CERTI4TRAIN

Inspiration

The job of continuing education and training (CVET) trainers is still widely not regulated in Europe. Not regulated means that no regulatory body has set standards for this specific occupation. There are countries were CVET trainer job profiles and/or education programmes have been established. CVET trainer certification exists in Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, France and in Austria. They are organized by public actors or by private vocational education and training (VET) organisations. They can be mandatory or not. Trainers’ qualifications and competence requirements may vary between European countries, but also within a country. This leads to very different situations within Europe which makes it difficult to compare CVET trainer certifications, CVET trainer competence matrix and competence assessment processes across Europe. In this context, mobility of CVET trainers and transparency of their qualifications remains difficult, if not impossible.

Innovation

CERTI4TRAIN, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union and coordinated by Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), is developing a dematerialized ISO 17024 compliant European CVET trainer certification scheme based on a competence matrix that is European Qualification Framework (EQF) level 5 compatible. To ensure the recognition and validation of the project results at a European level, all interested parties are invited to become members of the CERTI4TRAIN experts committee. These experts guarantee the quality of the results commenting the project's productions and participating in the test of the certification exam. The experts are European CVET actors acting either in their own name, expressing their personal points of view, acting independently, or are representatives of private and public organizations, research organizations, professional associations, etc. In this project, LIST brings its expertise in computer based assessment of competences.

Impact

The development of the CERTI4TRAIN CVET trainer competence matrix will be a major step towards enhancing mobility of future certified CVET trainers within Europe. The 2012 Council Recommendation on validation of non-formal and informal learning encourages Member States to put in place national arrangements for validation by 2018. These arrangements will enable individuals to increase the visibility and value of their knowledge, skills and competences acquired outside formal education and training. The CERTI4TRAIN consortium expects to impact national authorities by the project results.

This project is co-financed by the European Commission. This communication reflects only the point of view of its authors and the Commission cannot be held responsible for the use of the information that it contains.