The European Credit system for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET)

The system aims to facilitate the validation, recognition and accumulation of work-related skills and knowledge acquired during a stay in another country or in different situations. It should ensure that these experiences contribute to vocational qualifications.

ECVET aims for better compatibility between the different vocational education and training (VET) systems in place across Europe and their qualifications.

By 2012, it should create a technical framework to describe qualifications in terms of units of learning outcomes, and it includes assessment, transfer, accumulation and recognition procedures.

Flexibility

In ECVET, an individual’s learning outcomes are assessed and validated in order to transfer credits from one qualification system to another, or from one learning "pathway" to another.

According to this approach, learners can accumulate the required learning outcomes for a given qualification over time, in different countries or in different situations.

The system also allows the possibility to develop common references for VET qualifications and is fully compatible with the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).

Developments across Europe

The European Commission set up a European ECVET users' group and a European ECVET network.

The users' guide Questions and Answers and the guide Using ECVET for Geographical Mobility were published .

EU Members States should ensure that all relevant qualifications and related ‘Europass’ documents issued by national or regional authorities contain clear information related to the use of ECVET.

Several projects focusing on the development and promotion of ECVET are being developed in different sectors (including automobile service, chemistry, tourism, and international trade), funded by the EU’s Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP).

A network of LLP National Agencies created "NETECVET" with the aim to exploiting the Leonardo and LLP project results and to develop a toolbox to foster the transnational mobility of learners.

More information on current ECVET projects can be found on the ECVET Pilot projects website and in the ECVET Magazine.

Guidelines and instruments that support the use of ECVET are available from the portal of the ECVET Team.

Background

The development of ECVET began in 2002 after the Copenhagen Process emphasised the need for a credit transfer system for VET. National governments and the European Parliament gave their final approval to legislation in June 2009.

More information

• Detailed guidance, answers to frequently asked questions and examples of good practice can be found in the brochure "Get to know ECVET better – Questions and Answers "
• The document Using ECVET for Geographical Mobility explains how ECVET facilitates the geographical mobility of learners
• The CEDEFOP publication "Necessary conditions for ECVET implementation" discusses the technical and political conditions that supports Member States while implementing ECVET
• CEDEFOP reports annually of the development in the member states (working paper no 10, The development of ECVET in Europe, 2010).
• A conference on implementing ECVET was held November 2009 in Brussels. See material from the conference
• Read a summary of EU legislation establishing ECVET and its background
• Legal text: Establishment of the European Credit system for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET)
  Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council (June 2009)
• Establishment of the European Credit system for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET)
  Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council - June 2009 (Brochure)