European Alliance for Apprenticeships

Dear Alliance members and supporters,

We trust you had a wonderful break during the summer holidays and are now back with a fresh burst of energy. During the summer months, the EAfA team was hard at work, crafting a lineup of engaging activities. There were also a few important developments in the world of apprenticeships. Check out the highlights below to learn more.

We are happy to introduce to you the Champions of the European Alliance for Apprenticeships. These Alliance members will help make the community stronger by sharing their EAfA activities and by spreading the word about the benefits of joining EAfA:

• Aylin Akca Okan, Business Unit Director, ICTerra (EAfA member since March 2022)
• Bart Denys, VET Teacher, Hotelschool Ter Duinen, Belgium (EAfA member since October 2021)
• Daniela Doelle, Academy Lead, SoftwareONE (EAfA member since January 2022)
• Jo Cahalin, Manager of the Future Building Skills Team, Education and Training Boards Ireland (ETBI), Ireland (EAfA member since August 2019)
• Sreten Koceski, Executive Director, Community Development Institute Macedonia (CDIM), North Macedonia (EAfA member since January 2022)

Get to know our EAfA Champions better.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has recently published a series of reports compiled under the project Apprenticeship Development for Universal Lifelong Learning and Training (ADULT). The project aims to modernise and transform apprenticeship systems to promote and enable lifelong learning and decent work for youth, adults, and older workers (both employed and unemployed).

The main report, titled Towards lifelong learning and skills for the future of work: Global lessons from innovative apprenticeships, highlights the new role of apprenticeship training within lifelong learning systems. It explores how apprenticeships can enable people to acquire new skills and update existing skills throughout their working lives to keep pace with the fast-changing labour market demand.

Read the main report.

There is plenty to gain by becoming a member of the EAfA and making a pledge! The EAfA Member Spotlight is a series of interview articles that highlight the hard work of Alliance members and how their pledges contribute to supporting quality and effective apprenticeships. In our latest article, we shine the spotlight on Community Development Institute Macedonia (CDI Macedonia) and asked them to tell us more about their EAfA membership.

Read the full interview to learn more.

The Pact for Skills 2022 annual survey results are in! The Pact for Skills has significantly helped companies and workers across Europe in advancing skills training. According to the survey, 2 million people have benefited from up-and re-skilling activities under the Pact. 15,500 training programmes were either updated or developed, and Pact members have invested €160 million in skills initiatives.

According to the survey, 21,500 stakeholders have joined forces through skills partnerships or networks (e.g., industrial clusters) to drive impactful skills development initiatives and reached 19 million people in Europe through promotion and dissemination activities.

Learn more about the findings of the Pact for Skills survey.

The Harnessing Talent Platform (HTP) is a newly formed knowledge-building and experience-exchange platform, which seeks to support regions in addressing the consequences of the demographic change. It also aims to mitigate the challenges associated with the decline of tertiary-educated populations across the EU.

The HTP wants to set up working groups that bring together stakeholders from different territorial levels to discuss the topic of harnessing talent in Europe and the consequences of demographic changes linked to it. These working groups serve as a forum for strategic exchange on how different sectors can influence a region’s ability to be competitive and attractive for young and highly skilled workforce.

The central focus of these working groups is to gain in-depth insights into how regions grappling with demographic challenges can effectively attract, nurture and retain talent. This will involve exploring potential solutions and creating tools related to the specific topic of each working group.

Stakeholders from EU, national and regional level can apply to join the HTP working groups by 15 September. The four sectors of the working groups are digital, health, research and innovation and territorial development.

Learn more about the working groups, who can join and how to apply.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has published a skills-based approaches survey to gather experiences with skills-based approaches in the labour market. The survey, which is open until 1 October, refers to approaches that focus on skills themselves rather than on how they have been acquired. Such approaches can be used in hiring and recruitment, but also more broadly in promotion and progression, or training and development, including apprenticeships.

The OECD has created the survey to support the work of the Talent for Growth Task Force, a high-level reflection group of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) that was launched in December 2022. The goal of the Task Force is to exchange best practices and serve as a catalyst for innovative skills policies and approaches. It will eventually develop recommendations to the TTC on skills development in the EU and US.

Take part in the survey.

In June 2023, the Working Group VET and the Green Transition published its Compendium of Inspiring Practices. The transition to an environmentally sustainable, circular and climate-neutral economy has significant social, economic and employment impacts. Ensuring that all citizens obtain the necessary knowledge, competences, skills and attitudes to cope with these changes is vital to a socially-just transformation of the EU.

Vocational education and training (VET) has a key role to play in helping young people and adults develop skills to thrive in their careers and lives. The European Education Area Working Group on VET and the Green Transition enables technical exchanges and contributions to help countries implement the principles and objectives of the Council Recommendation on Vocational Education and Training, and the Osnabrück Declaration. As part of its mandate, this Working Group has collected a set of inspiring practices from across Europe, presented in a Compendium.

Read the Compendium of Inspiring Practices.

