Goal of the Forum

Education and training (VET) providers, employers and governments have a shared responsibility to make sure the skills our workforce acquires are up to date with the latest needs and demands of society. This means curricula need to be revised regularly, both in terms of content and form, and new skills, like green skills, digital skills will be added. Furthermore, social and professional skills to work across boundaries of the own sector, the own country and the own type of profession are paramount to be able to address the complex society challenges. Thirdly, applied research and innovation in VET are incredibly important to share the latest developments with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the skills ecosystems, find proof of concepts for companies and stimulate the green and digital transition in our societies.

This is a huge challenge, but luckily there are many good examples of how VET providers, the labour market and governments have joined forces through the CoVEs in co-creating solutions that do exactly what is needed: offering good quality education and training, in line with society’s needs, and offering additional services like applied research, innovation of professions and sharing context rich learning environments that are used for initial and continuous education and training alike. During this Forum on Vocational Excellence we will focus on these inspiring examples, bringing together the people involved, so they can share their knowledge, lessons learned and best practices with each other, so no one has to reinvent the wheel!