A new pilot project regarding IVET graduates tracking is currently being implemented in Greece by the National Organisation for Certification of Qualifications and Vocational Guidance (E.O.P.P.E.P.), designated National Reference Point (NRP) for EQAVET and supervised by the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs.
The project taking into account EU policy priorities as these have been expressed in various policy papers (e.g. the Riga Conclusions, New Skills Agenda for Europe and the Council Recommendation 2017 on the relevant subject) is aiming to improve country’s availability of quantitative and qualitative data about what VET graduates (focused on IEK graduates), do after completing their education.
Using EQAVET’s quality indicator No 5 (‘placement rate of VET programmes’) and No 6 (‘utilisation of acquired skills at the workplace’) a research study analyzes the position of I.E.K. graduates – a post-secondary level of vocational education, Level 5 in HQF – within the labour market as well as measures the degree of satisfaction a. of graduates regarding the specialties and the curriculum they have completed and b. of employers in relation to the level of graduates Knowledge, skills and competencies.
The study based on desk and field research has been conducted in collaboration with the National Institute for Labour and Human Resource (E.I.E.A.D.), an organisation mainly responsible for managing the recently established Skills Forecasting Mechanism and the support of a highly qualified research team. It should be noted here that this is the first time Greece has engaged in such a big scale of research in this topic, as 430 employers and 4.780 graduates responded to the survey.
In this context the project also aspires to contribute in the formation of a more comprehensive and sustainable model/mechanism for VET Graduate Tracking, supporting Ministry’s of Education current efforts to enhance VET effectiveness and attractiveness.
First raw data stresses the importance of skills certification as I.E.K. graduates certified by E.O.P.P.E.P., score three times higher in terms of employment rates than I.E.K. graduates without the certification. The final results will be presented at an international conference hosted by E.O.P.P.E.P. in Athens, within the first week of March 2019. A number of relevant stakeholders and representatives from the Finnish, Romanian and Italian EQAVET NRPs, all involved in the same project, will be invited.
Besides the very interesting results that we expect from this study, the project itself stands as good practise for developing synergies among national and EU partners sharing knowledge and expertise on graduate surveys and tracking systems.
Finally, given the successful implementation of the pilot phase of the IVET graduates-tracking mechanism, E.O.P.P.E.P. plans to develop in the near future a broader and more systematic IVET graduates tracking mechanism.
