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The European Quality Assurance Reference Framework (EQARF) provides a European wide system to help Member States and stakeholders to document, develop, monitor, evaluate and improve the effectiveness of their vocational education and training (VET) provision and quality management practices.

Education and training are essential aspects of the European Union’s Lisbon strategy for jobs, growth and social cohesion. In 2000 the European Council called for the modernisation of education and training systems within a lifelong learning perspective, and set a target for the EU to become the most dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010.

The EQARF Recommendation, accepted by the European Parliament and Council in April 2009, can be applied at the VET system, provider and qualification awarding level. This recommendation invites each Member State to:

devise, within 24 months, an approach aimed at improving quality assurance systems at national level,where appropriate, and making best use of the EQARF;
participate in the EQARF network;
establish a Quality Assurance National Reference Point for VET;
undertake a review of implementation every four years.

The EQARF builds on the European Qualifications Framework (EQF), the European Credit for VET (ECVET) system and previous European quality assurance systems (such as the Common Quality Assurance Framework – CQAF) in that it:

includes the need for regular monitoring (including the use of internal and external evaluation mechanisms) and reporting on progress
uses common quality criteria and indicative descriptors to underpin the monitoring and reporting arrangements
stresses the importance of common indicators to support the evaluation, monitoring and quality assurance of VET systems and providers. For more information on the EQARF descriptors and indicators please see annexe I.

This site is based on a description and analysis of how some Member States have introduced quality assurance processes which recognise the approaches set out in the EQARF. The analysis suggests that an incremental approach is more likely to provide success. Such an approach can be represented by a series of interdependent ‘building blocks’ which help to:

identify what has already been achieved;
review the evidence surrounding the lessons learnt;
identify the key factors for success.

Each building block is different. Some focus on initiatives which are best led by training providers, some focus on centrally driven changes and others are system wide changes where all the key stakeholders are involved. The building blocks focus on the quality assurance (rather than the quality) of VET and identify:

those experiences which are common to implementing quality assurance arrangements which are compatible with EQARF;
examples from individual Member States;
the key lessons that have been learnt;
factors for success.

The analysis identifies a series of common themes – called building blocks in this paper – that have been used to establish and strengthen system-wide quality assurance processes. For each Member State it is the outcomes of the quality assurance system that are important, rather than the means that have been chosen to achieve these outcomes. As such, this approach is only one way of building a quality assurance system which meets the requirement of the EQARF Recommendation.

The guidelines are designed to support policy makers at the national and regional level in Member States. It could also be useful to quality assurance managers or other staff with responsibility for quality assurance in training institutions and information officers and others in the National Quality Assurance Reference Points established as part of the EQARF Recommendation. This paper covers both initial VET and continuing VET, and is applicable to both school- or centre-based training and training that takes place on employers’ premises.