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Learning Connects No. 1

Launch of the ETF's new digital newsletter

The ETF’s new digital newsletter is replacing our previously printed Live and Learn magazine. Learning Connects will keep you updated, on a monthly basis, about the ETF's activities supporting partner countries in the EU neighbouring regions on the reform of education and skills devel...

The ETF’s new digital newsletter is replacing our previously printed Live and Learn magazine.

Learning Connects will keep you updated, on a monthly basis, about the ETF's activities supporting partner countries in the EU neighbouring regions on the reform of education and skills development policies and systems.

 

Pillars of our work covered include the provision of policy advice, support for partnership and stakeholder engagement within the policy eco-system at national and international levels. Moreover, the newsletter gives updates on targeted country interventions, and the development of ETF networks for building expertise and good practice.

The right to education and the importance of ensuring inclusive access to quality education still face a myriad of challenges. The ETF operates under the remit of the EU’s external relations upholding human rights within all our activities in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals framework.

Each edition of the newsletter gives specific focus to emerging challenges and responses, such as the health pandemic, the digital and green transitions, democratic threats, conflict, and political turmoil.

The growing prominence of human capital development in the EU’s external relations programmes and policies means a growing demand for the ETF’s services. Stay tuned to find out how we are stepping up to the challenge!

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Partnerships for change

Throughout its history the ETF has been fostering and engaging in partnerships to develop the policy eco-system in the EU’s neighbouring regions...

Throughout its history the ETF has been fostering and engaging in partnerships to develop the policy eco-system in the EU’s neighbouring regions for the reform of education and employment systems. The ETF’s policy advice and guidance is based on a multi-stakeholder approach to governance and the creation of partnerships within and across the public, private and civic spheres. It draws upon developments in the European Union and international policy and practice.

The ETF’s scheduled communication campaign in April 2022 focuses on ‘partnerships for change’. It comes at tragic time for Ukraine and the world, brought by the devastation of war.

In this first edition of the ETF's monthly newsletter, Learning Connects, we highlight how, in these dark hours, education and learning are a vital source to ensure that the goodness of humanity will prevail and prosper. We are here in support of Ukraine, its resilience, recovery and renewal. 

What is the recipe for a good partnership?

Not every partnership can be a success. But, if there is an immediate openness to dialogue and a detailed definition of the shared work and commitment to reach goals, it has a good chance of survival.

For example, public private partnerships for skills development differ from other policy areas in that a stronger role and commitment from the public sector is needed together with private sector engagement focused on business sustainability rather than immediate investment returns. An understanding of these factors from the outset augur success that can bring which include accessibility to training, demand-driven vocational education and training provision, employment and economic growth. For more information consult the ETF's publication on the topic. 

In the recent ETF Skills Factory #15 podcast the value of partnerships was discussed by Helene Overmeer, coordinator international projects at HMC (Hydrographic and Marine Consultants), the Netherlands, and ETF’s Pirita Vuorinen, Senior Human Capital Development Expert and Coordinator for Engaging Enterprises in Skills Development. Helene and Pirita have been working together on an international project boosting innovation in the wood sector, including the Rivne region in Ukraine, with the help of developing partnerships within smart specialisation strategies. 

“Partnerships make it possible to realise great projects. Still, they do not always begin right, do not produce the expected results or are exhausted shortly,” said Vuorinen. Therefore, identifying the right partner is crucial to establishing good synergy right from the start.

ETF as a partner

"Anyone in a partnership should focus on the areas where they can have the most added value" explains Xavier Matheu, the ETF’s Director ad interim. "For instance, for the ETF this is our long expertise in developing human capital adapted to the unique circumstances of countries where we work, and in doing so we have developed in depth country knowledge.  This is what we can bring to a partnership, and it is for each organisation and institution to reflect on its own added value that it can bring to partnership arrangements," he adds.

Indeed, the ETF works with a variety of partners at national, regional (such as the Regional Cooperation Council of the Western Balkans), European and international levels for greater synergies, knowledge creation and impact. As well as creating opportunities and offering support through our various networks for stakeholders to form and grow partnerships (for example, vocational excellence, innovative educators), the ETF as an organisation engages in partnerships for greater impact in its work and to better support the United Nations Sustainable Goals. We undertake regular specialist research and diagnostic studies with other institutions of the European Union, for example the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, and we engage in joint activities with other European and international organisations such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), International Organisation for Migration (IOM), UNIDO and UNICEF amongst others.

Recent ETF activities on partnerships include:

Partnerships for lifelong learning

The ETF has set up a new network which will support the foster partnerships and enhance the contribution of multiple stakeholders to the governance of vocational education and training, skills development and lifelong learning, entitled the GLAD network. It is open to the key actors in formal, non-formal and informal learning and employment support, including the public and private sectors, social partners, and civil society organisations (CSOs). The objective is to accelerate learning between partner countries and through the exchange of existing best practices.

Partnerships for craftsmanship

Recently, the ETF partnered with the Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship, a Swiss-based non-governmental organisation studying and promoting excellence in crafts. It is best known for its Homo Faber Guide in which it tries to define excellence and focuses on 11 criteria:  authenticity, craftsmanship, innovation, originality, territory, training , competence, creativity, interpretation, talent, and tradition.

