Ireland
This study examines the way in which institutional arrangements for the delivery of IVET have changed in response to shifts in skills demand.
Although these arrangements vary across countries, it is possible to identify common trends over time, such as institutional hybridisation, the blurring of boundaries between IVET and general education. Despite this development, IVET has been able to retain a distinct identity, which is attractive to learners and has the support of key labour market actors. This reflects IVET’s adaptability and resilience in the face of change.
Building on a Europe-wide survey of VET providers and in-depth national case studies, the study delivers a timely update of, and insight into, the continually changing IVET landscape. Results show increasing similarities in how countries configure their IVET systems. This is evident in the broadening of IVET curricula, the prominence given to the work-based learning pathway, as well as the growing importance attached to local and regional autonomy.
identified measures which progressed workforce development within a framework of human
capital development. The study piloted a new diagnostic tool (SABER-WfD) to assess Ireland’s
workforce development between 1980 and 2000, a period of economic expansion in Ireland and
major reform in workforce development. The tool is part of the World Bank’s initiative on
Systems Assessment for Better Education Results (SABER) which focuses on several policy
domains including workforce development. Three broad functional dimensions of workforce
development policies were assessed based primarily on secondary source materials: strategic
framework; system oversight; and service delivery. The findings demonstrated Ireland’s overall
progression on each of these dimensions; moving from an emerging to an advanced system
between 1980-2000 in respect of workforce development strategic framework and service
delivery, and to an established framework for system oversight by 2000.
In the intervening years as the number of countries implementing NQFs has grown exponentially, the debate has increasingly centered on topics like labour market impact and outcomes of NQFs, including employer experience in using qualification frameworks when making hiring decisions.
This follow-up ILO research is therefore intended to better understand labour market aspects of NQF implementation and to provide sound empirical evidence of how employers recruit, fill vacancies and understand how qualification frameworks are tools for them and for employing people. In doing so we have been careful to chose countries that reflect various stages of implementation including Ireland, France, Belize, Jamaica, Sri Lanka and Tunisia.
The results clearly show that whilst the challenges associated with NQF implementation are myriad, benefits do accrue, especially over the long term. As such, for all the promised benefits of NQFs to be realised, a very long timeframe needs to be taken into account.