It was held in Budapest the ReferNet Partnership Forum (PaFo) on the 15th and 16th May, attended by representatives of Cedefop and Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Malta, Portugal and Romania.
This event was mainly focused on practical and discussion sessions among participants on various topics of the annual work plan, the improvement of the deliverables’ dissemination produced by ReferNet, the most adequate validation process, a more efficient information gathering and active communication between the network and Cedefop.
The PaFo began with the discussion of the results from the Focus Group meeting held in March with partners who volunteered to discuss the 23 recommendations proposed by the external evaluation to the network. Participants were invited to, in small groups, discuss the main themes referring to activities related to annual work plan and cooperation at national level, with transversal topics as communication and visibility. The results of these discussions, with the outcomes of the next PaFo in Spain, Madrid, will take part in the recommendations for the next framework partnership agreement 2020-23.
To promote greater transparency, increase cooperation and quality of deliverables, particular emphasis was given to the reports and publications of ReferNet which require a more dynamic and efficient validation process, aiming at a continuous interaction between the partners and Cedefop.
In the afternoon, ReferNet Hungary introduced its country’s VET system, highlighting the government’s focus on innovation and new technologies applied to VET.
On the last day, Cedefop presented the results of the most recent survey, which will be the basis to launch the VET in Europe interaction online tool. It concluded that between 79 to 98% of respondents, most of them with responsibilities in the design of VET policies and advising policy-makers, agreed on the proposed themes.
As Cedefop is going to publish the second joint edition of Spotlight on VET, partners identified the most and less favourable aspects and submitted proposals for improvements.
It was also discussed methods to increase the efficiency of gathering information, taking into consideration the complementarities of the different documents produced by ReferNet, and how to improve the dissemination process.
The event finished with some announcements such as the publication of the second volume of the ‘Opinion Survey on VET – further analysis’ report, scheduled for June, which includes the partners national reviews and the timetabling of the plenary session for the third week of November.