The partnership brought the Homer Faber Guide to new countries where these criteria were adopted based on which the ETF undertook an initial study of craftmanship and skills for the future in eight countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Albania, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey and Ukraine. Studies are currently being released in the first countries.

Partnerships for Ukraine

Due to the tragic circumstances in Ukraine there will be delay and review of the initial Homer Faber study. It will be followed up however and form part of the ETF's efforts in helping Ukraine on the road to recovery. Indeed, many varied partnerships will be required in supporting Ukraine rebuild and ensure that its education and employment system overcome the impact of war. The ETF is working to ensure that continued education and training within a lifelong learning perspective will serve Ukraine's resilience, recovery and renewal. 

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ETF podcast no.15: education and war

The ETF’s latest podcast ‘Skills factory, talks and ideas about skills from Europe and beyond’ discusses the experience of maintaining and rebui...

The ETF’s latest podcast ‘Skills factory, talks and ideas about skills from Europe and beyond’ discusses the experience of maintaining and rebuilding education systems at times of war. Both Anton Golani, expert on quality assurance in higher education working in Kosovo for the Austrian Development Agency and Anthony Gribben, Human Capital Development Expert from the European Training Foundation, who worked for many years in the Balkans, gained in depth experience in Kosovo during the 1998-1999 war. They share their memories, insights and thoughts for those affected by the current war in Ukraine with the ETF’s Communication Officer, Maria Lvova.

Education goes on

How can we keep education going in the midst of war? This is one of the central questions of the latest episode of the ETF's Skills Factory podcast in which we look at the armed conflict that happened in Kosovo nearly 25 years ago. Dr Anton Gojani from the Austrian Development Agency refers to the heroism of teachers who taught wherever they could find safe shelter, which was often out in the open air. Parents also self-organised to maintain an information system that recorded children's continued education which also served to unite young people and give them a sense of hope and purpose for the future. Anthony Gribben describes his first impressions as he arrived in Kosovo during the war in 1998 as part of the UN’s relief effort. He recalls the lack of teachers, the displacement of people and at the same time a huge attempt by everyone to maintain some kind of normality. The primary goal, says Gojani was to keep their belief in a better future.

Indeed, he adds “I think that in Ukraine, the way they are resisting, how they are really keeping united [...] this helps them a lot also to keep the education system running where possible”.

Rebuilding a broken education system

Notwithstanding the struggle, Gojani talks about the opportunities which emerged from having to completely rebuild the education system in Kosovo. They introduced curriculum reform, quality assurance mechanisms, communication tools and equipment also in part due to the support of the international and donor community heavily present in Kosovo at the time. Most importantly, however, for Gojani, there was the new found enthusiasm from students due to the sense of freedom of a newly founded homeland.

Gribben refers to the need in war and post-war settings to successfully manage the relationship between the international and donor community and the local community during and to ensure consensus and the best outcomes. “So a message for the international environment in any post-war scenario is to get the conversation going first at the international level” he concludes.

Integration with others

The displacement during the war in Kosovo impacted neighbouring countries like Albania, North Macedonia and Montenegro, which helped to integrate young people into their education systems. Nevertheless, Gojani points to the added benefits of the EU’s large scale effort supporting Ukrainians, and their integration into the education and training systems of the EU's member states. Meanwhile, Gribben stresses the need to enable the school systems in the EU to accommodate Ukrainians and for this he advocates making the most of the expertise of teachers from Ukraine who have come to the European Union. 

Find out more on this podcast and other ETF podcasts here.

Recognising qualifications

Recognising qualifications

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Union has received more than 2 million people seeking protection in the Member...

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Union has received more than 2 million people seeking protection in the Member States. Access to work and education requires both support to Ukrainians now in the EU to have their skills and qualifications recognised and an understanding by people in the EU of Ukraine’s education and training system and qualifications.

 

They were refugees then.  

And they are likely refugees again today. 

When the European Training Foundation interviewed Lubov and Olena in the summer of 2016 in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro for a feature in its quarterly print journal, Live & Learn, the vocational education and training (VET) specialists were 18 months into rebuilding careers and skills training systems shattered by war. 

Today they are almost certainly refugees again, as their hometowns and adoptive cities are under ferocious attack. 

And the job they were doing then – trying to rebuild broken training systems – is today an even greater task, one requiring the urgent recognition of qualifications for the estimated 10 million Ukrainians that have fled the war. 

Most of those refugees have headed west, or north-west into nearby EU countries, such as Poland, Hungary, or the Baltic States.  

Some have gone further afield – to Germany, France and beyond. The EU is allowing all Ukrainian refugees in, visa-free, with the right to live and work in the EU for up to three years. 

In 2016, the ETF met the women at a regional workshop on Ukraine’s progress in the Torino Process – the ETF’s flagship tool for analysing and improving the delivery of professional VET services. 

Lubov Chihladze, a vocational school teacher from the eastern Luhansk region, had fled fighting in 2014 between Russian-backed rebels and forces loyal to the Ukrainian government in Kyiv. 

