence in May 2011, is now well under way. The thrust of work will come next year and, by the end of 2012, will lead to evidence based country reports with data and analysis covering the entire vocational education and training sector and its links to economic development and social cohesion.

‘It’s not an academic, intellectual exercise,’ says Peter Greenwood, head of Evidence-based Policy Making Department at the ETF, it is a practical work that is meant to support national policy makers in their policymaking. Inspired by the EU Copenhagen Process, above all it features the active participation of a broad range of stakeholders - policy makers, practitioners, social partners and researchers - in a process owned by the countries themselves.

It’s a real process that is already having a concrete effect on national skills policies and systems.’

What sort of effects can be seen from the first round that ended in 2011? Mr Greenwood gives some examples:

• In Kosovo* the country report has been used as a baseline study for Education Strategic Plan 2011-16, in the section on the vocational education and training (VET). The plan was adopted in June 2011.
• In Ukraine, the country report has been used to inform the national VET Development Plan 2011-2015.
• In Tajikistan, the country report and experts from the Torino Process network have been used to draft the new 2011 Employment Policy under the Ministry of Labour.
• In Moldova and Kazakhstan, the process and the country reports have been used by the countries to set the frame for their donor coordination.
• In Egypt and Tunisia, the Torino Process country reports have given the transitional governments a timely first assessment of challenges in VET policy at the start of the Arab Spring. Indeed, the new Ministers of Education from both countries addressed the Conference in May 2011 in support of the Process.

The Torino Process has been used to inform the European Commission services responsible for education, employment and development cooperation as well as the European External Action Service. The findings also enabled the ETF to better define the priorities of its annual work programme and country activities for 2011 and 2012.

The findings of the Torino Process have been shared with the leading international organisations: UNESCO, Asian Development Bank, International Labour Office, OECD and World Bank, and fed into the work on skills taking place under the initiative of the G20

The value of the Torino Process lies in its participatory character. It gives sense of ownership to the partner countries, it is a driver for political momentum, and it’s a way to generate robust, evidence-based analysis to make better policies.

‘More broadly,’ says Mr Greenwood, ‘the Torino Process led to a new culture of policymaking, a more open, consultative approach to policy definition’.
 

*Under UNSCR 1244/1999