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Catching up with the TACCLE4-CPD project – Part One: New version of policy analyses

During the last few weeks – after getting my computer problems sorted out – I have tried to catch up with my duties for our ongoing EU-funded TACCLE4-CPD project. As I have told in my blogs last year, this project is looking at concepts and models for promoting continuing professional development (CPD) of teachers and trainers with emphasis on digital competences. The project builds upon a series of TACCLE projects that worked with classroom teachers.
Now, the challenge is to develop CPD models for wider use – including also adult education (AE) and vocational education and training (VET). In particular the extension of the scope to the field of VET provides a challenge since this brings into picture different governance models, different training providers and different learning venues.

In the light of the above I have written a document with the heading “Policy analyses as background for continuing professional development of teachers and trainers in the field of vocational education and training (VET)”.  Here I share a summary of my interim conclusions:

“This document was started with an overview of educational governance and steering models in the field of vocational education and training (VET). After a rough overview a closer look was taken on the specific features of federal governance and dual system of organizing VET in Germany. As we have seen, the picture of policies promoting digital competences has remained somewhat patchwork-like.

The third section has given a closer picture of local educational and VET contexts as well as of recent R&D projects. These descriptions have given an understanding on the state of the art and of pioneering initiatives. Also these descriptions have given a picture of a patchy landscape of local developments. From this perspective it is worthwhile to ask, what kind of role integrative frameworks can play and how they can be shaped.

The European “DigCompEdu” framework was presented in the fourt section. It differs clearly from European Qualification Framework (EQF) or European Frameworks for Credit Transfer (ECTS and ECVET) or from  European Quality Assurance mechanisms. This framework is not paving the way to intergovernmental agreements with signatory states. Instead, it provides practical assistance for linking digital tools and enhancement of digital competences to different learning contexts.

However, from the perspective of the VET sector, the DigCompEdu framework remains very generic. Yet, in this sector, there are very specific challenges for promoting digital competences. Therefore, the framework study of the project Berufsbildung 4.0 starts with a useful differentiation between ‘digitisation’ (at operative level) and ‘digital transformation’ (at the level of whole organisations and networked production/service processes). Taking into account both levels the project is looking for development perspectives for future-oriented VET provisions. From these starting points the project has worked with several theses and feedback workshops and synthesised the results in transversal themes and analyses that focus on different levels or educational steering and change management.

Altogether, the above-presented sections provide very heterogeneous impulses for anyone, who wants to grasp the essence of policy processes and their impact on policy implementation in the field of VET. Yet, the impulses, insights into field and explorations on framework documents or framework studies need to be considered when taking further steps in shaping continuing professional development of teachers and trainers. For this purpose the next working document is looking more closely at developments in the previous TACCLE projects and in the parallel project Learning Layers. Both projects have a history in developing training for teachers and trainers. Now it is time to put these developments into a wider European picture.”

These were my interim conclusions from the ‘policy analyses’ with which I tried to provide a background understanding for discussing the theme ‘promoting digital competences’ in the field of VET. This takes me further to the next document with which I have been working recently – but that is already a topic of its own.