MEETING OF THE NETWORK OF NATIONAL RESOURCE CENTERS FOR VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE (22-23 April 2002)

Transcription

1 EUROPEAN COMMISSION Directorate-General for Education and Culture Vocational training Unit 1 : Development of Vocational training policy MEETING OF THE NETWORK OF NATIONAL RESOURCE CENTERS FOR VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE (22-23 April 2002) 1 st day session on the portal This was the second plenary meeting of Euroguidance network in 2002 the first one had taken place in January in [1] Brussels. Ms. Laura Cassio opened the session and those who for the first time participated in the network meeting introduced themselves. Mr. Mick Carey of Aspire-i (UK) reminded everyone present of the upcoming 10 th anniversary of the birth of the network and therefore, we shall think of an opportunity to point out this fact to the public. Ms. Laura Cassio summarised conclusions of the meeting with national representatives on March 11 th and Leonardo da Vinci committee on th March. Meeting on March 11 th with national representatives was to get either their approval as to the involvement of Euroguidance network in the portal project or suggestions of an alternative, to identify what exists at the national level, to build the technical group for the second strand of the project, aimed at identifying a common core protocol that should allow for the interoperability of national databases. The representatives had been contacted through the Permanent Representations. The role of the network in the project was explained with supportive arguments. While some national representatives expressed their perplexities about the involvement of the Euroguidance network, no alternative was suggested either in the meeting or later (the end of March had been agreed as a deadlin for contributions). The national representatives had also raised the issues of a quality check and validation of the information displayed at the portal, and of the costs of creating national databases. Leonardo committee on March th : the involvement of the Euroguidance network in the portal project and the project itself were presented for approval to the committee. The question of possibilities for increase in financing the network was raised. Some countries (Denmark, Italy, Ireland and Poland) put in doubt the choice of the Euroguidance network. Eventually it was agreed that a letter explaining the situation will be sent to the ministries in order to let them propose an alternative, if so they wished, by the end of April. The network will be informed at the beginning of May about any news or decisions. ATOS Origin presented what has been done on the portal by now including the cooperation with both task forces (on the content and classification), what is planned for next period and what actions are opened because of the expected decisions approved by the network. Please, see the presentation of ATOS Origin. The main points are: Task force on the content and classification were created and have been working The results of their work is as follows: Location country (search criterion), city (appears on the result list of the query) Information language (is not search criterion) is the language of the site Learning language (search criterion) is the language of the course, study programmes,.. Context 4 levels (M.A. + post-graduate), higher education, vocational training, compulsory education) Subject Careers Library Classification Index

2 No user registration will be provided because it would be difficult to motivate users to come back over again, it is not even the intention, the portal is information tool. It is important that the user knows where and how to find the portal when s/he needs it. There is multilingual aspect, therefore the CEDEFOP thesaurus seems to be very helpful for indexing the information displayed. Look of the Europe server has been adopted. There are decisions that have to be taken during the meeting: On search dimensions Which classification to use What values within dimensions to use To work out complete list of dimension items - how many and which - (by the end of April), to establish values for the dimensions in order to be able start feeding the portal ASAP. This has to be clear and worked out for ATOS Origin by Friday 26 th of April. To set up the user task force in order to get feedback and evaluation of the portal functioning. Before the training (beginning by June), some information shall be already available on the portal. There will be 3 training sessions for data insertion to the portal within the summer beginning by June till August. The work done by task forces is proposals to the network which shall be further discussed and approved by the network. There was a reminder of not forgetting about the recognition and transparency issues, their national reference points. Therefore, the link to NARIC with their network contacts should be included. DG Internal Market has got information on the recognition and transparency on its site. Also, links to CEDEFOP and Eurydice shall be there. About the levels of Learning opportunities, it was proposed and agreed to use ISCED 97. ISCED levels should be used as such for classification purposes, but may then be grouped in fewer categories. Presentation of the task force on the content was provided by Mr. Mika Launikari of CIMO - The Centre for International Mobility (Finland): please, see the presentation worked out by the task force. The main points: Learning opportunities are the most important part Work will consist of collecting existing links, pre-selection, description and classification of links At the conference in Sevilla, national representatives supported the portal and stressed the importance to keep the deadlines, as well was mentioned that the Estia is the starting point for the portal. The big part of mobility is happening in the field of higher education so this dimension should be worked out and thought out carefully. The item news might means additional extensive workload Proposals for information collectors (Commission, Euroguidance, webmaster, others?): There should be expiry date for news and then to move it into the archive We can not deal with all the requests, therefore there should be a list of other institutions provided Every NRCVG shall provide a list of national contact points that should be on the portal We should motivate those who are hesitating concerning their study abroad e.g. every centre would twice a year provide experience from people (including pictures to make it more attractive). But what we expect from the stories? Wouldn t they become repetitive after a time? Item practical information shall include information about the country. Proposed information sources which cover the listed items might be: Estia, On the move, Fit for Europe, national databases or information. Item national education and training systems : there shall be link to Eurydice, NARIC, ENIC, national reference

