The New Skills agenda is linked to the implementation of the 2012 Council Recommendation on the validation of non formal and informal learning. By 2018 EU Member states are supposed to have in place validation systems for all sectors of education, although we know that they are focusing mainly on Vocational education and training. This legislative process would be the one allowing for the validation of the skills of AFS volunteers as professional youth workers, and for the validation of the school period spent abroad with the exchange programme. However the volunteering and school sector have been kept quite aside during this implementation process.
Cedefop, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, is in charge of monitoring the implementation of this Council’s recommendation, and they have organized a two day conference in Thessaloniki, on the topic. Find out more about the outcomes and all relevant conference documents. Cedefop realises that the recommendation has been implemented mostly within VET, but this is seen as a start to then trigger a wider outreach to other education sectors.
The Lifelong Learning Platform, the European Youth Forum and the European Alliance for Volunteering are planning to strongly advocate in 2017 for the inclusion of other sectors of education in this process, especially volunteering. The European Youth Forum has released a publication on Validation of Non-formal education in the Youth Sector, and the LLLPlatform has just kicked off the INNOVAL project and has a Validation taskforce of which EFIL is a member.
For more information: elisa.briga@afs.org