Press release
Job qualifications should be comparable EU wide by 2012
Employment policy - 07-06-2007 - 18:48
Committees
Committees
Job qualifications earned in any EU Member State should be comparable throughout the EU by 2012, but Member States should be given a year longer than planned to implement the proposed European Qualification Framework, and it should be accompanied by a system of vocational training credits, said the Employment Committee on Thursday. The EQF aims to ease cross-border mobility for workers and learners, and help meet labour market needs, by using a common language to describe qualifications.
Under the EQF proposal, all qualifications, from school-leavers' diplomas through vocational training certificates to the highest academic degrees are to be assigned to one of eight reference levels, based on knowledge, skills and competence acquired.
A year more to build mutual trust
The Committee says that Member States should be given until 2010 - a year longer than the Commission proposed -to relate their national qualifications systems to the EQF and to build the "mutual trust" needed to implement the proposal (which, as a European Parliament and Council recommendation, would not be binding upon Member States).
EU-compatible by 2010
By 2012, all new qualification certificates, diplomas and "Europass" attestation documents issued by the competent authorities "should contain a clear reference to an EQF's reference level, says the report, by Mario Mantovani (EPP-ED, IT).
Vocational training credits
The proposed recommendation builds on the European Higher Education Area guidelines agreed by 45 European countries in the so-called "Bologna" process. MEPs say that the EQF should be accompanied by a European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET), so as to facilitate the transfer and recognition of qualifications "irrespective of where or how they have been acquired". By "building bridges between formal, non-formal and informal learning", it should help to modernise today's education and training systems, says the report.
The recommendation, as amended by the committee, was approved with 39 votes in favour, one against and one abstention.
The Mantovani report is scheduled for a plenary vote at the 24-27 September 2007 session.
05/06/2007
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs
In the chair: : Jan Andersson (PES, SE)
In the chair: : Jan Andersson (PES, SE)
Procedure: co-decision, first reading
REF.: 20070604IPR07388