OVERVIEW

Designing vocational education and training curricula is the domain of educational institutions and relevant national government agencies. In most European member states curriculum design is subject to external restrictions dictated by regional, state, and federal regulations. Due to the high variety of regional and national educational systems it is almost impossible to develop pan-European standard curricula.

The absence of these standard curricula in VET is one of the fundamental reasons why occupational qualifications are not transparent in Europe. Consequently mobility within the European labour market is very limited.

eumesta set out to address this problem. It came to the conclusion that standardisation of VET curricula can be achieved, but only in regards to standardising the procedure of curricula design - not curricula itself. Standardising the procedure of VET curricula design needs a paradigmatic change from a “learning input” approach to a “learning outcome” approach.

eumesta found encouragement to adopt this innovative approach by carefully following the development of the European Qualification Framework (EQF) from its early outline to its imminent adoption by the EU Commission.

By applying the EQF structure to its VET curriculum design standardisation recommendations, eumesta has become one of the earliest Leonardo da Vinci projects to evaluate the EQF’s validity. The results are encouraging. eumesta’s guidelines for a standardised procedure in VET curriculum design for the digital media sector are packed in the “Curriculum Building Toolbox” (CBT) and the “Career Pathways Frame” (CPF).