3 points on qualification, Europass,, mobility programmes, other mobility initiatives like Eurostage, Academia, Eurodime. The portal will not have two interfaces (like for professionals and public), only one for general public. The role of Estia for CEEC is still important because CEEC are not part of EURES. It is assumed that CEEC would join EURES after their entrance to the EU but this assumption is not based on any facts. On the other side it is clear that it is not feasible to maintain both, the Estia and the portal. Presentation of the task force on classification was given by Ms. Marina Silverii of Centro Risorse Europeo per l'orientamento (Italy). Classification means standardization of the resources. During the period the task force was working some decision have changed. Here are the main conclusions of the task force: As concerning Universities, in case a comprehensive database does not exist, links will be provided to single Universities web-sites, linked at level of Faculties. The portal will point to those pages of the faculties containing the list of study programmes. If such page does not exist, then the portal will link to the homepage of the Faculty. Within the vocational training field, only official databases existing either at the national level or at the regional and sectoral level shall be included. The content of the portal shall be structured into 5 dimensions: o Location country (search criterion - SC), city (in the result list SR) o Informative language (SR) o Learning language (SC) o Context level of education o Subject field of study A discussion was opened on what is the most appropriate geographical level. It was concluded that the city level is too detailed, as it's difficult to establish a list of cities comprehensive enough. On the other hand, regions are often administrative entities that may not be well known by foreign users. Therefore, the portal should distinguish between broad regions (e.g. North/Centre/South). Every NRCVG should propose, before May 13, the list of the cities. If someone chooses a country than division of cities/regions should be provided. If you don t search by the country, than you don t get cities. Geographical division will be optional and shall be rather simple. Every NRCVG prepares geographical division which is the most appropriate for the country (cities, provinces, regions,). A map could be a useful clue in this way but the interactive map would be difficult because of copyright issues as ATOS Origin said. Shouldn t be there an entrance from the country to country if it is a portal on mobility? The main difference between Estia and the portal is that the portal is one level deeper, it is intended for general public, it will have a search engine and it is going to be multilingual. A suggestion was made that in the initial phase there should be more focus on the most important and fundamental tasks, the portal can be enriched with additional and extra information later on when it is tested and run. For those centres which are selling the information on their websites shall be mentioned that the portal can promote the products which the centre is selling which means the portal creates the demand for the products. We should be aware of the responsibility of letting people know to which educational level their study received abroad corresponds at home. The portal will allow the combination of search criterions (advanced search). The added value will be that it will enable to put together the things which mean the same but differently named in different countries.

4 ATOS Origin asked how to solve the long results list which the user might be getting (e.g. divide it by a city as a solution)? User should know that s/he doesn t need to use all the search criterions offered. For the quality reasons, some institutions-training providers can be left out and not included at the particular section on the portal. If there is a governmental agency/institution providing links to national training providers, it helps very much and we can use it. We are not going to take the responsibility for displayed information, therefore, it should always be information recognised or with good reputation on the national level. Denmark offered to volunteer for the test group which would feed the portal in order to run the prototype. Language interface will exist in 11 EU languages ensured by the Commission. If CEEC want to have their language version, it has to be carried out on the national level. It can be either included into the grant requests (which seems to be the most feasible way) or to request it from the national ministry. Learning and information language should be, while inserting data, always the default mother tongue (concerns the EU languages at this point). The second day session Participants were given the presentation on CEDEFOP by Michael Adams, a head of the CEDEFOP office in Brussels. CEDEFOP is primarily concerned with the EU members and also Norway and Island. Links with CEDEFOP exists through Leonardo da Vinci programme, a study visit programme organised within Leonardo and other projects such as VET scenarios and other which exist on ad hoc bases. CEDEFOP has got rather low budget ranking at 13,5 million EUR that covers everything. Concerning the field of guidance, the CEDEFOP published in 1997 a study on Lifelong vocational guidance. Concerning the documentation activities, CEDEFOP is creating a network of networks; in each MS a designed reference centre will animate a consortium of information centres. There was an open invitation to the tender last July from which the consortium leaders came up. They will get funding ranking from 5 to 25 thousand of EUR. Members of the consortium will not be financed. This way of networking should ensure a both-way communication with CEDEFOP back and forward. Every member of the documentary network is getting all the copies of CEDEFOP publications. There are 3 areas of activities in CEDEFOP: Documentary and dissemination activities, continuing maintenance of VET resources, publishing in 7 languages (not in Swedish, Finnish, Dutch and Danish). Production of monograph series in original language and in English, series of short description of countries are available on ETV (10-12 pg.), production of the short document for decision makers on development in VET in a 6-month periodicity. Research: there are different research outcomes 2 nd report on research in VET in E Europe (cca 800pg.), a short summary (cca 150 pg.). Each research report has got a specific team e.g. on e-learning. (1) (2) The cooperation between CEDEFOP and Euroguidance: national reference points were proposed to contact NRCVGs, there shall be a link with the Leonardo national agencies, too. Dossier on guidance was not occupied for certain years. Mr. Frederic Company will be working on specific studies on guidance in different countries. The way for the cooperation shall be found. Mr. Adams expressed his availability for CEDEFOP being present at the Euroguidance meetings and there is also possibility to organize visits to CEDEFOP. The Commission will inform people from CEDEFOP about the possible ways of cooperation with Euroguidance. CEDEFOP is also completing the survey on guidance and counselling services carried out by OECD in sense of conducting it in the EU countries not included in the OECD study. The Commission will encourage connections and co-operation between the Euroguidance network and CEDEFOP

