THE COPENHAGEN PROCESS

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THE COPENHAGEN PROCESS

• From November 2002
• to November 2004
• Michel Feutrie CNCP Paris

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The Copenhagen Declaration29 and 30 November 2002

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The origin

• The Lisbon European Council in March 2000
  recognised the important role of education as an
  instrument for strengthening Europes competitive
  power worldwide (to become the worlds most
  dynamic knowledge-based economy)

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• The Barcelona European Council in March 2002
  endorsed the work programme calling for
• European education and training to become a world
  quality reference by 2010
• Introducing instruments to ensure the
  transparency of diplomas and qualifications
• Promoting action similar to the Bologna process
  but adapted to the field of vocational education
  and training

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Objectives

• To promote mutual trust, transparency and
  recognition of competences and qualifications
• To establish a basis for increasing mobility of
  participants
• To facilitate access to lifelong learning

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As a result of a long process

• These objectives have been successively oriented
  by principles of
• Equivalence
• Correspondence
• And finally transparency

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Priorities

• To strengthen the European dimension in
  vocational education and training in order to
  facilitate and promote mobility and to develop
  inter-institutional cooperation, partnerships,
• To implement and rationalise information tools
  and networks by integration of existing
  instruments (European CV, certificate and diploma
  supplement, Europass training, European Language
  portfolio,) into a single framework

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• To strengthen policies, systems and practices
  that support information, guidance and
  counselling, at all levels of education, training
  and employment, particularly on issues concerning
  access and transferability and recognition of
  competences and qualifications

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• To investigate how transparency, comparability,
  transferability and recognition (the 4 key words)
  of competences and/or qualifications could be
  promoted by developing
• - reference levels
• common principles for certification
• common measures, for example credit transfer
  system
• national reference points giving access to
  information on the vocational education and
  training system

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• To increase support to the development of
  competences and qualifications at sectorial level
• To define a set of common principles regarding
  validation of non-formal and informal learning
  in order to ensure greater comparability between
  approaches in different countries at different
  levels

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• To promote cooperation in quality assurance
  exchange of models and methods
• To give attention to the learning needs of
  teachers and trainers

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Three workplans

• Developing a single framework for transparency of
  competences and qualifications
• Defining common principles on quality
• Promoting a credit transfer system for vocational
  education and training

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Developing a single framework

• Objectives integration of existing European
  tools to make competences and qualifications
  visible for employers and individuals

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• Results
• A portfolio of documents to be known as
   Europass  integrating identified European
  tools, open to the future inclusion of other
  documents
• Implementation of this framework through National
  Europass Centres (NEC) appointed to coordinate
  national bodies which are concerned, manage the
  information system, promote information and
  guidance, promote the portfolio and its documents
  

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Europass framework

• European CV
• Europass Mobilitas (replacing Europass training)
  to record European learning pathways
• Diploma supplement
• European language portfolio
• Certificate supplement

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Common principles on Quality Assurancein
vocational education and training

• Objectives improvement and results of VET in
  terms of increasing employability, improving the
  match between demand and supply and better access
  to lifelong training, in particular for
  vulnerable people

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• Outcomes
• To encourage coherence with the Copenhagen
  Declaration,
• To promote the creation of cooperative networks
  for trans-national exchanges of best practices,
• To explore the use of common measurement tools
• Debates between those who give priority to
  quality of systems and those who wait more
  quality from  production  units

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European system for credit transfer

• Objectives to establish a system comparable
  with ECTS for vocational education and training
  (ECVT), to define a common framework for levels
  of qualification (decision in 2006)

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• Observations
• it is not possible to trace ECVT on ECTS
• All learning situations must be taken into
  account (formal, non formal and informal)
• Traditional programmes must be divided in
  competence units

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Two conceptions in competition

• For one part units are based on duration,
  content, programmes, pedagogical organisation
• For another part units measure the results of the
  individual pathway whatever the way of production
  of these results education, training or
  experience

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Confirmed by social partners

• Common declaration in March 2002 of social
  partners on lifelong development of competences
  and qualifications
• - lifelong learning is not central
• - but it is considered as a mean among others to
  develop competences

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• So a lot of questions for learning and training
  institutions and specially for universities