This website

The ECVET pilot projects website was developed to:

• Provide background information about ECVET and related activities;
• Disseminate information about the pilot projects, their work and results;
• Serve as a tool to help with the organisation and administration of common activities.

This website now serves as an archive for information about their work and results.

What was the focus of the ECVET pilot projects?

The Council and the European Parliament have placed a strong emphasis on the necessity to test ECVET, the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training, in practice. This was done in view of creating a pool of information and experience with the practical application of the tool on national level, which would eventually feed back into future policy strategies – both on national and EU-level. Among other initiatives, a series of transnational European pilot projects was established.

In 2008, the European Commission issued a call for proposal to finance international partnerships under the Lifelong Learning Programme, whose aim was to test the implementation of the ECVET process in the context of learners’ geographical mobility in the period 2009-2012. As a result, eleven pilot projects with lead partners from five countries (Belgium-fr, France, Germany, Italy, and Luxembourg) were selected. Most of these projects tackled issues related to the context of formal initial vocational education and training and tested ECVET in the context of transnational mobility of learners. However, some also raised issues related to the mobility of workers and lifelong learning.

In 2010, the European Commission issued a new call for proposals to finance a new generation of pilot projects. A specificity of this call for proposals was its focus on supporting national implementation. Unlike most calls for proposals under the Lifelong Learning Programme, this call targeted actions which would mostly benefit one country or sub-systems. Eight projects with lead partners from five countries (Belgium-fr, France, Germany, Italy, and Malta) were funded in the period 2011-2014. The projects were required to include the support of system-level implementation of ECVET in their objectives. Moreover, the projects were regarded as an important part of Member States’ efforts to create the necessary conditions to develop and test measures for the gradual implementation of ECVET.