Vocational education has a key role to play in enabling the green transition. This year’s European Vocational Skills Week puts the spotlight on green skills.
On 19-20 May 2022, the European Commission (EC) held a high-level event on vocational education and training (VET) as part of the annual European Vocational Skills Week. This year’s sixth edition focused on VET green skills and the green transition and represented the framework for hundreds of events across Europe on the topic. EARLALL and SwissCore’s webinar on micro-credentials (see SwissCore article) was part of the 2022 Vocational Skills Week too. The EC’s high-level event saw Commissioners and Ministers sharing their initiatives and commitments for VET, especially highlighting the central role that VET will play in the green transition.
European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit, set the scene with the message that the European Green Deal (see SwissCore article) will lead to the creation of one million new jobs by 2030, 487’000 in the construction sector alone and also a significant number in the water supply sector.
Europe is already experiencing labour shortages in these ‘green’ jobs. Therefore, the EC is supporting European countries in reskilling their workforce to close these labour shortages. The Erasmus+ programme, for example, is funding the creation of Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) to strengthen the VET eco-systems and to integrate green skills provision in the European VET sector. Further, the EC is putting forward policy initiatives, such as the proposals for a European approach to micro-credentials – recognised short courses – and setting up individual learning accounts to support the uptake of skills trainings and courses. Lastly, sector-specific Pacts for Skills launched by the EC are bringing businesses and public authorities together to share their experience and commitments to analyse current and future skills needs and offer concrete courses to re- and upskill their workforce. These initiatives are part of the overarching European Skills Agenda with its goal of reaching 60% of the adult population in the EU receiving training every year.
During the European Vocational Skills Week, representatives from businesses, trade unions, and VET providers joined speakers from EU institutions to chart the way to foster green skills in Europe. Manuela Geleng, Director for Jobs and Skills at the European Commission, presented the EC’s policy initiatives for the green transition, such as the recently published taxonomy of skills for the green transition in European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO), or the new European competence framework on sustainability (GreenComp). Lastly, she announced that targeted amendments should be made to the national recovery and resilience plans to strengthen the investments in the green transition. As it is the European Year of Youth, young people were included in the discussion on green skills and the role of VET learners and apprentices. Niklas Schmucker, an apprentice himself and representing Azubis4Future, shared his experience that VET learners are already active in fostering environmental sustainability and that VET teachers and trainers who are passionate about addressing climate change and the green transition are key actors in changing the systems and should be supported further. He added that higher salaries for green skills teachers and trainers and generally green jobs are relevant in this regard. Overall, the high-level speakers concluded that a mainstreaming of environmental sustainability has to happen in VET systems: the content, the form of education and the premises and infrastructures have to become greener.
The ambitions of the EU and partner countries were set out in the 2020 ‘Osnabrück Declaration on VET as an enabler of recovery and just transitions to digital and green economies’ and more broadly at the Porto Social Summit in 2021 as well as in the commitments of the European Pillar of Social Rights. Building on these policy frameworks, a number of EU ministers used the occasion of this high-level event to present reforms of their VET systems, as proposed in the respective National Implementation Plans of the Osnabrück Declaration (AL, FI, SK). The main direction and goal of these reforms focus on improving access and quality of VET programmes. In this regard, the Ministers stressed again the critical role that Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) and micro-credentials can play in strengthening the network of VET actors and the mainstreaming of green topics. Slovakia, for example, will implement a new framework for individual learning accounts and micro-credentials as part of a new lifelong learning and VET legislation.
In conclusion, VET colleges, teachers and learners have a key role to play in enabling the green transition in Europe. This was showcased at the event by the presentation of the winners of the European Vocational Skills Week Excellence Awards, which featured VET schools, staff and learners that are already contributing to the green transition and addressing climate change.