In all South Eastern European (SEE) countries including Turkey, radical VET and labour market reforms are currently taking place. The reforms introduce several elements that will affect the role of teachers as well as trainers and the nature and significance of the competences required to teach. Briefly, these elements are: increased autonomy for schools, an approach to learning that places the student at the heart of the learning process, a competency-based approach to programme design, a range of options of varying duration, and the policy of adapting vocational schools to the needs of local labour markets, communities and all students, both children and adults.
This is a particularly rich period for discussions about innovation in teaching and learning, and it is not possible to nominate best models. One of the most critical areas for education policy improvement is teacher and trainer quality.
Teachers and trainers as professionals in South Eastern Europe are committed to innovative working practices. However, there is a clear need to establish exchange and dissemination strategies, through peer learning or ‘communities of practice’ beyond the school level and, in the ongoing transformation phase, even beyond the national VET system level.
The reform of teacher and trainer education has lagged behind VET curriculum reform in many countries. As a response to these challenges, the ETF has set up a regional VET Teacher and Trainer Network in South Eastern Europe to support innovation in teaching and learning with the aim of establishing a platform for the participating countries in a period of dramatic transformation in the region. All are now designing and implementing VET reforms, extensively donor driven, and often undertaking similar activities but without learning from each other.
A European integration and enlargement process is changing the region. Some countries have already become EU Member States, others are candidate countries, while most are still in a reconstruction phase with an EU membership ‘perspective’. The VET teacher and trainer network has an important role in this phase as a platform for (i) dissemination of EU, regional as well as local policy developments, (ii) reflection on innovative practices in the region and elsewhere, and (iii) as a forum for stimulating shared development projects. The network was set up in 2002 and network members have since acquired considerable experience.
With a view to more permanent and sustainable capacities for innovation of learning environments and learning processes there is a need to strengthen those institutions involved in the network which have a potential leverage for carrying forward ideas and projects in this field. The network includes representation from the new national VET centres already established or being created in Albania, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. Institutions covering education but not dedicated to VET also exist in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. This project concentrates on supporting these new institutions within the broad framework of the ETF SEE VET TT Network. The objective is to enhance their institutional capacity to carry out continuous innovation and adaptations to changing conditions, responsiveness to local needs, school-based development work, innovation of teaching and learning, and capacity for international network learning and project cooperation.
This three-year ETF project is co-funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and runs from 2007 to 2009.
In 2007, the first year of the project, the following activities were carried out: • Selection of project participants, appointment of national project manager and anchoring up the project in national ministries of education • Setting up a ‘Steering Committee’ of Ministry of Education representatives from each country • Setting up of an ‘accompanying research’ function from the region to follow and document CoP project progression and advise on adaptations over the life cycle of the project • Participation in the ETF final conference on Key competences in Torino in March 2007. • Project start up workshop (one week) in a Danish vocational school with appointed project managers, international experts and ETF staff • Active participation in the annual Western Balkan VET TT Conference organised as an EU Presidency event in Portugal in September 2007 • Participation in a one-week training programme in the national VET Centre, Skopje, November, to (i) qualify participants to undertake school-based development work related to ‘innovation and entrepreneurship’, and (ii) to develop the capacity and infrastructure for setting up a Community of Practice • Shared and self-defined project activities within the common topic designed and national projects prepared to be launched in 2008 • Community of practice activities well established.
The first year covered six countries. The institutional landscape in BiH is still, post-Dayton, very complex. In Turkey there is a need to first build up a national VET TT network, as requested by the Ministry of National Education, and to select a national centre to play a leading role in VET TT.
Two sub-projects in BiH and Turkey, originally planned for late 2007, will be carried out in January 2008 to establish the necessary institutional capacity to enable BiH and Turkey to join the regional project work in early 2008, if possible.