Ways toward a European vocational education and training space: a “bottom‐up” approach

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to concentrate on bottom‐up approaches in order to promote a European vocational education and training (VET) concept. The overall aim of this article is to demonstrate that sophisticated approaches still have a chance of becoming common practice in European countries.

Design/methodology/approach

The centre of the article is the discussion of a core occupational profile called ECO‐recycler, which tends to be an alternative to the discussion of a uniform European Qualification Framework. The method of participatory discourse is applied in order to shape a VET space jointly with European partners. However, the partnership should not only discuss an abstract level because the implementation of the ECO‐recycler is the main target of the discourse and it will be demonstrated how it works.

Findings

After the clarification of a bottom‐up approach, the implementation process of a core occupational profile in the partner countries is described.

Research limitations/implications

The empirical approach for the creation of work process based core occupational profiles will be offered.

Practical implications

European policies must be changed if these approaches are pursued.

Originality/value

This article offers an alternative to existing European policy and will be of interest to those in the field.

Citation

Blings, J. and Spöttl, G. (2008), "Ways toward a European vocational education and training space: a “bottom‐up” approach", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 32 No. 2/3, pp. 157-170. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090590810861695