🌐 GLAD Newsletter: a quick update from the GLAD Community (July 2025)
European Union: A Union of Skills bolstered by mechanisms for good governance
The Union of Skills is the European Commission’s new plan to improve high quality education, training, and lifelong learning.
It includes various innovative governance mechanisms such as a reinforced Pact for Skills to help more workers gain new skills in strategic sectors, a European Skills Intelligence Observatory and European Skills High-Level Board, bringing together education and training providers, business leaders, and social partners to better inform EU policy makers on skills.
ETF: GLAD is growing!
The ETF’s GLAD Network for candidate countries
The Governance, Learning, Action and Dialogue (GLAD) Network was launched in April 2025 to support skills development and lifelong learning governance needs of EU candidate countries (Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Türkiye, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, and Ukraine). Membership includes representatives of the Advisory Council of Vocational Training for EU candidate countries.
Participants decided upon thematic sub-groups for their work in 2025 focused on
- strengthening institutional coordination and reform and
- partnerships to enhance the quality and inclusiveness of VET with a particular focus on work-based learning.
The work of these sub-groups will lead to targeted advice for national stakeholders on skills development tailored to candidate countries needs within the Union of Skills as they move towards EU accession.
More information can be found on Open Space:
📚 New research highlights evolving understanding of VET System Governance
A newly published paper by Christian Mende, Maria Esther Oswald-Egg, and Katherine Caves (2025) offers a deep dive into how knowledge is produced within the governance of vocational education and training (VET) systems.
Based on a systematic literature review, the study reveals that VET governance research spans multiple disciplines—including political science, sociology, economics, development studies, and education policy—underscoring its complex and interconnected nature.
The authors identify six key dimensions commonly used to understand VET governance:
- A codified, unified, and principled national approach
- Coordination across governance levels
- Cooperation and stakeholder involvement
- Alignment of skills supply and demand
- Financing and funding mechanisms
- Provision of high-quality and attractive VET
🔍 While the study surfaces shared variables linked to effective governance, it also emphasizes that context matters. Due to limited causal and quantitative research, the authors caution against generalizing findings for policy advice.
Still, the field is clearly evolving: the literature is moving beyond single case studies and embracing comparative and multidisciplinary approaches, signaling a shift toward a more robust theoretical framework for understanding VET system governance.
📖 Read the full study:
Mende, Oswald-Egg & Caves (2025). "Vocational education and training (VET) system governance: a systematic literature review."
Journal of Vocational Education & Training
DOI: 10.1080/13636820.2025.2461586
📅 GLAD upcoming EVENT
- Save the date: 9 July 2025 Online event "Adult learning progress and development in candidate and neighbouring countries. A governance perspective". Join us for an insightful discussion on how governance shapes adult learning systems in candidate and neighbouring countries. Explore key developments, challenges, and strategies driving progress in lifelong learning across diverse contexts.
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