POLICY LEARNING – APPLYING THE CHANGING LEARNING PARADIGM FOR POLICY ADVICE ON VET REFORMS Sören Nielsen, ETF 11 June 2007, Vilnius

What is the ETF ?  Agency of the European Union  Centre of Expertise in VET, LM (plus HRD)  Assisting EU neighbouring countries in reforming education and training systems, through - dissemination of EU policies and good practices - policy advice/learning and capacity building - information and analysis

EU Member States ETF’s partner countries Eastern Europe and Central Asia: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan South Eastern Europe: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo Acceding and candidate countries: Croatia, Macedonia, Turkey Mediterranean region: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, West Bank and Gaza Strip

The EU Policy context The LISBON STRATEGY Global strategy for economic and social development as a response to current and future challenges: - Information society / ICT and increasing role of knowledge in all processes - Globalisation / delocalisation, economic restructuring, e-commerce and economy Acknowledgement of the important role of Human Capital / Education and Training

The LISBON STRATEGY New strategic goal for Europe to become by 2010 the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.

The LISBON STRATEGY European education and training systems as a world reference for quality by 2010 (Barcelona Council) Investment in people became central in Union’s policies Decisive contribution of education and training to the success of the Lisbon strategy recognised Better Interaction/coordination of economic, employment and HRD policies

EU Policy coordination Flexible approach - comprehensive strategy – subsidiarity principle Political cooperation on common goals Agreement on quantified objectives (benchmarks) Clear timeframes Voluntary and decentralised implementation Support by Community programmes Steering and monitoring role of the EU Council and the EC

EU Education and Training Policy Bologna process in Higher education (1997) Lifelong Learning (2001) Objectives 2010 process in Education and Training (2001) Copenhagen process in VET (2002) – political endorsement to EU cooperation in VET Converging processes…EQF

VET POLICY DEBATES IN THE EU From subsidiarity to flexible policy co- ordination From ‘no harmonisation’ to convergence From ‘we are the champions’ to ‘what can we learn from each other’

VET POLICY DEBATES IN THE EU Lisbon goals to be achieved through: Organising convergence towards shared objectives Open method of policy co- ordination 1. voluntary and decentralised joint action 2. setting European benchmarks 3. time bound (target of 2010) 4. support by Community programmes

POLICY LEARNING ‘Policy’ is about visions for development and the ways to achieve goals ‘Policy learning’ concept developed in a critical discussion with more traditional approaches to policy transfer and policy copying Basic assumption: active engagement of national stakeholders in developing their own policy solutions

POLICY LEARNING Policy learning as seen by ETF is a cultural and social construct Result of a critical mass of learning experiences Educationalists: the need for teachers to shift from being transmitters of expert knowledge and skills to students towards becoming facilitators of learning processes of persons that want to become competent themselves Derive guidelines from new learning paradigm for their application in the policy-making field?

The lessons learned from Lithuania Four international VET Teacher Training projects running in parallel in : Danish funded project Finnish funded project ETF project Leonardo da Vince funded pilot project (first project led by Lithuania) Kaunas University steered the whole process through the LdV project where they were in the driver’s seat

ETF experience from partner countries Countries must develop capacities to formulate national reform agendas and to shape own reform intiatives Focus to be placed on how to organise policy learning environments and policy learning platforms EU membership does not reduce the need for policy learning – the challenge of policy interpretation as broad EU objectives have to be translated into own institutions embedded in national contexts

Policymakers as learners? For policymakers learning is more than cognitive processes – learning is practice Their learning is situated learning – and an integral and inseparable aspect of their social practice The «context-boundness» of policies is always existing and completements the «situatedness» of learning Policymakers we (ETF) see as active learners who try to make sense of their – always, always changing - policy environment

EC instruments and policy learning EC instruments for assistance and co-operation can be used within a variety of conceptions and approaches They are instruments and not an end in themselves The fundamental issue is: what are the expected learning outcomes and how are these instruments used in practice to achieve these outcomes? More reflection is needed on a better use of existing instruments within a policy learning perspective rather than on developing new ones

Policy Learning in External Aid Context Guiding principles: There is no best model for organising the education system, each system is based on historical, cultural, socio-economic and political factors The importance of institutions for embedding policy reforms

Policy Learning in External Aid Context Three Lessons: Local ownership Embeddedness (institutional fit into context) Sustainability

Policy Learning in External Aid Context ETF Approach: From policy copying and policy taking to policy learning Knowledge sharing and exchange of good practice to enable decision-makers to design and implement their reform Evolution more than revolution Reform projects need to reflect local reality, take institutional structure into account and involve all relevant stakeholders VET Reform process is at least as important as the final products

What does this mean for ETF? Facilitating systemic VET reform implies a new approach: -From knowledge and answers that are disseminated and transferred to the partners (controlling task master) -Towards a broker/learning facilitator role (an enabling helper)

Thank you for your attention

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