Sector Councils in Serbia; platforms where education meets the labour market

Sector Councils are widely used around the world both in industrial and in developing or transition countries. Their structures and functions vary but they all have a common goal: ensuring that the supply of education and training in their sector meets the needs of the labour market.

This week in Belgrade around 30 people, representing a wide range of stakeholders, came together for the workshop ‘Partnership for skills development in Serbia’. The event was organised by ETF in co-operation with Ministries and institutes for VET to set further steps in establishing Sector Councils and to work on the technical, legal and operational conditions for Sector Councils to be able to function as structural and permanent bodies where stakeholders from the education field meet stakeholders from the labour market.

Sector Councils are not new to Serbia. In April 2012, in a joint effort of the Serbian Council for VET and Adult Education, the Institute of Improvement of Education and the Chamber of Commerce four Sector Councils were established as a pilot project under the umbrella of an EU IPA project. The selected sectors were agriculture, food processing, tourism & catering and ICT. The pilot ended already 8 months later, but within this short time span, in a context with no clear legislation and with limited capacities a remarkable amount of work was achieved. Representatives from the sectors and of relevant institutions were invited as members of the Sector Councils, a total of 15 members for each SC. The Chamber of Commerce proposed companies to represent the sectors. The Institute of Improvement of Education provided accommodation for a small secretariat. The IPA project offered funding and local and international expertise. The SC’s agreed upon four main tasks:

1. Review the list of occupations in their sector
2. Review the job descriptions for the still relevant occupations and for new occupations
3. Identify knowledge and skills required to perform the jobs in occupational profiles
4. Develop qualification profiles and find out whether there are related VET programmes
    

All four Sector Councils met on at least six occasions between June and December 2012. These must have been intensive work sessions with a lot of homework because most SCs completed the work up to task 3. A recent assessment of the results of the pilot by international expert Olav Aarna from Estonia showed that the work completed by the pilot SC’s was good and SC members in general were very positive about the SCs and their work. Perhaps the most important result of the pilot SCs was the experience that, regardless of different cultures and lack of a common work language, people from the world of work and people from the world of education can meet, discuss, work together and achieve results. 

Unfortunately after the formal ending of the pilot project in December 2012 the work of the pilot SCs came to a complete standstill. The challenge of this weeks’ workshop was not only to bring them back to life again but also to build on the experiences  from the pilot and provide conditions for structural and permanent Sector Councils in the context of the developments in Serbia.

The timing presented us with a challenge. One day before the workshop new elections were announced to be held mid-March, which basically means a political standstill for the first half of this year. But this political impasse seemed not a big obstacle for the participants who were asked to work out concrete measures in two working groups to get the Sector Councils moving forward. With a lot of enthusiasm and creativity the working groups presented a number of concrete measures.

The first working group was asked to formulate the legal terms for SCs to function. They came up with a very practical solution: The current Law on Adult Education regulates the Council for VET and Adult Education. In 2015 amendments to this law can be made to give the Sector Councils a legal basis. This year preparations can be made for the structural establishment of Sector Councils, the four existing SCs can continue their work and two new ones can be established. To provide the necessary resources for 2014, as a bridge year until legislation is in place, the Sector Councils should be a priority in the new IPA project which is to start in February 2014.

The second working group which was asked to work out needed actions at operational level for the transition period came with a range of concrete actions to be able to continue the work of the four existing Sector Councils and to establish new sector councils.

An immediate concern, resources for a secretariat with support staff, was addressed by Vidosava Dzagic, president of the Council for VET and Adult Education and director of the Chamber of Commerce. She offered to host the secretariat of the SCs in the Chamber of Commerce. Jelica Colic of the EU Delegation in Serbia, made an opening towards funding for the transition period in the scope of the new IPA project.

Conclusion of the day is that Sector Councils in Serbia seem to be alive with widespread commitment from stakeholders. The challenge in the coming months will be to make use of the momentum and continue the work. It will be working in progress, adapting and improving on the way. The ETF team is ready to support with her expertise.

A personal note to conclude. It was a great pleasure to work in Serbia this week with a wide range of stakeholders who seem all convinced of the need for structural establishment of sector skills councils. While at the same time in my home country the Netherlands sector skills councils are being dismantled as a result of severe budget cuts. But that will be topic for another blog. Following soon.