Centres of Vocational Excellence: Autonomy and Public-Private Partnerships for VET Skills Development

In August 2020, the European Training Foundation in partnership with Omnia,  launched a baseline study analysing what and how Centre’s of Vocational Excellence (CoVEs) autonomy is operationalized and can be linked to PPP experiences in some ETF selected countries and CoVEs. The baseline study, finalised in December 2020, is based on desk-research, online survey and interviews that took place during August-November 2020 with CoVEs representing six ETF partner countries (Azerbaijan, Israel, Georgia, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey) and two European Member States (Finland and the Netherlands). Though implemented in a small scale, the study provides interesting findings from both practitioners and policy-makers point of view.

The survey consisted of several parts pertaining to CoVE autonomy and administration, structuring and focus of PPPs, main focus and benefits of partnerships. The CoVEs reviewed in the study had similar features and patterns of co-operations with the private sector despite their diverse country contexts and different legislative, cultural, and historical background in vocational education and training. They operate mostly regionally and typically in multiple sectors not limiting their activities to any specific industry sector.

The survey mapped autonomy on different levels;

1)general CoVE management,

2)human resources

3)pedagogy

As illustrated in figure 1 (attached), one key finding of the study was that CoVEs can mostly decide autonomously on the level and forms of public-private cooperation. In fact, a high number of PPPs was seen as a specific feature that distinguishes a CoVE from other VET providers. CoVEs also tend to be more accountable and operate more like a private company in their daily management, thus the competence of CoVE management is of great importance.

The studied CoVEs portray an array of cooperation modes with companies to support student’s skills development; work-based learning (WBL), including planning, working & learning and assessments of students in PPPs.This cooperation can even be mandatory

The study also shows that CoVEs’ cooperation with the private sector is multi-dimensional and covers several development areas of education-business collaboration. The multiple dimensions range from HR development and trainings to cooperation in employability, employment, recruitment, career guidance, mentoring and scholarships, to higher VET, anticipation of skills need and tracer studies, master classes and top specialist trainings, to the development of techno entrepreneurship, start-up projects and international development projects.

CoVEs can be seen as partners supporting the companies’ recruitment needs, providing trained manpower. At best, the CoVEs know the private sector’s most recent and urgent needs and can prepare future professionals accordingly. On the other hand, the added value for the companies is the possibility of upgrading of their employees' skills through CoVEs’ continuous and professional training on companies’ request. Other benefits that CoVEs receive from public-private cooperation are related to innovation; supported research and development, innovation partnership and continuous quality improvement of VET programs.

The study confirms that sustainability of partnerships is ensured with the close integration of companies into the educational process. PPPs play an important role in mid-term and long-term VET development. Cooperation needs to happen on several levels and can take the form of ongoing partnership councils, joint working groups, development of protocols etc. CoVEs are pioneers and require sufficient autonomy to design and implement PPP models, sharing good practice and scaling innovation to all VET providers.

The baseline study and the policy briefing will be published on ETF website in the coming months.