ECVET - Application to mobility projects

EUROPASS: a tool for the active citizenship
It enables the recognition of qualifications and competences acquired in different European countries; each European citizen will have the possibilities to access job and training opportunities in different countries by promoting the employability and the social cohesion. EUROPASS promotes people's professional growth through different formal, informal and non-formal training experiences and encourages the quality at cultural, social and economic level.
The Member States shall ensure all goals of the Lisbon Strategy are implemented.

EUROPASS documents
The EUROPASS documents are: the Curriculum Vitae, the Diploma Supplement, the Certificate Supplement, Language Portfolio, and EUROPASS Mobility.
Description:

• Curriculum Vitae contains all the information related to qualifications, certified competences work experience, but it also describes capacities and fields of experience/competence not certified
• EUROPASS Mobility reports any period/type of professional training realized in a country different from one's own; it contains information on the non formal and informal learning. The National EUROPASS Centre is responsible for the EUROPASS Mobility which is completed by the sending and host organisation involved in the mobility project
• Language Portfolio contains "language learning and other cultural experiences/competences in the intercultural perspective.
• Diploma Supplement is a document attached to a higher education diploma in order to make it easier to understand what the diploma means in terms of knowledge and competences acquired by its holder
• Certificate Supplement is a document attached to a vocational certificate in order to make it easier to understand what the certificate means in terms of competences acquired by its holder. It provides information on the skills and competences acquired, the range of occupations accessible, the awarding and accreditation bodies, etc.

The issuing of the EUROPASS documents
The Curriculum Vitae and the Language Portfolio are filled in by the citizen; the other documents are issued by authorised bodies.
The Commission and the Member States will cooperate to develop an information systems. Citizens will be entitled to complete their EUROPASS -CV and the other EUROPASS documents, to attach any other supporting documents, to establish, update and remove links between their EUROPASS -CV and the other EUROPASS documents.
Each Member State shall designate a National EUROPASS Centre (NEC) which shall be responsible for the coordination at national level of all activities regarding the use of EUROPASS. ISFOL is the Italian NEC and the website is www.europass-italia.it . The first evaluation on EUROPASS was planned in January 2008 and then every four years.

EUROPASS benefits
EUROPASS has a number of benefits associated with it, the principal ones being:

• it will help citizens to convey their qualifications and competences in an effective way within different contexts: education, job, national and international
• it will help the enterprises that can establish the relevance of the skills of job applicants coming from other Member States
• it will help the institutions which are in charge of facilitating people mobility, providing tools for the knowledge of different national systems and vocational qualifications
• it will help training organizations promoting mobility experiences abroad: they can easily evaluate the access of students coming from other national and international systems.

EUROPASS and the certification
The certificate is a useful instrument in order to promote mobility. This procedure should increase transparency concerning the definition of certificate outcome - what we certify (purpose, duration and content of the vocational training course followed) belongs to the common qualification area, while the indication of the body issuing the certificate and how the certificate is issued are topics belonging to the subsidiarity area.
The certificate should:

• represent learning outcomes as a mix of knowledge, skills and competences in terms of responsibility and autonomy
• be divided into knowledge, abilities and competences in order to make the certificate recognizable by the world of training (learning oriented perspective)
• be divided into base and technical-professional ones in order to let the worker spend the certificate within the world of job
• enable the matching between learning outcomes and base, technical-professional competences hold by the worker
• be assured by quality criteria in order to make the certification recognizable by other training bodies. Learning outcomes assessment belongs to the subsidiarity area and the recognition of assessments given by other training organizations should be based on mutual trust. Learning outcomes definition should be supported by the use of specific indicators elaborated by each country
• group the learning outcomes into units (CU) where C means certificate or capitalizable or competence in order to make the certification specific and particular. The CU does not always correspond to one formative unit
• code certification outcomes in order to make the certificate a tool for the recognition and accreditation of acquired competences, with a particular reference to informal and non-formal training paths
• be applied to mobility when national systems should state if the certificate refers to learning outcomes - a person is able to…. - or learning outputs that can be spent in the world of job or other training systems.

Certification of a qualification
The procedure functional to the official recognition of a qualification or a part of it by an authorised body following fixed standards.
Certificate systems refer to a legal framework, the learning assessment is approved by the relevant legislative or vocational bodies that have followed fixed standards or when a standard assessment procedure has been used. The certificate follows an assessment procedure concerning the learning experience (exam, test, etc..), an implementation procedure; the certificate or diploma is the official document that registers the qualification and the learning accreditation/implementation.
The certificate can relate to single parts or to the whole training course.
Each partial or complete certificate can provide: credit recognition and the exemption to attend some units. A qualification is issued when a national or international agency or an authority checks that a person has acquired competences or skills according to specific standards. The learning standard is confirmed by an assessment process or the positive closure of a training course or job experience. A qualification can be used within the labour market and for a further education/training.

EUROPASS implementation at European level
Some EUROPASS documents are applied at community level. One on-line survey has highlighted a quite widespread usage of the common European format for Curriculum Vitae. The innovation deals with the self-assessment and the non formal and informal learning. The Language Portfolio was designed to enhance the motivation of language learners to communicate in different languages to pursue new intercultural experiences; it was also designed to promote the employability and workers, students and trainers' mobility. The Language Portfolio was tested and exploited in other contexts as for example, the Language Project (1999/2000). It represented an extra-curricular tool whose results were evaluated by authorised bodies at international level which issue recognized certificates referred to the EQF levels. Several Italian schools adhere to projects on the external certification according to an agreement between the Ministry of Public Education and seven authorised bodies.

Annex
1. Curriculum Vitae
2. Passaport Langue
3a. Diploma Supplement academic
3b. Diploma Supplement no academic
4. Certificate Supplement (example Italy, Greece, The Netherlands)
5. Europass-mobility (example Italy)