Almost a month ago, the depth and scope of the European Training Foundation’s work was on display at the 3rd Forum on Vocational Excellence held in Lyon, France. The range of activities presented for just this one area of ETF responsibilities highlights the burgeoning resources and networks developed under the strategy of generating knowledge to support ETF policy advice.

“The ETF works increasingly with vocational centres and educators because we see that if we are able to spark new initiatives and we put the spotlight on good practices, others learn from this and improve. So now we have both the ETF policy advice and the bottom-up approach that brings it together,” said Dr Jolien van Uden.

Van Uden is a senior expert in innovative teaching and learning in the ETF’s knowledge hub department. Among other things, she is currently content coordinator of the project on Internationalising Vocational Excellence (IntVE), which the ETF is undertaking on behalf of the European Commission.

The ETF team at the Forum comprised 36 people including 29 from five EU neighbouring countries – Georgia, Moldova, Morocco, North Macedonia and Tunisia. “This supports the international dimension of the ETF’s work and offers participants from partner countries the opportunity to meet other centres working on vocational excellence,” she said.

Van Uden presented at one of the two ETF workshops, on IntVE and its Internation Self-Assessment Tool for Centres of Vocational Excelence, ISATCOVE, s, a Cookbook on Vocational Excellence, an e-library on Vocational Excellence Resources, and the ETF’s upcoming first Winter Camp on Vocational Excellence.

These reflect the ETF’s expanding services that include research, guides, learning materials, toolkits and advice to educators and education systems to improve and to implement policy on the ground, thus backing up ETF advice to partner governments.