Belarus

Enhance relevance of VET by optimising the VET provider network. This would need to be accompanied by capacity building in change management and redesigning organisational and management structures as well as funding schemes. This could also prepare a ground for establishing Centres of Excellence at regional level.

VET teacher education and requirements would need to be revisited where the focus on VET teacher education should be on teachers' professional competence and practical work experience and perhaps less on pedagogical aspects. Moreover, Belarus could slowly move from the separation differentiation between practical and theoretical teaching where theory teachers have a higher status and pay.

Regional resource centres lay the ground for establishing Centres of Excellence in the regions instead of equipping modest and small-scale laboratories and resource centres in every vocational school. The centres could play a role in advancing vocational excellence, both by deepening and extending their relationship with employers (small-scale partnerships to strengthen the participation of small companies) and by cooperating and coordinating with other skills providers – other schools, companies, universities, research organisations, specialist development agencies and others to boost VET quality and effectiveness at regional level for a more equitable VET.

The current efforts in student mini companies are unlikely to result in a significant number of start-ups. A much more significant potential are spin-offs, from state-owned companies or clusters such as the Hi-Tech Park where geographic proximity creates the conditions for learning. Additional analysis would be needed to identify what those sub-sectors of the economy would be in each region (e.g. smart specialisation mapping) and active companies to provide targeted support in areas where the region has a competitive advantage.

Defining learning outcomes of entrepreneurship is needed at all levels of education to effectively address entrepreneurship key competence in teaching, learning and assessment processes.

The authorities should define entrepreneurship key competences in teaching materials and learning outcomes to ensure teachers ability to develop their students' entrepreneurship key competences.

Integration of entrepreneurship key competence approach into pre and in-service teacher training is needed to ensure teachers ability to develop their students' entrepreneurial learning key competences.

Establish formal career guidance to provide more targeted and systematic support to students with entrepreneurial aspirations.

There are several policy documents that contain provisions for supporting interaction between the education system and the business sector for the purpose of entrepreneurship training. Belarus should bring entrepreneurial learning under one policy home for all levels of education and training, for example, by building on the existing Council for Entrepreneurship Development.

SME networks and collaboration, both nationally and internationally, need targeted support to facilitate their integration into global value chains which opens up new training and learning pathways, opportunities for technological transfer, skills upgrading, and innovation that would give a much-needed boost to SMEs and encourage them to move from low- to high-valued-added activities.

The new Agency for SME Support offer an opportunity to bring all SME training under one roof. The Agency could monitor the productivity and ability of SMEs to permanently adapt to changing environments and market conditions and provide tailored training programs that target managers and entrepreneurs.

The Ministry of Economy should take the lead in strengthening data collection for evidence-based planning, monitoring and evaluation (e.g. under the new Agency for SME Support). This could also serve as a means to establish a co-ordination mechanism for SME support organisations. Big data tools offer opportunities for real-time labour market analysis of the demand side. Big data could be used to strengthen skills anticipation.