ETF is organising a corporate conference on 6-7 October at the European Parliament in Brussels on the implementation of National Qualifications Frameworks (NQFs). The event is a follow-up to ETF’s 2009 conference on NQFs, and will involve participants from the EU, our partner countries and from countries such as Australia, Malaysia and South Africa.
Since the 2009 event, there has been an exponential growth in the number of NQFs internationally and many of them aim to facilitate life long learning, and, internationally, mobility of citizens. The growth of international trade and the major population movements of recent times has triggered interest among governments and employers in how qualifications can be more clearly described, understood and compared.
The programme for our October conference reflects the progress made since 2009 and will focus on how frameworks can support the development of modern, fit for purpose qualifications. Workshops will cover practical implementation issues such as quality assurance, developing new qualifications, implications for reform of learning and curricula and the roles of institutions and stakeholders.
The ETF will also present the findings of its study on the implementation arrangements for qualifications frameworks based on the experience of ten countries, drawn from the EU member states (France, the UK), our partner countries (Kosovo, Morocco, Turkey, Tajikistan) and from Australia, Chile, Namibia and Malaysia. The study covers precisely those issues to be discussed at the conference.
The conference will also see the launch of a new Qualifications Platform. The Platform is a virtual community which aims to support practitioners and institutions implementing their own qualifications frameworks by providing information, facilitating access to policy learning and promoting exchange of expertise.
More information is available here.