Torino Process 2022-24: Towards Lifelong Learning

As preparations continue apace for the next round of the Torino Process, a monitoring and assessment of national vocational and technical education (VET) systems and their contribution to lifelong learning, the European Training Foundation (ETF) conducted a webinar on Friday May 13 for 20 participants representing various national and international organisations (DVVI, ITC-ILO, JRC, OECD, UNESCO UIL, UNEVOC, UfM, RCC and CNAM) to outline its plans and solicit feedback.

The next round will run from 2022-24. It covers 27 ETF partner countries from the European neighbourhood, essentially nations bordering the European Union or nearby.

The Torino Process dates to 2010 and has gone through five rounds. Methodologies and priorities are adjusted for each cycle according to lessons learned and the needs of partner countries. “Last round we focused on opening the discussion about human capital development and external assessments,” said Mihaylo Milovanovitch, Senior Specialist in VET Policies and Systems, ETF and Coordinator for System Change and Lifelong Learning. “This round we are focused on system performance and lifelong learning.”

“Our priority now is to offer the most streamlined, focused, and flexible approach,” said Hugues Moussy, Head of Systems Performance and Assessment Unit, ETF. The endeavour will rely on what Moussy called a “more modular approach” that will allow for better adaption to factors such as “geographical diversity.”

Milovanovitch described the ETF`s plan to use a two-level strategy for its analysis of lifelong learning. The first level addresses how well VET systems are performing. Level One monitors what he called “system performance,” asking what is achieved and how the systems “perform against their own commitments and the expectations of stakeholders.”

Level Two involves an examination of lifelong learning policies and how they might be improved in the light of findings from Level One and the needs and aspirations of participating countries.

Milovanovitch outlined the steps and procedures for Level One. “The purpose of level one is really about monitoring performance,” he said, meaning “how close or far countries [are as measured] against essentially a number of strategic goals.” The United Nations Sustainable Develop Goals (SDGs) offer one set of standards. The EU has relevant alternatives.

The first step is to look at what he called the “objective trajectory” followed by most learners. The process begins with access to opportunities. It is also important to evaluate the quality of the educational and training programmes. In parallel, “certain aspects of the system organisation” must be working properly to ensure access and quality, Milovanovitch said.

Based on the SDGs and other tools, the ETF identified eight monitoring dimensions for analysis: access, participation, quality and relevance, excellence, innovation, agility, management and administration, and resourcing. Those are further broken down into 30 more specific “outcomes,” many of which that can be measured quantitatively using specific data as “proxies,” as Milovanovitch put it. Since it is rare to have a perfect match between a statistic and an outcome, a total of 189 indicators are used in the process.

The volume and quality of quantitative data varies among countries, but even under the best circumstances some outcomes cannot be determined from the numbers. Researchers then resort to carefully-designed “qualitative alternatives,” Milovanovitch said. “When the country has absolutely no data, the maximum number of questions is still limited to what fits into a compact questionnaire,” he added. “So, it's really manageable.”

The process that Milovanovitch described as “combining the data” starts by reviewing the quantitative information to “see where the gaps are.” The next step is to collect qualitative data where necessary. The final sets of data are merged. The results can then be presented according to the above-mentioned eight dimensions or in other ways, including by geographical region. “There is a degree of flexibility in the way the results can be used,” he said.

Hamed El Etreby of the Union for the Mediterranean secretariat summarised his previous experience of the Torino Process: ‘The Torino Process proved very, very useful, for us at the Union for the Mediteranean Secretariat’, he said ‘[…] it is thanks to the Torino Process and the expertise of the ETF in that process that we have been able to feed in the mandate given to us by the ministers of labour back in 2019.’ This mandate refers to work on progress and plans on employment and labour priorities which will continue as a follow up to the ministerial level policy conference on employment and labour held in Marrakesh, Morocco in May.

“Level Two reviews policies for lifelong learning,” said Abdelaziz Jaouani, Senior Human Capital Development Expert at the ETF. The main goals are to provide partners with analysis of their LLL policies and to promote debate, implementation and  possible improvements.

Jaouani promised that the process will be “highly participatory,” involving a myriad of stakeholders. As for the scope, it will be up to the countries. Some may want to focus the analysis on the entire lifelong learning cycle,” he said. “Or they may ask us just to focus on one specific area.” Themes could run the gamut from career guidance and workplace learning to governance and financing.

“As with all Torino Processes, one objective is to develop a culture of monitoring,” Jaouani added. “We would like also to improve the data collection on lifelong learning.”

The review process will be “classical,” Jaouani said. It will begin with extensive preparations and move to exhaustive field visits and dialogue. Stakeholders will be invited to a final workshop to learn about and discuss the results and debate future steps. As usual, he added, the ETF will ask stakeholders, “Are you okay with this policy recommendations? If yes, what would be the best way to implement them?” “We try to push with the support of the European Commission and other donors ‘till the implementation,” he noted.

According to the ETF schedule, the next round of the Torino Process policy reviews will be organised geographically, starting with Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries in the third quarter of this year. It will move on to Western Balkans and Turkey at the beginning of next year and to the Eastern Partnership and Central Asia at the start of 2024. “But we are quite flexible,” Jaouani said. For instance, a Western Balkan country says “that they need absolutely to do the review now because they are in a planning and programming phase,” he noted. “We can accommodate this request.”

The ETF plans to distribute guidelines that will provide more details on its plans for the next round of the Torino Process.