Leading institution: CINOP, the Netherlands
Duration: 2018 – 2019
Summary: This is a project financed by the Structural Reform Support Service (SRSS) of the European Commission. The overall objective of this technical support is to make the Bulgarian VET system more relevant to labour market and societal needs by improving the capacity and tools of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science (MES), The National Agency for VET (NAVET) and relevant stakeholders to regularly adapt the List of Professions in VET (LPVET) and the State Educational Standards (SES).
The Technical Support focusses on three main elements: 1). LPVET 2). SES and 3). a broader scope for professions’ specialties.
One of the main reported challenges related to Bulgarian VET and identified by CINOP are:
– Cooperation of the VET system with business and social partners does not lead to optimum labour market relevance of VET.
– The levels and types of skills do not sufficiently correspond to identified skills gaps and mismatches in the labour market.
– VET is not seen as to lead to specific professional opportunities but rather as an alternative education route to enter HE.
– The List of Professions for VET (LPVET) is periodically updated but does not reflect the new dynamics in the professions’ development in each vocational area.
– There are difficulties in differentiating between the levels of the Bulgarian NQF when describing learning outcomes.
The project is to be taken place in four phases, of which the kick-off meeting and the establishment of a steering committee formed the first phase. The second phase is the desk research. The third phase, the field mission, has to be concluded with the interim report. The capacity building will take place at the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 and will include the actual update of a part of the LPVET and SES for the selected sectors. The assistance will be concluded by a validation seminar and a final report in 2019.