68th Meeting of the EQF Advisory Group

The European Qualifications Framework Advisory Group (EQF AG) meets three times a year, but annually in person in Brussels. Órla Barry, Head of Qualifications Information and Learning Opportunities and Andrina Wafer, Head of International Mobility and Prior Learning representing Ireland attended the meeting in person on 16 and 17 June.

The meeting opened with relevant developments and a key focus on the Union of Skills. 

For more information about the Union of Skills, read this article produced by Europass Ireland (The Union of Skills: Unlocking Europe’s Potential Through a New Skills Strategy | LinkedIn)

The Skills Portability Initiative (SPI) aims to open up more opportunities for workers and businesses to fully capture the potential of the single market.  Under this initiative, the Commission will:

1. explore the need for a potential legislative proposal to address barriers to the mobility of workers, including in unregulated professions. This could build on existing transparency tools (EQF, Europass, ESCO) that seek to ensure understanding, comparability, trust, acceptance of skills and qualifications across Member States. It could also promote common European formats for interoperable digital credentials to enable the understanding and acceptance of skills and qualifications
2. building on the Implementation Report of the Professional Qualifications Directive, consider actions to further facilitate, expand and modernise recognition processes for regulated professions, in particular by leveraging digital tools.
3. explore whether to propose common rules for simpler procedures for handling the recognition and validation of qualifications and skills of third country nationals

The political guidelines 2024-2029 announced a European Strategy for Vocational Education and Training (VET), which aims to increase the attractiveness, excellence and inclusiveness of VET.

There are three Europass Supplements: the Diploma Supplement, the Certificate Supplement, and Europass Mobility. 

While the Diploma Supplement template remains unchanged since its last revision in 2018, a Diploma Supplement Network was set up in June 2024, created by the Swedish ENIC-NARIC and Finnish National Europass Centre. It is a space to discuss, share and learn about the Diploma Supplement between peers and stakeholders. The Network organises regular webinars. More information is available here Diploma Supplement Network | Finnish National Agency for Education

The ongoing EQF-Europass project group on Certificate Supplement is preparing to launch two surveys to gather feedback from end-users and stakeholders regarding the use and possible changes to put forward regarding the revision of the template. The surveys should run between 20 June and 15 September. The project group, together with specific stakeholder groups, will be asked to respond and disseminate the surveys. For more information on the Certificate Supplement, read this article produced by Europass Ireland Enhancing Mobility and Qualification Recognition: What the Certificate Supplement Can Do for You | LinkedIn

Other highlights from the meeting included:

• Presentation by Iraklis Pliakis of the initial findings of the 2024 NFQ Inventory conducted by Cedefop. The inventory will be published shortly and will include an Ireland specific report. The 2022 NQF Inventory can be found here European inventory of NQFs | CEDEFOP
• State of Play on Initial Referencing of NQF to the EQF from both Ukraine and Georgia; and on re-referencing to the EQF from Romania
• The draft guidance on comparisons between the EQF and third country qualification frameworks was presented and discussed. Ireland was a member of the project group tasked with reviewing and updating these guidelines and incorporating learnings from the pilot comparisons with Ukraine, Cabo Verde and Southern African Development Community Framework.
• Zelda Azzarà presented the additional findings of the study on Transparency and Transferability of Learning Outcomes which used future policy scenarios on lifelong learning and life-wide learning.
• Updated were presented on validation of non-formal and informal learning by Ernesto Villalba from Cedefop and attendees were reminded about the new information hub that includes validation tools and resources. Cedefop information hub on validation of non-formal and informal learning | CEDEFOP

The next meeting of the group will be held online in November.