On 27 October 2021, the Chamber of Regions held a debate on further vocational training to underpin regional education policies geared to aligning young people's skills and the needs of the labour market. The participants discussed how regions were striving to ensure that there was further training in place to enhance young people's prospects for lasting employment in the difficult context of the health crisis. The youth delegates proposed that the Congress commit to drafting and adopting a Charter for lifelong education.
Integrating the system of apprenticeships and further vocational training in the planning and organisation of teaching is a priority for Europe's regions. The Council of Europe's European Social Charter and also numerous texts adopted by the Congress encourage local public authorities to ensure equal access for all to free, quality lifelong education (Recommendations 433 and 442 in 2019 and Resolution 414 in 2017).
The debate in the Chamber of Regions highlighted the need for more regular and systematic exchanges of practices between regional authorities in this field, as well as efforts to identify common standards for further training that would make it possible to validate the skills acquired and ensure youth mobility in Europe. As Miriana Bucalossi, Head of the Working Group on youth policies of the European Association of Regional and Local Authorities for Lifelong Learning (EARLALL), Italy, pointed out, legal standards governing vocational training differ from one country to another, but sometimes even from one region to another or from one area of training to another.
Guaranteeing standards is essential, therefore, especially in order to avoid vocational training schemes being used as a source of cheap labour without guaranteeing lasting employment for young people. In this connection, a number of initiatives at European level place emphasis on the importance of training for and employability of young people, as Miriana Bucalossi pointed out. Both the European Commission (2016) and the International Labour Organization/ILO (2020) have called on countries and regions to introduce additional legal measures to guarantee access to quality training. A 2020 ILO report on training suggests among other ideas that the European Charter of fundamental rights be used to improve the fundamental rights of apprentices.
The experience of Carinthia (Austria) could inspire other regions to set up further training systems in the field of teaching. In her statement, Christina Patterer, Member of the Regional Parliament (Landtag) of Carinthia, Austria, emphasised that the offers of further training for teachers in schools and also in kindergartens were highly effective. This was a key condition in her eyes for guaranteeing equal access to quality education for all.
She also stressed that the very rapid transformation of professions made lifelong training necessary: "The development of electronic systems in vehicles now requires a car mechanic to be an IT technician too". Accordingly, it was necessary to be able to combine different types of study paths through Bac Pro courses, apprenticeships and higher technical studies.
In this context, Lia Montalti (Italy, SOC/G/PD), Regional councillor (Emilia-Romagna), described the experience of her region, which had introduced a major education reform from early childhood onwards to enable young people to devise flexible and progressive study paths after their secondary education, combining vocational training and higher technical studies in close co-operation with companies and universities.
Speaking on behalf of the youth delegates, Viviane Ogou Corbi (Spain) thanked the Congress for giving them an opportunity to express their views on further training policies which had direct implications for their futures. She advocated a "holistic approach" taking account of not only the interests of companies but also the place of people in society, and stressed the need to "teach citizens to learn", by reforming current education systems, which were struggling to adapt to the rapid development of societies.
To make further training more effective, she suggested introducing intergenerational forms of learning, allocating grants and study leave enabling everyone to access lifelong training, giving recognition to the skills of women and different cultural communities and promoting education in the field of mental health. The training dispensed by associations and civil society, recognised by the Charter on education for democratic citizenship, should also contribute to diversifying the global education offer. Finally, the youth delegates recommended that the Congress draw up a Charter for lifelong education in conjunction with the youth delegates, teachers, the members of the Congress and regional authorities.
