Arjen Deij: developing regional qualifications frameworks

The build-out of qualifications frameworks at a national and regional level has been a critical development over the past two decades, enabling students, education and training providers, guidance counsellors, credential evaluators, employees and employers to reap the fruits of more widely recognised standards in professional and vocational qualifications as well as skills. 

It has been a long road to develop national frameworks that could then be taken to a regional level, and from there to allow for comparisons among frameworks so that qualifications are connected worldwide.

The European Qualifications Framework (EQF), which has become a global benchmark to develop national as well as regional frameworks, came to life in 2008. One of the key players in getting the ball rolling is ETF veteran Arjen Deij, who has been involved in the development of national frameworks and the EQF since its inception. After 30 years with the ETF, Arjen is retiring in early 2025, leaving behind a considerable legacy in the field, particularly in qualifications recognition. He is treated as a “VIP in the policy arena, knowing everybody,” as a senior ETF member remarked.

Peer learning

As Arjen enters the twilight of his ETF careers, it was fitting that the ETF held a peer learning activity (PLA), “Comparison of the EQF and third country qualifications frameworks – what have we learned from pilots - how can we take it forward?” on 29-30 October 2024 at its headquarters.

Bringing together representatives from 15 countries, as well as agencies and student organisations, the PLA discussed the development of the EQF, national qualification frameworks (NQFs), and regional qualification frameworks (RQFs), and what is needed to improve the comparative process as more countries establish or improve such frameworks.

For Arjen it was also a time for reflection, and to ensure his legacy continue in the advancement of qualifications frameworks in a time of uncertainty, change and emerging challenges.

“It is important to see that the work you have done is useful. I have seen many instances of that, but would like to see more international connectivity as we are in a world that is divided and fragmented,” said Arjen. 

Arjen: qalifying as a qualifications VIP

Arjen started with the ETF during its early days three decades ago, initially working on the TEMPUS (Trans-European Mobility Programme for University Studies) scheme to encourage cooperation, exchanges and mobility of teaching staff and trainers. The scheme was later incorporated into Erasmus+.

Arjen was appointed as a regional manager for Central Asia, and became involved in the Standards 2000 project in the late 1990s, which aimed  at reforming  VET standards development in partner countries.

“I was pulled into this as there were experts that didn’t speak Russian, and local colleagues that needed to discuss and understand how these things worked,” recalls Arjen. “We worked on the idea of involving employers, occupational standards, and focusing on competencies rather than training. I had to really dig into the material,” he said.

Arjen expanded the focus beyond learning and provision, and the identification of needs, to that of assessment. To do so required comparative analysis to see how others were doing it. “I went to visit the Dutch system and see the German approach, as they were focused on assessing competencies – what people were able to do, not just on what had been taught,” he said. 

At that time, the EU was starting to work on lifelong learning following the adoption of the Lisbon Process in 2000. “There was this need to develop lifelong learning rather than just focus on initial training, and making  learning more attractive to adults. There were lots of groups discussing different themes, and I was involved in European cooperation looking into how to use qualifications in this process,” he said. 

The early days of the EQF

"David Fretwell. a colleague at the World Bank invited me to jointly prepare guidelines on occupational standards for developing countries. Then I became involved in a working group to develop the EQF", he added. Involvement deepened in 2002 when Arjen started working with Romania to develop its NQF.

Muriel Dunbar as former ETF director was keen to promote development opportunities for staff with permanent contracts to go on secondment. “I was asked by Mike Coles of the UK’s Qualification Curriculum Authority to help in developing a new framework, as they were having difficulties with higher education to link to VET, and maybe an outsider could help. I worked there for 13 months. It was a very useful experience,” he said. 

Learning from experience

People learn most from in-country experience, and this is something Arjen wants to encourage among younger ETF team members, to better understand a country and its needs. 

