Employability is a construct that includes soft and hard skills to prepare a person to gain employment, progress in it and sustain a career. The employability discourse, in the context of linking education with skills development, has gained increased attention globally. However, engagement with this agenda differs across countries, as it depends…

Teachers trained in one country are often not allowed to serve as teachers in another country because their teacher's license is not recognised as equivalent. The barriers these teachers have to overcome in order to work in their profession again are high and often require further (full) teacher training at the university. The paper provides…

This conceptual and descriptive study examines the critical issues, challenges and priorities for European higher education (HE) leaders, drawing upon the theory, practice and experience of leaders inside and outside the open and distance learning (ODL) field. Focussing on the emerging vantage points of the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), global…

This report investigates adult education and training across Europe, with a special focus on policies and measures supporting adults with low levels of basic skills and those with low or no qualifications. Alongside qualitative data covering 42 education and training systems, the report also presents statistical data from international surveys. It…

National Qualifications Frameworks (NQFs) are a global phenomenon. This is evidenced by their scale, coverage and intrinsic link with education policy across Europe and beyond. Research into their impact has encompassed a number of perspectives; theoretical, practical and evaluative. Yet, despite the existence of critical literature related to the…

Global scholarship has documented gender discrepancies in power in higher education institutions (HEIs) for several decades. That research is now supported by wider gender equality movements such as those concerned with unequal pay and sexual harassment. Underlying these is the under-representation of women in senior management and full…

The paper provides analytical insights into highly acute issues concerning preparation and adoption of Qualifications Frameworks being an adequate response to the growing interactions at the global labor market and flourishing of knowledge economy. Special attention is paid to the analyses of transnational Meta Qualifications Frameworks (A…

This report provides the main findings and results from the 2022 collection of statistics on education, skills and employment in the ETF's partner countries. In addition, it provides the results of some ETF new strands of work: youth transition and skills mismatch. A statistical snapshot enabling the EU's candidate countries to reference…

The transnational independent learner has become the new hero of the European learning space. In order to describe the mode of existence of the independent learner, an analysis in terms of deinstitutionalization falls short. Such analysis focuses on what disappeared but easily loses out of sight what comes instead. Especially in the case of the…

This report explores the links between trade unions and workplace training, and the potential benefits of social partnership in the skills system. The UK is relatively unusual in having no formal role for trade unions in the training system. In most advanced economies, trade unions and employers work alongside government in shaping the skills…

This European Training Foundation (ETF) assessment provides an external, forward-looking analysis of Azerbaijan's human capital development issues and Vocational Education and Training (VET) policy responses in a lifelong learning perspective. It identifies challenges related to education and training policy and practice that hinder the…

Sound initial vocational education is an important precondition for subsequent episodes of vocational education or professional development. The presence of strong occupational identities and labour markets is argued to be a precondition for high-quality initial vocational education and training (IVET) and continuing vocational education and…

Worldwide, education promises a better future for aspiring generations. However, our current educational landscape has been shaped by neoliberal thinking, and is thus often oriented toward economic objectives. In Germany "Bildung" is a notion coined by philosophers representing a broad liberal and critical education, and the cultural and…

The development of policy in relation to language learning at the early primary level of schooling has received only limited attention in the literature on policy studies in general, and within the framework of an emerging education policy space across Europe specifically. This paper offers an introductory discussion of the growth of education…

The European Language Portfolio (ELP) is based on principles which tend to challenge traditional learning and teaching practices and thus impact on education policy and systems. The primary owner of the ELP is the learner, and as a personal language learning companion, the ELP has three core functions: pedagogic, reporting and catalytic. For it to…