Education and Science, EU – Baltic States, Labour-market, Markets and Companies, Modern EU

Europe's most used and well-known skills resources, the so-called Europass, was established in 2005; since then, more than 60 million Europass CVs have been created and hundreds of thousands of learners across the EU receive Diploma and Certificate Supplements every year which help to make their qualifications more readable and easily comparable abroad.  

The new Europass is adopted according to the new EU-global challenges: Europe's prosperity depends greatly on citizens’ qualification and skills; and fast-changing global economy requires often new skills as a driving force for competitiveness and growth.

The revision is part of the New Skills Agenda for Europe, presented on 10 June 2016. The single European framework for the transparency of qualifications, Europass, was established by the Decision 2241/2004/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 15 December 2004.

Facing new challenges

The new Europass Framework will build upon this successful formula with easy to use tools to help people identify and communicate their skills and qualifications in all EU languages. These include an improved online tool for creating CVs and skills profiles, free self-assessment tools to help you evaluate your skills, tailored information on learning opportunities across Europe, and information and support to help you get your qualifications recognised as well as labour market intelligence about what skills are most in demand and where. The new Europass Framework will also link with other EU tools and services across labour and education and training systems, such as the EURES job mobility portal, allowing for an easier exchange of information and more joined-up services for end-users.

National support centers will continue to offer individual advice and guidance to help people navigate the skills and qualifications landscape.

Commissioner responsible for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, Marianne Thyssen, underlined that with the new Europass Framework people with the right skills could fulfill their potential as confident and active citizens. Hence, the new Europass will give people tools to showcase their skills and qualifications in a user-friendly way and access to information and support services to inform their choices about study and work across Europe.  

The Europass framework

The main objective of the new European framework for the transparency of qualifications, (called Europass) is to support the mobility of people in Europe, including for education and employment purposes. It increases awareness of and access to tools which make skills and qualifications visible and easy to understand amongst learners, job-seekers, employees and employers, and education and training institutions among others.

The following documents are at the core of the existing Europass Framework:

• - the Europass Curriculum Vitae (CV) completed by any individual to report on his/her qualifications, professional experience, skills and competences;

• - the Europass Language Passport (ELP) completed by any individual to report on her/his language skills;
• - the Europass Certificate Supplement (ECS) issued by vocational educational and training authorities to their students along with their award certificates adding information to make certificates more easily understandable especially by employers or institutions outside the issuing country;
• - the Europass Diploma Supplement (EDS) issued by higher education institutions to their graduates along with their degree or diploma to make these educational qualifications more easily understandable, especially outside the country where they were awarded; and
• - the Europass Mobility Document (EMD) for recording any organised period of learning or training time that a person spends in another European country, completed by the home and host organisations.

Since 2005, Europass has had more than 126 million website visits; over 93 million document templates have been downloaded while more than 60 million Europass CVs, by far the most popular tool, have been created online.

An evaluation of the Europass Framework carried out in 2013 highlighted its achievements. Europass documents have been taken up by all groups of stakeholders and have helped people change their job or location (CV, Language Passport and Certificate Supplement were all reported to be instrumental in this by more than 60% of their surveyed users) and gain learning opportunities such as admission to educational institutions (46% of Certificate Supplement users, 50% of Language Passport users, and smaller proportions of surveyed users of other documents).

Moreover, Europass played an important role in mobility within the same country (40% of surveyed users were mobile in their home country). The documents have become widely used within countries such as Italy and Spain, which display above average usage rates of the CV, while in France the Europass Mobility Document has been adapted for use by individuals to profile their own skills.

See press release in: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-3213_en.htm.

The need for better tools to make skills more visible

People in EU presently have a lot of new ways and opportunities to learn, work and find jobs. Tools and services for skills and qualifications can help them present their skills and experiences in new and innovative ways. They can provide useful information on learning opportunities and skills trends in different sectors and countries; and they can support exchange of information and better understanding of skills and qualifications. These tools and services are essential to facilitate transparency, mobility and ultimately employability. This initiative, one of the ten actions proposed by the New Skills Agenda for Europe adopted by the Commission in June 2016, seeks to ensure that EU tools and services for skills and qualifications equip people and organisations with the support and information they need to find their way on the labour market or for further study.

Europass was established in 2004 by a Decision of the European Parliament and the Council to encourage transparency of skills and qualifications, in particular to facilitate mobility.

After eleven years, the tools and services need an update to reflect the needs of users in a changing labour market, as well as in education and training sectors. Europass was built upon largely static templates; its central objective remains to make it easier for people to exchange and understand information on skills and qualifications, but it will now also make full use of new technology and ensure links with other services to better respond to people’s needs.

Importantly, Europass will continue to serve the needs of all individuals including those who may not have access to online tools. Its delivery will be better connected with guidance services.

Helping career and learning choices: two new instruments 

The new Europass Decision sets out two key planks to the evolution of the service. Firstly, the new Europass will offer a wider range of tools and services through a user-friendly online service. Europass will help individuals with their career management, and assist their decisions on education and training pathways and enable them to describe their skills to employers, education and training institutions and other interested organisations. Europass will offer tools such as an improved CV-builder for documenting skills and qualifications, free self-assessment tools and information on skills and qualifications, including trends in skills needs across Europe. It will be compatible with other services so that users can easily manage and share information with other systems such as online application forms for jobs or with social media.

Secondly, the new Europass will also embrace the use of open standards for topics such as learning opportunities, descriptions of programmes and skills. This work will be done in a way that complements other existing standards, creates consistency and makes sharing of information easier. The use of these standards will strengthen the ability of the Skills Panorama, for instance, to produce real-time, accurate information through web-crawling and data analysis on particular trends. The online services will be complemented by services at national level.

Consulting the Commission & social partners 

A series of targeted stakeholder consultations, including social partners and civil society, were organised to discuss the scope and priorities of the EU Skills Agenda, including the Europass initiative. Policy networks (Europass centers, European Qualifications Framework national contact points, Euro guidance network) have been consulted on an on-going basis during the development of the new initiative.

The Commission will provide the online platform offering the main services and will bring together a number of existing complementary EU portals for skills and qualifications, including the portal "Learning Opportunities and Qualifications in Europe" and the Skills Panorama, as well as the current Europass portal. The new Europass online service will deliver a range of linked services for skills and qualifications in an intuitive, user-friendly way through a single portal.

The Commission will also continue to encourage more synergy, coordination and sharing of expertise and good practice between national services supporting skills and qualifications and the use of EU tools. Commission is already supporting a number of EU portals for skills and qualifications, as well as the operation of national centers (which are currently funded by Erasmus+). Europass and the Skills Panorama are currently managed by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop).

More information: on

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-3212_en.htm?locale=en, Strasbourg, 4 October 2016.