European Business Forum on Vocational Training: OBESSU’s point of view.

From 23rd to 24th September 2014, the European Commission organised the biennial European Business Forum on Vocational Training in Brussels, at which OBESSU Board member Luke Shore spoke on a panel. The conference brought together participants from multinational corporations, national chambers of commerce, vocational education providers and Commission officials, together with social partners.

Although the forum carried the predictable tagline ‘Business & VET- Partners for Growth and Competitiveness’, OBESSU was pleased to note a slight shift in the Commission’s discourse at this event. Senior DG Education and Culture (DG EAC) officials such as Joao Santos, Pierre Mairesse and Silva Mendes began to frame the vocational education and training (VET) question in terms of the inseparable, mutually complementing social and economic missions of education, instead of a pure question of jobs, growth and competitiveness.

In its contribution to the panel ‘Why Should- and How Can- Schools and Companies Work Closer Together?’, aside from questioning the premise of the panel, OBESSU drew attention to the importance of: balancing the economic with the social dimension of education; providing students with long-term transversal skills; democratic governance of VET schools and VET systems; permeability between academic secondary and VET; and guaranteeing access to higher education from a VET path. OBESSU also put forward its policy positions for how private sector involvement in VET must be responsible, how the dual system cannot be extracted from one country and implanted uncritically on another and how to ensure more equity, equality and social inclusion in vocational education.

With its comments on the panel and interventions from the floor, such as questioning a multinational corporation on how they guarantee apprentices’ rights in the workplace, OBESSU guaranteed a place for the social dimension and a rights-based approach at the heart of the debate. With the upcoming changes at the Commission (see OBESSU’s comments here), we would like to thank DG EAC for their continued commitment to the inclusion of social partners and to wish everyone at Unit EAC B2 all the best for their scheduled move to DG EMPL.

Written by Luke Shore, OBESSU Board member