On 26 October, the ‘Creating a quality culture in VET – Trends and developments in quality assurance for VET provides’ will take place from 2-3.30pm. The webinar will explore examples of system-level initiatives and quality assurance tools for VET providers. It will also include a deep dive into the impacts of different VET systems, common challenges and innovative solutions.

VET providers are key actors in the field of quality assurance in VET and creating a quality culture in schools is one of the most important goals in that policy area. According to Cedefop, most of the national policy developments related to quality assurance in VET focus on the VET provider level, with a particular focus on promoting self-assessment in IVET, as this allows VET providers to embrace quality assurance as an empowering instrument and a chance for continuous improvement.

Register for the webinar by 19 October.

The European Alliance for Apprenticeships (EAfA) and the European Training Foundation (ETF) are organising the sixth EAfA seminar for partner countries on 11–12 October 2023 in Turin, Italy.

The in-person event will enable learning between ETF partner countries and EAfA members: governments, businesses, social partners, chambers, vocational education and training providers, regions and apprentice representatives.

The joint ETF−EAfA event will allow participants to explore the challenges and opportunities in developing and implementing apprenticeship systems and schemes with a focus on high-level apprenticeship and in-company trainers. Attendees will also learn about how the Piemonte Region (Italy) is developing effective apprenticeship programmes at different levels.

Registration is now closed.

The 2023 European Vocational Skills Week is set to take place from 23–27 October. It will continue to shine a spotlight on how VET is key for people of all ages to up-skill and re-skill for their personal development and careers.  Check out the European Vocational Skills Week website for an overview of key events at EU level. 

The success of EVSW relies on the cooperation of VET stakeholders in organizing various initiatives and events. If you are involved in VET-related activities, you are encouraged to contribute by registering your planned events on the EYS website. These events can carry the branding of both the European Year of Skills (EYS) and the European Vocational Skills Week, creating a unified and impactful message. Events can take place until May 2024.

Head to the website for more information.

On 21 September, the ESF+ SI+ Community of Practice on Employment, Education and Skills, in cooperation with the ALMA-network, is hosting a webinar bringing together promising practices in organising successful transnational mobilities for apprentices as well as young adults not in education, employment, or training (NEETs).

How can these two funding opportunities for mobility which both have work-based learning at their heart best be used from the point of view of training providers and companies? How do they complement each other? Which solutions have projects within the ERASMUS+ and ALMA programmes found to convince young people of the benefits of working temporarily abroad, to overcome language and cultural barriers, and to guarantee safety and well-being abroad?

The event addresses these questions and is aimed at all individuals and organisations interested or involved in the international mobility of apprentices as well as NEETs, especially potential promoters of new mobility projects.

Register for the event.

How apprenticeships can lead to a greener labour market: Policy lessons from the 'greenification' of a chemical sector training module

This paper looks at how apprenticeships can play a major role in helping young people acquire skills for the green transition through initial training/education and in upskilling and reskilling workers and unemployed people in green themes. A case study on the greenification of a seven-day training module for students and employees in the chemical sector, combined with several interviews, is used to identify the barriers and critical success factors for acquiring these skills through training and education.

Enablers and disablers of cross-border long-term apprentice mobility

By considering the specificities of apprenticeships, this publication presents considerations on the enablers and disablers of cross-border long-term apprentice mobility (CBLTMA) and shows what would need to be considered to make CBLTMA work in the medium to long term.

'How' and 'why' cannot be separated: Empirical insights into the company-based part of apprenticeship training in Austria

In Austria, binding training objectives are defined for the company-based part of dual training, but there are very few normative specifications on how these are to be achieved. The conditions under which vocational training occurs in the company have also scarcely been studied. The results of two surveys show that the Austrian dual apprenticeship training model can be described primarily as a model of youth employment and secondarily as a training model. Conclusions are drawn for vocational training policy, educational practice and relevant research.

We are pleased to welcome the following new EAfA members since April 2023:

• Asociația Institutul Pentru Parteneriat Social Bucovina (Romania)
• Comune di Vittorio Veneto (Italy)
• Consorzio Consolida - Società Cooperativa Sociale (Italy)
• European Association of Institutes for Vocational Training (EVBB) (Germany)
• European Vocational Training Association - EVTA (Belgium, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia)
• GAN Global (France, Türkiye)
• IDESCOM (Portugal)
• Municipality of Alpago - Comune di Alpago (Italy)
• OECON Group (Belgium, Bulgaria)
• Regione Emilia-Romagna (Italy)
• SGI Europe (Belgium)
• Turismo de Portugal (Portugal)
• Vocational Education and Training Centre (North Macedonia)

The EAfA is for all types of organisations, small, big, local, regional, multinational etc.

Don’t forget to visit the EAfA website to stay on top of everything the Alliance and the European Commission do to strengthen the quality, supply and overall image of apprenticeships across Europe.

Make sure to also join the EAfA LinkedIn Group and share your ideas, upcoming activities and useful resources on apprenticeships. In this group, you will find a network of friendly and supportive professionals from across Europe, including government representatives, VET and apprenticeship providers, and other experts.