In December 2017 the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania consented to the draft recast of Vocational education and training law . The aim of the aforementioned draft law is to fundamentally change the system of vocational education and training in response to the needs of the country‘s economic development; to change the management and funding of vocational education and training institutions in order to attract more social partners, promote attraction of additional funding; to change the quality assurance system in order to increase the prestige of vocational education and training.
This draft law underlines the significance of apprenticeship and learning at work-place, it would facilitate the acquisition of practical experience for students not only through the use of the infrastructure of vocational training institutions, but also in the real workplace.
It is also suggested that vocational training institutions should be responsible for quality, they should have internal quality assurance systems, make annual self-assessments and publicize their results; carry out an external institutional assessment every five years; ensure that the vocational education and training system meets international quality standards.
The project aims to change the management and funding of the vocational education and training system in order to attract more social partners, increase the involvement of municipalities and ensure efficient and transparent use of public funds.
The draft Vocational education and training law provides for the reorganization of vocational education institutions into public institutions, giving social partners and municipalities the opportunity to become stakeholders, obtaining additional income and support for vocational education institutions and promoting their efficient activities. It is also intended to strengthen wider functions and responsibilities of vocational training institutions councils, to involve more social partners and representatives of municipalities in the councils, promoting not only greater accountability to the public, but also focusing vocational education and training institutions more on the needs of the region and business. In addition, the responsibility for many strategic decisions is delegated to sectoral professional committees.
It is expected that all procedures related to the validation of the abovementioned law will be completed this year.
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