In August 19 2021 the new joint guidance for the start of the school year 2021-2022 in VET schools was approved.
In 2021 the action plan of the "Strategy on employment and skills " was reviewed and extended for another year.
Due to COVID 19 challenges the second scenario of online lessons is applied also in VET upper secondary education until the end of February 2021. Online lessons are not operating nationwide but only to schools in crowded cities.
During early 2019 two vocational education institutions one in Durrës and one in Vlora were re-constructed and appointed with relevant materials.
VET reform, together with active employment and job creation policies remain high on the Government agenda, which is reflected in budget increases for both areas. The vision to develop ‘higher skills and better jobs for women and men’ remains unchanged, as do the four pillars of the National Employment and Skills Strategy (2014-2015), namely: (i) fostering decent job opportunities through effective labour market policies; (ii) offering quality VET to young people and adults; (iii) promoting social inclusion and territorial cohesion; (iv) strengthening the governance of the labour market and qualification systems.
Responsibility for VET is recently centralized under the Ministry of Finance and Economy that oversees a state-funded system composed of two types of providers: vocational schools for young people and vocational training centres, mainly for adults.
The reform of VET provision focuses on completing the new legal framework for VET, expanding and developing institutional capacities, providing training for all staff and gradually filling the gaps between labour market needs and the skills and qualifications offered.The reform of VET provision focuses on completing the new legal framework for VET, expanding and developing institutional capacities, providing training for all staff and gradually filling the gaps between labour market needs and the skills and qualifications offered.
AQF Task Force reflected all the comments by the line ministries in the draft Law on some amendments to the Law No 10 247 of 4.3.2010 ”On the Albanian Qualifications Framework (AQF)”. Then, the updated draft Law was submitted by the Minister of Education, Sport and Youth and Minister of Finance and Economy, who are responsible for the AQF, for endorsement to the Council of Ministers. The Council of Ministers endorsed the draft Law on 28.03.2018. The amended Law 23/2018 was adopted by Albanian Parliament on 10th of May 2018.
After the adoption of the Law 23/2018, AQF Tack Force established three technical working groups to draft Decisions of the Council of the Ministers (DCMs) on “Approval of Detailed level Descriptiors”, on “Inclusion of Lifelong learning qualifications in AQF” and on “Organizing functioning, selection criteria of of the sectoral committees’ members and respective financing”. These draft DCMs have been drafted by the AQF Task Force and respective technical groups with representatives/experts in the field of higher education, pre-university education - general education and vocational education and training, representatives from the responsible Directorates in the Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth and Ministry of Finance and Economy, Institute for the Educational Development, National Agency for VET and Qualifications, the department responsible for education and vocational training at MFE and representatives of providers, business associations, trade unions, etc. These draft DCMs have been consulted with the European Training Foundation (ETF). Besides, with the assistance of European Training Foundation (ETF), 2 workshops were organized during 20-21st of June, with a broader representation of the participants including as well other institutions and donors operating in the field.
The DCMs are submitted during the last week of November to the Minister of Education, Sport and Youth and Minister of Finance and Economy, who are responsible for the AQF, for endorsement to the Council of Ministers.
In order to develop all necessary secondary legislation linked to the new VET law, a working group is established by the Minister in charge for VET in 2017. Currently, it is already adopted the DCM No. 514, dated on 20.9.2017 “On the approval of the National List of Occupations” and there are still 30 sub-legal acts to be developed pursuant to the Law 15/2017.
Currently, there are several technical working groups in the Ministry of Finance and Economy dealing with the following issues:
• Identification of new short-term vocational training courses
• Recommendations for revising the structure of secondary vocational education
• Analysing the opportunities for implementation of post-secondary vocational education (level 5 of the Albanian Qualifications Framework)
• Optimizing the public vocational education and training providers’ network and establishment of multifunctional centres. In addition, clustering or merging some of these institutions into Multifunctional VET centres is underway.
• Building the VET portal
The expected outputs are clearly defined in the respective orders of the Minister of Finance and Economy. +