Quality Assurance in VET Jürgen Horschinegg Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture March 24th 2011, Bled, Slovenia

Jürgen Horschinegg 1 Outline History of QA in VET – the last 10 years EQAVET The Reference Framework The Quality Cycle Essentials of QA

Jürgen Horschinegg 2 The last ten years

Jürgen Horschinegg 3 The European Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training (EQAVET) Network is composed of two representatives per Member State the Social Partners the European Commission (chairs the network) Cedefop and ETF (co-opted to the network) The Secretariat (contracted by the Commission)

Jürgen Horschinegg 4 The Reference Framework The European Quality Assurance Reference Framework for VET (the Framework) provides an European-wide frame to help Member States and stakeholders to document, develop, monitor, evaluate and improve the effectiveness of their VET provision and quality management practices. It can be applied at both system and VET provider level and can therefore help to document the efficiency of VET provision. It is adaptable to the different national systems and it can be used in accordance with national legislation and practice. The framework comprises a quality assurance and improvement cycle (planning, implementation, evaluation/ assessment and review/revision) based on a selection of quality criteria, descriptors and indicators. The aim is not to introduce new standards, but to support Member States’ efforts, whilst preserving the diversity of their approaches.

Jürgen Horschinegg 5 Timeline 18th June 2009: Recommendation on the establishment of the Reference Framework has been signed by the European Parliament and the Council June 2011: Member states should have devised an approach aimed at improving quality assurance at national level June 2013: the Commission will report to the European Parliament and the Council on the results of actions taken at Member State level.

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7 The Essentials of QA/QM: What are the critical points? Systematic implementation of the whole cycle From Check to Act Don‘t overrate data (you measure what you measure) Follow up! Transparency is a prerequisite and a consequence of QM Involvement of all parties Clear responsibilities Ownership of the management AND bottom up You cannot force quality : possible drivers for implementation

Key issues for implementation Process is at least as important as content „Slow motion“ not „fast forward“ Reduce external evaluation as much as possible, but make best use of results (Start „soft touch“, i.e. Peer Review) Strategy has to fit the system: –Are there subsystems? What are the key drivers? –Use working structures/channels –Variance needed but also (broad) direction –Leadership (at all levels) and school management are key –How to enable people? (VET-CERT) Jürgen Horschinegg 8

9 What does this mean for QALLL? or: a possible contribution of QALLL to EQAVET Find, map and analyse projects/good practice dealing with the „critical points“ and/or the „cycle“ Make the essence of the analysis available (maybe in a similar form as the „building blocks“ in EQAVET)

Jürgen Horschinegg 10 Thank you! JÜRGEN HORSCHINEGG Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture Head of Dep. II/7: Strategy development in VET and II/8a: Resarch&Development, Quality Minoritenplatz 5 A 1014 Vienna tel.: fax.: