30 Years of the ETF: building skills for Europe's future
In her priorities for the new European Commission for 2024-29, President Ursula von der Leyen, has proposed a “Union of Skills” and a “Skills Portability Initiative”.
With the EU facing a workforce deficit, and partner countries often a surplus, the ETF will continue to be an important interface between the two: working on the transparency and transferability of qualifications, guiding smart specialisation strategies and nurturing excellence in education.
In autumn 2024, the ETF celebrates its 30th anniversary and is marking the milestone by publishing a 30th anniversary report looking back at the past but also examining possible futures.
The ETF was founded at a time when the map of Europe was suddenly changing beyond all recognition: the Soviet Union was imploding, the former Yugoslavia descending into civil wars, Czechoslovakia was dividing into two and the Baltic States were regaining independence. Many countries – Austria, Finland, Sweden, Poland and Hungary – were clamouring to join the EU.
In 1994, the ETF was tasked by the EU with overseeing and advising on reforms in those countries' vocational education and training (VET) structures. Through the EU’s Phare and Tacis programmes, the ETF began working with two dozen countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and facilitating dialogue between governments, companies and training providers.
The agency established “intelligence units”, which later became National Observatories, gathering, analysing and disseminating data regarding training issues. With countries queueing up to join the EU, the ETF published annual reports into their vocational training reforms.
The geographic scope of ETF operations was repeatedly extended. Operations in the former Yugoslavia started in 1996 under the CARDS programme (Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilisation). Two years later, it began providing assistance to the EU’s Meda programme, working with countries in the Eastern and Southern Mediterranean. In the aftermath of the Arab Spring in 2011, the ETF worked increasingly in north Africa and parts of the Middle East, taking a lead role in GEMM (“Governance for Employability in the Mediterranean”).
It has sometimes not been easy, however, to explain what the European Training Foundation does. There’s an old joke that it doesn’t operate in Europe, doesn’t offer training, and isn’t a foundation! So to mark the anniversary, in-depth interviews with representatives of 30 countries have been conducted, explaining how the ETF has mentored, guided and challenged educational stakeholders over the past 30 years.
The ETF has always brought together many different stakeholders: governments, the private sector, civil society, educational providers, different regions and countries. Through the concept of “multi-level governance”, it has made VET governance more inclusive and effective thanks to vertical and horizontal interactions, increasing the efficiency, coherence, transparency, accountability and performance of VET policies and systems.
The ETF pioneered an innovative approach called “policy learning” that offered insights, resources and contacts to educational policy-makers. The Torino Process was launched as an evaluation tool (similar to the EU’s Copenhagen Process) that uses qualitative data to analyse education and training provision and effectiveness.
But the anniversary has also been an opportunity to look to the future through four foresight conferences convened by the ETF this year. With so many changes and challenges on the horizon – from the digital and green transitions, to AI, the demographic disruption of an ageing workforce, supply chain links and the vulnerabilities caused by geopolitical instability and the climate emergency – the ETF is taking the lead in trying to imagine what education and training provision will look like over the coming decades.
Some tentative conclusions from these foresight encounters have suggested that, as partner countries accede to the EU, the ETF's theatre of operations will again shift, probably pivoting more towards Africa. The economies of the future will demand new skills, requiring specialisations for the green and digital transitions, and soft skills that can’t be replicated or replaced by AI will prove resilient.
The actual delivery of training is likely to be altered too, with bespoke programmes available through virtual tutors and remote learning. Innovative, even unorthodox, learning pathways are likely to emerge, with training taking place not only in traditional settings but throughout people's working lives. The ETF has already led the way in the internationalisation of skills recognition, but that work will increase as “skills matching” addresses workforce deficits.
The 30th anniversary report interviews key players in the EU – like Directors General Mario Nava and Gert Jan Koopman – and hears from ETF Director, Pilvi Torsti, about how she envisages the ETF’s future. The next 30 years are likely to be as varied and rewarding as the previous three decades.
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