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

In June 2016, the Commission adopted the new skills agenda” with 10 actions in the member states to make the right training for right skills while providing necessary support. These actions were designed, among other things to: - improve the quality and relevance of training and other ways of acquiring skills; - make skills more visible and comparable in Europe, and - improve information and understanding of trends and patterns in demands for skills and jobs (so-called skills intelligence) to enable people make better career choices, find quality jobs and improve their life chances.

More on 10 actions in: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?langId=en&catId=1223

Expected changes in the Europass

For over a decade, Europass has been a key tool to support better communication and understanding of skills and qualifications. It has served as a “crucial connection” among three items in social agenda:  work, education and training.

Europass has become very popular among Europeans: according to the Commission, there have been over 55,000 visits a day to the Europass portal and over 100 million downloads of the Europass CV since 2004.

Being a vital tool in “communicating skills” across the EU, it needs modernisation in parallel with challenges and opportunities of the digital society.

The Commission’s proposal to modernise Europass will offer an e-portfolio for storing and sharing information, additional tools for people to self-assess their skills and tools for describing formal and informal learning as well as qualifications.

For the first time, Europass will also offer information to support career management including information on trends and demands in the labour market and on guidance on best learning opportunities in the member states.

As soon as lobs and skills are shared EU-states competence, the Commission is going to start implementing the new Europass aspects with the member states and stakeholders.