Main Project Findings
It seems (Seyfried, 2008) that the quality of VET provision in the Mediterranean
region is often related to whether the curriculum is recent and competence-based,
the qualifications of teachers and trainers sufficient, and the technical equipment
up to date. Compared with the importance placed on these input factors, there
seems to be less concern with output and outcome factors for assessing the quality
of VET programmes: the adequacy of the skills acquired during training, drop-out
and completion rates, employment rates and the type of employment obtained are
hardly taken into consideration. In most cases, this can be attributed to the
weaknesses in the monitoring and evaluation systems that support the delivery of
VET programmes.
Moreover, the prevailing criteria for QA in the provision of training and the
approach to evaluation in the provision of training, particularly of teachers and
trainers, seem to be inspection.This could be pedagogical inspection of teachers or
administrative inspection to establish to what extent the school is complying with
regulations, especially financial ones. There appears to be no system for assessing
the overall performance of schools in terms of achievements or objectives.
In addition, in some countries, statistical instruments have been put in place,
which, together with the inspection reports, assist decision-making. However, the
information provided by these instruments is used neither systematically nor
efficiently. This is particularly true in Tunisia, which has recently implemented a
set of standards that covers all the functions and processes in a VET school,
from management to the delivery of courses. The indicators defined for each
standard allow for both self-assessment and ‘external’ assessment and give a
clear indication of the performance of the centre. However, there is no clear
policy on the implications of the result of these assessments in terms of rewards
or sanctions.
The same applies to tracer studies on employability. The development of an
observatory function as part of the MEDA-ETE project revealed that different
countries were carrying out such studies, some on a regular basis. There is,
however, no clear indication of the extent to which the existing data are used for
the planning, monitoring and steering of the system. Despite the numerous evaluation
activities, a number of stakeholders have stated the need for improvement.
Most tools seem to collect opinions and simply accompany the training programmes,
while the evaluation of the results is still considered to be weak.
Although ETF has supported the Mediterranean partners in defining a common
set of indicators and collecting data on the labour market and training provision,
the usability of the results seems limited.