Policy Brief

Policy Brief - Involving Social Partners in VET policy making

An ETF publication dedicated to the general topic of social partnership in VET.

Short description:

This issue explains who the social partners are, why they need to be involved in VET, what form their involvement should take, and what decision makers can do to improve their participation.

Social partnership in VET is about employers, trade unions, public authorities and training institutions cooperating to ensure that the training provided is adequate and relevant to labour market needs. As part of their input into VET policy design, social partners articulate the labour market and explain what is expected from graduates entering the world of work. Structures are required to support this process. These include VET councils, employment councils, skills councils, economic and social committees, as well as school boards and tripartite structures involving government, along with VET providers and social partners.

The effectiveness of social partners involvement relies on the partners’ awareness of the changing skills needs of the labour market. Improving their input may require partners developing new capabilities, enabling them to systematically understand the evolving needs of those they represent and contribute to VET policy processes in a timely and constructive manner. Such contributions might refer to the development of occupational standards, qualifications and training. Social partners can also provide support based on the promotion of practices such as work-based learning, which can improve the quality of learning outcomes in a cost-effective way.

Social partners are sometimes also providers of training and work experience based on apprenticeships or work-based learning programmes. In some cases, Business Associations have their own dedicated training centres and large companies have their own corporate universities. In these cases there is considerable scope for collaboration between VET providers and social partners, based on PPPs, for example.

The article provides illustrations of social partnership from ETF partner countries such as Croatia, Morocco, Russia, Serbia and Turkey.

You may read the document below or clicking here.