Excellence is a practice

Our campaign in February on ‘Excellence’ in vocational education and training (VET) provided many examples of the components needed to allow institutions to excel, one of which is participating in mutually supportive and rewarding networks, as illustrated by the ETF’s ENE network which is connecting VET Centres of Excellence from the EU neighbourhood, Africa and the EU.

The European Union is putting in place policies and measures to make it a centre of education excellence in itself which supports countries throughout the world in improving their education training systems. Guided by these policies, practices and principles we have seen throughout February examples of how the ETF is supporting excellence through promoting centres of excellence in partner countries and their various pillars such as professional development for teachers and trainers, pedagogy development, seizing the opportunities of the digital and green transitions, fostering the autonomy of institutions supported by public private partnerships, and ensuring equity and inclusion.

Our Facebook Live gave an opportunity to members of ETFs Open Space community to discuss their experiences of teaching excellence in Belgium, Croatia and Serbia illustrating the power of knowledge sharing and dissemination.

Moreover, we have seen the importance of providing support for quality assurance, labour market measures for upskilling and reskilling, the development of skills for enterprises for interregional and cross-border cooperation, and digital skills and inclusion within a lifewide and lifelong perspective.

ETF's work is based on consistent monitoring and evaluation of policies for education and skills development in partner countries to tailor our policy advice. We are guided in our work by the EU values of peace and democracy, and respect of human rights.