site.btaCabinet Updates Vocational Education and Training Occupations

The government approved a draft amendment to the Vocational Education and Training Act, developed under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The amendment introduces an entirely new list of vocational education and training occupations, which removes the previous over-detailed listing of individual, often similar, occupations. For each profession, there will no longer be a list of specialisations, but rather a list of up to four levels of qualification for the profession. The levels of the European Qualifications Framework and the National Qualifications Framework will correspond to these levels.

The project introduces the possibility of conducting training in the theory of the profession at a distance in an electronic environment. The proposed legislative changes will provide access to vocational training to a wider range of people, adapted to their individual capabilities.

Regarding the dual vocational training system, the bill reduces the requirements for mentors and provides a further opportunity to appoint a vocational teacher from the school who will also perform the functions of a methodology teacher, which is a favourable prerequisite for offering dual training, including in small and medium-sized enterprises and in smaller schools.

Opportunities to validate vocational knowledge and skills are improved. This will be done by prior comparison of the knowledge, skills, and competences the person claims they have, with the units of learning outcomes included in the relevant state educational standard for the acquisition of a qualification in a profession.