Institute for Holistic Learning Based on Montessori Education

67 Schneeberger, Arthur - Austria - schneeberger@ibw.at
Transparency and Recognition of Vocational Qualifications - Problems and Promising Approaches
What do we need international transparency and recognition of vocational qualifications <strong>for</strong>?
What are the problems concerning the development of transparency and recognition of vocational qualifications
(VQs)?
Which approaches are promising to enhance transparency and recognition of vocational qualifications?
68 Schuch, Klaus - Austria - schuch@zsi.at
Challenges <strong>for</strong> Vocational and Higher Education in Southeast Europe. Lessons Learnt from Monitoring
of Educational Projects
The presentation deals with structural problems of vocational and higher education in the so called ‘Western Balkan
States’. Main emphasis is on international interventions designed to support the trans<strong>for</strong>mation of education
systems towards European standards, objectives and attitudes. Projects implemented under the development
co-operation by the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs respectively the Austrian Development Agency are
specifically considered. In fact, Austria is one of the leading international donors in this field in Southeast Europe,
particularly in higher education.
The paper explicitly refers to main results derived from fact finding missions to Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia,
which were carried out by the author on behalf of the Austrian Ministry <strong>for</strong> Foreign Affairs in Autumn 2003.
The goal of these missions was to develop an educational sector programmes to enable the identification of joint
co-operation projects between Austria and the target regions in the field of higher education and vocational
education. For that purpose, a series of already implemented projects have been evaluated and several dozens of
expert interviews have been recorded.
Evidently, the level of existing internationally supported interventions is lower than the revealed needs. The systems
of education in Southeast Europe suffer from a series of structural problems, many of them inherited from the
state-socialist past and the legacy from a turbulent decade. However, also interventions supported by the
international community have their pros and cons. Very often, deficits in both structured institutional empowerment
processes and needs-adapted development support can be observed.
The presentation emphasises
identified deficits and strengths of already implemented Austrian development co-operation projects in the field of
education and their assignment to the three layers: ‘operational projects’, ‘structural projects’ and ‘policy-strategy
projects’,
reflects the interventions against development principles such as sustainability, empowerment and ownership and
discusses new approaches and cross-cutting issues worthwhile to include in future co-operation development
programmes.
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