The mother of a teenage daughter with a quarter of century professional experience behind her, Lubov, from Sievierodonetsk, north-east of Donetsk, had fled with her family and 90-year-old mother - who had survived Nazi occupation, deportation and incarceration in a Nazi concentration camp between 1941 and 1945. 

Olena Makarenko, from Donetsk, and Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Science, Donetsk Regional State Administration, had also fled. 

Both women were attempting to rebuild networks of skills training in parallel with recreating their lives in exile from their communities, with skills provision (schools and colleges) split between rebel and Kyiv-controlled territories. 

As the war enters its second month, and Russian forces attempt to connect Crimea with Luhansk and Donetsk, Ukraine’s tragedy is counted in thousands of dead civilians and Ukrainian soldiers – and millions of refugees. 

It will be a massive task to assimilate a wave of refugees that far exceeds the crisis of 2015, when as many as 1.3 million people fled wars in Syria and Afghanistan. Fortunately, the EU is ready. 

In Germany – which took in more than a million refugees, a law known as the Western Balkan Regulation of 2015 offers asylum seekers without sufficient qualifications the chance to gain work permits; a more recent Skilled Immigration Act (2020) is designed to attract qualified workers, such as doctors and nurses, that Germany needs to help care for its ageing population. 

The ETF has prepared a resource hub on qualifications and recognition for both Ukrainians fleeing the war and EU countries hosting them. A new EU wide scheme designed to provide formal documentation and recognition of prior learning or existing qualifications, is also beginning to be introduced. 

The European Qualifications Passport for Refugees (EQPR) is designed to help those fleeing war find new hope in the EU. 

Introduced to the ETF’s global audience during an online webinar in December, 2021, the EQPR aims to achieve a “fairer recognition of migrants’ qualifications and skills.” 

It offers a two-way street that benefits both migrants and their host countries – and could be valuable if and when migrants return to their home countries, bringing new skills back with them. 

There is also a new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, that “enhances legal pathways to the EU.”  

Within the Migration and Asylum Pact another scheme - the Talent Partnerships - aims create better matching of labour market needs and skills between the EU and partner countries. The scheme is open to students, graduates and skilled workers. 

While many of the legal niceties of these programmes will have been partially superseded by the EU’s commendable scrapping of visa requirements for Ukrainian refugees, it is essential to ensure that qualifications are recognised to allow for maximum positive labour market impact.  

There should be no need for a Ukrainian doctor – for example – to end up driving a taxi – when he or she could be offering their skills to people in EU hospitals and medical facilities. 

Such schemes will now need to be urgently expanded and advertised to ensure that employers in EU member states can trust the skills that Ukrainians bring with them. 

Many are likely to be well qualified.  

After years of close cooperation with EU institutions, such as the ETF, Ukraine’s path to harmonising its laws and educational practices with Europe’s is well-advanced.  

Until 24 February, Ukraine was well on the way to becoming as civilised and mature a democracy and economy as many of the EU’s newer eastern European member states; its path to eventual EU accession moving forward at a steady pace.  

As the people of the EU are likely to soon discover, the millions of Ukrainian refugees will largely prove to be intelligent, educated, hard-working and decent people ready to contribute to their temporary host countries. 

In the meantime most of those refugees will dream of – and work towards – returning to rebuild their beleaguered homeland following a war that will only have served to increase the regard of the world for the Ukrainian people. 

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4 Facts

Each month we bring you four interesting facts about our activities. This month we focus on our activities in Ukraine. #StandWithUkraine

Each month we bring you four interesting facts about our activities. This month we focus on our activities in Ukraine.

#StandWithUkraine

  1. The ETF has joined forces with the rest of the EU institutions to support more than 2 million Ukrainian citizens who have had to flee the war and their homes this month. Ukrainians have the right to live in the EU and to access essential services including education and training, and employment as enshrined in international law and EU’s Charter for Fundamental Rights and Pillar of Social Rights.  The ETF is working to support the recognition of Ukrainian qualifications and study periods within EU member states. It has worked with the European Commission to introduce the Ukrainian language into the EU’s Skills Profile tool.
     
  2. The ETF has launched an information hub for Ukrainians in EU member states on its website providing key information in English and Ukrainian to guide Ukrainians to education, learning and employment opportunities available in the EU. 
  1. As a partner country of the ETF, Ukraine has been extensively involved in ETF networks, projects and activities such as the Networks of Excellence for vocational centres and the Quality Assurance Forum. Ukraine is still participating in ETF network activities whether from the home-base or from abroad. Despite the war, the ETF continues to support the education and training in Ukraine as well as the integration of Ukrainian citizens into education and training systems in EU member states. Ukraine continues to play a role the new GLAD network being set up by the ETF and which will support the contribution of multiple stakeholders to the governance of vocational education and training, skills development and lifelong learning.
  1. The ETF has launched an internal working group to improve and build upon its history of support to countries in conflict and fragile areas to better formulate its policy advice and supporting activities in Ukraine and other countries on education and training to ensure recovery in the short, medium and long-term.
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