Birth of a new EU agency

© Belga Image Standing at the interface between education and training, and employment, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) is at the heart of an on-going labour market revolution. Vocational education and training has become crucial in the face of globalisation, digitalisation, technological change, climate change and population ageing. It helps secure a job at all levels of education and ensure transitions between jobs throughout life. Therefore, it can no longer be seen in isolation: neither from other forms of education; nor from other areas such as employment, economic, social and environment policy. New mission order Accordingly, Cedefop’s founding regulation was amended. The new version came into force on 20 February 2019. It widens Cedefop’s role from primarily assisting the European Commission to collaborating with it, as well as with the EU Member States and social partners, to support EU policy on vocational education and training, skills and qualifications. Fostering close partnership between governments, employee and employer organisations is crucial in the vocational education and training area. The new regulation also recognises Cedefop’s role in providing knowledge, evidence and services, as well as its work on qualifications and validation, the support it provides to countries in implementing vocational education and training policies or the tools, and the data that it collects. It complements Cedefop’s analyses task with a research one and calls upon it to develop relations with other international organisations and third countries. Green jobs In 2019, Cedefop published a report on skills for green jobs that includes country studies on Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Spain, France and the United Kingdom. These studies were carried out together with the International Labour Organisation. The new report shows that there is a poor connection between environmental and skills policies. Regulations, policies and strategies explicitly focusing on green skills and employment are rare and countries vary in their approach to defining, classifying and collecting data on green jobs and skills. Nevertheless, data collection on developments in the green economy is increasing, and vocational education and training programmes and qualifications are being updated. This reflects an increasing demand for green jobs and skills since 2010. Cedefop – Supporting vocational education and training The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) is seeing its pioneering work acknowledged and its missions made more explicit Recycling solar cells: there is a poor connection between environmental and skills policies in EU countries, a new Cedefop report shows. SPECIAL FEATURE 2 0 / SOC I A L AG E NDA / NOV E MB E R 2 0 1 9