Developing VET Excellence - From Policy to Practice

Mervi Jansson Satu Järvinen

Finnish VET Excellence - What Is Our Secret Formula? Image - not a second rate track! Quality - recognised and rewared. Relevance - qualifications are up-to-date. Employability - real world skills. Governance - FNBE coordinated, balanced mix of LLL and working life input. Flexibility - all learning counts, no dead ends. Lifelong learning - a comprehensive qualifications framework for all ages and backgrounds. !

WORK EXPERIENCE

Basic education

Finnish education system

7-16-year olds

Universities!Doctoral and licentiate degrees!

Master’s degrees!Bachelor’s degrees

Polytechnics Polytechnic master’s degrees

Polytechnic bachelor’s degrees

Specialist vocational qualifications

Further vocational qualifications

Vocational qualifications

Vocational institutions and apprenticeship training

Pre-primary education

General upper secondary schools

Matriculation examination

6-year olds

NQF 3

NQF 4

NQF 5

NQF 6

NQF 7

NQF 8

VET in Finland

Finnish National Board of Education !

Regulations on vocational qualifications !

• qualification requirements • assessment criteria • other regulations concerning vocational education and training !

At present, there are 371 qualifications in Finland ! 52 vocational qualifications divided into 113 study programmes 188 further vocational qualifications 131 specialist vocational qualifications

Image of Vocational Education and Training in Finland90 % state that vocational education and training has a positive image. !96 % state that VET is taught in modern learning environments. !88% state that VET offers skills needed by employers. !

Eurobarometer study 2011

Quality and Relevance of Finnish VET!88% state that VET offers high quality learning. !84% state teachers and trainers are competent. !89% state VET leads to jobs highly demanded on the labour market.

Eurobarometer study 2011

The Future of Learning is Out There....

Learning is a social process. !Recognition of prior learning, skills demonstrations and assessing competence is in the heart of Finnish VET. !Learning outcomes based curricula enabling flexible study paths. !

Contextualised and Authentic In Finnish vocational education: !" Competence is assessed by means of vocational skills demonstrations in the most authentic settings possible. Assessment makes diverse use of different methods. " !Example from the basic qualification in business and administration: !The student - prepares for service situations independently - serves internal and external customers according to

company instructions - carries out calculations required in sales situations

How do you measure and document?

Assessing Learning OutcomesIs the end result enough...or is the process acutally the outcome? !!

Authentic, transparent, mobile...

Based on Clark Quinn (2011), Designing mLearning,

Using mobile devices to document learning outcomes

Changing roles

Learner

Teacher

ConsumerCo-creater

Participant

VET IN FINLAND

Breaking boundaries between education and the real world...

Creating opportunities: professional careers, start ups, further studies...

Building bridges and opening doors!

Real people - Real world - Real skills!Building the future of VET!

Thank you!