5 2 nd session on the portal Content types: news and experience will be dynamic items and it is not necessary to have it from the very beginning. It might be useful to use in case of opening the item of experience to link to the Socrates database on experience called IRIS. For the news, every country could prepare something. It will be available only in 3 languages (German, English and French). Experience and news were proposed by ATOS Origin and would be retrievable. The focus of the news is: - events - careers and student fairs - new programmes - new websites Funding should be included in practical information. News might be rather considered as what is new on the website and it is not daily news. Experience part would be left out, at least for now. News is not the priority now it further depends on the workload generated from the works on the portal. Also, the news shall not be exhaustive. Contact information is very crucial because information will generate questions. Therefore, they will be provided under practical information. There should be a link to the website of the network and we might ask ministries to provide a list of centres/organizations which would be mentioned as contact points. There was a suggestion proposed to draft a text that would provide certain navigation to the user to contact directly the proper institution for the request in order to avoid that Euroguidance will deal and forward further a huge amount of nonrelevant requests. The introductory website of the portal shall say somewhere that Euroguidance network has conducted the work on it. It will be in the part describing the history of development of the portal. Education and training systems : we should always keep in mind that it is for the general public. We can use the chart produced by Eurydice. Every NRCVG checks if and where exists the short and generally understandable description of the system and how it is accessible and in what language does it exists. Exchange programmes and initiatives : links should be provided to NA for European programmes plus other interesting organisation. The part on European and other exchange programmes can be developed further later on. Documentation centres can be left out for the moment. When they are included there should be one direct link to the network site of the centres. Mid May: the information on education and training system shall be provided May 10th: geographical division of the country shall be provided This shall be sent to Laura and Veronika. Translations of texts for CEEC will be included in grant requests for 2002/2003. Training will take place in 3 sessions beginning from June till August. Contracts have to be ready by July 1st, Therefore, deadline for submitting the grant requests is on April 30th,

6 2002. For the next period ( ) the proposal for the increase in financing has been made which would result in EUR per a centre. Extra funding for this period can be got from the lump sum and would be dedicated to the centres which are carrying extra tasks (e.g. the UK is maintaining the ICT platform). Every centre that wants to ask for extra funding has to send reasonable explanation for extra funding. The portal is included in Employment guidelines and therefore it makes it possible for MS to ask for funding from ESF for the development of databases at the national level. The prototype will be launched by beginning of July. Then it comes to training, loading the portal and opening the portal to the public in November. Next meetings are: In Lithuania (15-16th of May): 1st day is a conference day, the 2nd day is for discussion on what are the expectations of national authorities from NRCVGs. Conference in Warsaw (29 th -31 st of May) Training in Brussels (June-August, one person per country) Network meeting in Estonia (beginning of September) The task force meets when the prototype is ready. The members of the technical working group are to be proposed by the national representatives and the Commission will make the choice. Guidance forum will meet firstly in October 2002 and John Mc McCarthy is the coordinator of the forum which will consist of people with the competence in guidance, social partners, professional bodies. There should be a contact between the Forum and the Euroguidance network. A technical group will meet in June to prepare the forum. John has been just presenting the draft paper on the guidance forum in Santiago de Compostela. The CEEC that are not involved into the OECD study on guidance can get financing on this study from World Bank and ETF. There was a meeting of Nordic countries which resulted in a proposal to work on the information strategy of the portal, promotion of the network (need to work out the annual synthesis report every year), to market the network and to deepen the collaboration with the Baltic countries. Volunteers for the work on the information strategy are welcomed. A budget for the information strategy of the portal has been foreseen. [1] In fact this was the first meeting of the 2002 work programme. The January meeting was the second 2001 meeting, that had been postponed for practical reason.