“Young colleagues’ first mission abroad should be for at least one month, so they can see as much as they can, travel from the capital to different regions, and talk to as many people as possible – students, institutions, employees and employers. It can be a real introduction to the world, as they are still fresh, can take in a lot of impressions, and have real references, not paper-based ones,” he said.

Personal experiences also bolsters understanding of the impact of the ETF’s work, and the importance of qualifications to people. Arjen recounted a visit to the training centre for unemployed in Odessa, Ukraine in 2018 to see how they carried out the validation of non-formal and informal learning. Women in their 40s and 50s, he spoke with, had all sought diplomas to become cooks at kindergartens. By having such skills recognised, Arjen saw how life changing it was for them.

“Many who had passed the validation, told me that they had started to learn other things, as they saw it was possible and they had not reached a dead end in the road. It is very motivating when you see that. People should not be victims of education and training systems, they should be empowered,” he said. 

“How important qualifications are can be a difficult message to get across as qualifications experts are often nerds that focus on technicalities rather than on the benefits,” said Arjen. “But qualifications and skills are part of a broad ecosystem that needs to be linked together. And it is about individuals having something to sell – their skills – and being in a position to better negotiate pay, or match a job with their skills. It is about the possibility of an individual to develop themselves and their career, and all the effects linked to that,” said Arjen.

Expanding the EQF 

From 2008 to 2013, Arjen was part of the EQF advisory group, and at the same time involved with developing NQFs and VET qualifications in Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Türkiye.

“It was a period of lots of activity. In 2009, we had an ETF event on EQF going global. The EQF was just starting, but we invited countries from outside of the EU – Canada, Australia, the United Arab Emirates – to be involved to learn from their frameworks,” said Arjen.

Ukraine gets onboard the EQF

Learning from others, improving policy development, outreach to stakeholders, and encouraging the development of frameworks has been an ongoing effort for Arjen and his team. Ukraine is a case in point, with Arjen having worked with Kiev since 2010. 

“At that time Ukraine had already adopted a framework, but it was not taking off. We had to do a lot of events with stakeholders to agree on the next steps, and to be more practical, so I met with a lot of people, and also developed friendships,” recalls Arjen.

Out of the interaction, the ETF was able to add a Senior Specialist in Qualification Systems to its team, Anatolii Garmash. 

Indicative of Ukraine’s rapid development was that “local experts had little understanding at the beginning, but after a few years they had very quickly caught up and were doing their own things with these concepts. This was very rewarding to see, as it had to deal with real problems that needed to be solved– lack of resources, governance, coordination, and all the other issues you have to deal with.”

In 2016, five years after the NQF was adopted the implementation plan was expiring, so further follow-up with Ukraine was required. “There had been limited progress so we did a rough and ready evaluation of the plan and then worked with stakeholders on a new plan. As luck would have it, a link could be made with the new law on education being prepared at the time, which included lifelong learning and to be competency based,” said Arjen.

In the lead up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there was joint work on-going on comparing the Ukrainian NQF with the EQF. The invasion did not interrupt the work, but pushed the process further as qualifications recognition became critical for Ukrainian refugees and Ukraine became a Candidate Country joining the EQF Advisory Group. Skills recognition is also considered essential for the post-war future when the country will need to attract foreign talent for reconstruction. 

A network for all

Arjen would like to see support “from the highest policy level” to drive integration of frameworks and create a network and database for all countries “so all ETF countries can benefit.” 

All countries need a database of their qualifications, but  a specific solution for each country is not necessary. A generic one can be built using on existing tools for all countries so costs can be reduced and data can be linked. The database should be open source, and not reliant on commercial multinational providers to ensure open exchange between countries and personal data protection.

“If we are too territorial about our own data we will never get linkages, and our own data will soon become irrelevant as things develop further. By linking our qualifications international mobility and recognition will become much easier and we can learn from each other, Although the concept is not complex, it proves to be difficult to implement as a lot of people need to be convinced that it is possible” said Arjen.