Public-Private Partnership for Meeting Skills Needs and Making Vocational Education and Training an Attractive Learning Pathway, Vienna 10-11 October 2022

The regional workshop Public-Private Partnership for Meeting Skills Needs and Making Vocational Education an Attractive Learning Pathway was jointly organised by ERI SEE and  the OeAD within the framework of the Western Balkans Alliance for Work-based Learning and in cooperation with the Western Balkans Chambers Investment Forum (WB6 CIF), the Austrian Economic Chamber (WKO) and the Austrian Parliament.

The workshop was organised on 10 and 11 October 2022 in Venna, Austria. It aimed at providing a platform for sharing experience on the ways in which public – private partnership was developed during the process of introducing dual and other forms of work-based learning in the VET systems in the Western Balkans since 2016. At the same time, the regional workshop looked at the future of WBL especially in the relation to how to attract students to VET, raise company awareness, quality assurance of the WBL and efficiency of the legal framework. The workshop gathered representatives of education committees in regional parliaments, ministries responsible for vocational education and training, VET agencies and chambers of commerce.

The background of the workshop leans on the 2016 conference Building a Western Balkans Alliance for Work-based Learning that was organised in the framework of the Berlin Process with the representatives of VET systems and the private sector from the Western Balkans. They had met to discuss how public – private partnerships can better contribute to labour market, company and practice oriented high quality vocational education and training (quote from the Joint statement), especially through strengthening the introduction of dual and other formats of work-based learning in VET systems.

Since 2016 substantial steps to enhance the quality and labour market relevance of VET systems through the introduction of different formats of work-based learning that have been undertaken in the Western Balkans. Strengthening the WBL and its quality assurance became one of the key policy priorities of all VET systems in the Western Balkans.