Social Agenda – The skills imperative

Issue 41 of the Social Agenda magazine is entirely devoted to vocational education and training (VET) and skills.

Vocational education and training and skills are a pragmatic way of tackling the employment and social challenges facing the EU today, taking people’s concrete needs as a starting point.

Skills are now part of European Commissioner Marianne Thyssen’s portfolio:

• new priorities to modernise and improve vocational education and training by 2020 are being adopted;
• a boost has been given to the European Alliance for Apprenticeship;
• a comprehensive EU skills strategy is due for 2016.

Social Agenda 41 covers all this, complete with articles on what EU agencies and the European Social Fund do in the area of VET and skills.

22 June: Vocational education and training

The ministers in charge of vocational education and training (VET), European Social Partners and the European Commission met in Riga to further deepen European cooperation in VET and to identify the key priorities until 2020. On this occasion, the Latvian Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers and the European Commission organised a high-level event on the European Alliance for Apprenticeships, which was launched two years ago in Leipzig. A number of new companies and organisations joined the Alliance by making new pledges on developing and providing quality apprenticeships in cooperation between the world of education and the world of work.

Sources: http://ec.europa.eu, Social Agenda magazine – Issue 41: The Skills Imperative

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