VET Governance Toolkit

New demands for skills development are transforming vocational education and training around the world. More people more frequently need to learn, upskill and re-skill, and VET systems are confronted with learner expectations for multiple and diversified options and paths for skills development. The implication is that VET systems should become lifelong learning oriented, able to provide good quality learning to all at any age and leave none behind.

The ETF supports the transformation and advises countries to adopt multilevel and participatory governance in VET and lifelong learning. The multilevel governance approach considers that systems function better when mechanisms for inter-institutional, multi-actor and national/sub-national cooperation are in place.

Partnerships and the sharing of responsibility have a horizontal dimension that reaches out from each level of the system, and a vertical dimension that links national and sub-national levels of the system. Effective actors’ coordination and stakeholders’ involvement in decision making at all levels of the system are success factors in the design of visions and strategies, and the subsequent policy delivery. Reinforcing coordination and cooperation among public institutions and agencies and with the private sector, including relevant civil society organisations, is therefore an essential part of the logic of multilevel governance.

Good multilevel governance builds on participatory processes as opposed to supply-driven blueprint. It uses tools to map the institutional arrangements, and review the way institutions interact on policies, their functions and ability to coordinate, so as to identify patterns and areas for improvement. Multilevel governance improve through policy-learning, based for example on debates on governance among the actors in the system, the exchange of knowledge and the exploration of good practice case studies, with preference for peer-learning and mutual-learning tools. Policy mediation also plays an important role in strengthening governance.

The Multilevel VET Governance Toolkit: Concepts, Methods and Tools

Through the VET Governance Toolkit, the ETF can provide support, advice and learning. The Toolkit includes tools to spark debates and initiate strategic conversations at country level. These tools envisage the participation of all relevant actors in agreeing on common actions and sharing responsibilities with a view to better functioning lifelong-oriented VET and skills systems.

The toolkit contains the following building blocks. Each block introduces the key ideas and thinking behind the approach.

• Area 1 applies the main ideas and principles of multilevel governance to VET.
• Area 2 provides a method for vision building to define a comprehensive VET reform agenda.
• Area 3 deals with the suitability of institutional arrangements to implement the reform agenda.
• Area 4 covers costing, budgeting, financing and funding, as well as data gathering and analysis.
• Area 5 focusses on social partners role in linking VET policy to labour market needs, and contains a section on civil society organisations.
• Area 6 examines territorial governance for the interplay of national/sub-national levels and issues of decentralisation.
• Area 7 highlights the monitoring and assessment of country progress in multilevel governance.

Although these multilevel governance blocks are presented in an ideal sequence – starting with the development of a shared vision, roadmap and action plan before drilling down into the practical details of implementation – it is possible to start at any one of these blocks, choosing from the toolkit according to the immediate challenge at hand. These blocks include three comprehensive Guides: to Multilevel Governance, to Vision Building, Road-mapping and Progress Monitoring based on the Foresight approach, and to the Review of Institutional Arrangements. The more than 60 resources provided in the toolkit include analytical models, key document templates, case studies of relevant ETF interventions, and comparative reports from multi-country actions and analyses.

How to Use the Toolkit

The Toolkit is designed to help partner countries implement their own reform agenda by tackling the systemic level. The concepts and methodologies of multilevel governance can be used by each country independently. This will require expertise, which all countries have, and experience, which is progressively ‘built by doing’. At the same time, the ETF continues to support the national processes of its partner countries and is ready to provide advice and share knowledge in a timely and useful manner.

The ETF has a flexible approach based on two main forms of support:

• ANALYSIS: This involves sharing experience on how mapping the roles of institutions, assessing their progress and identifying ways to leverage their potential. This process is relevant for a large number of ETF partner countries and usually leads to awareness of and consensus on the governance issues at stake. Support for analysis can be of particular help to countries that want to improve the effectiveness of their reforms. The stage of analysis is useful, for example, in countries that have decided to decentralise VET and skills provision and have to design a new institutional infrastructure at the sub-national level; in countries that wish to increase the engagement of the private sector in skills development and are preparing for a new share of roles and responsibilities between the two sides; and/or in countries that are revisiting the VET and skills financing and need to identify the full range of suitable policy options.
• Advice on CHANGE: This entails support on actual implementation of the new governance arrangements. A strong commitment is a prerequisite for success and a precondition for the ETF proffering support and advice. Among the most recent examples we find advice given in the following areas: the regionalisation of VET in Tunisia and Ukraine; the legal basis for the involvement of sectoral bodies and advice on institutional arrangements in Moldova; the new national skills strategy in Kazakhstan; and policy advice on financing in Armenia, Georgia and North Macedonia; and others.

Key Priorities for 2020 and Links to EU Support

The ETF work is currently concentrated in four areas: inter-institutional cooperation; review of the existing arrangements; public-private partnerships; and non-state actor engagement.