Georgios Zisimos is working since March 2014 at the European Training Foundation (ETF) in Turin holding a senior’s officer position on EU Education and Training Policies. On February 2010, he was appointed in Brussels member of the Cabinet of the EU Commissioner responsible for education, culture, multilingualism, youth and sport. He was in charge of the education portfolio within the cabinet. In the ETF he focuses on the role of the EU policies in Education and Training to the partner countries. He is currently in charge of the team on Centres of Vocational Excellence.
Georgios taught in public schools both in the UK and Cyprus. In 2005, he was elected Secretary General of the Cypriot Secondary Teacher's Union and became member of the Executive Committee of the ETUCE. Later he was appointed Member of the Scientific Committee on Curriculum Reform in Cyprus.
Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVEs) in Times of Crisis
Vocational excellence has a variety of connotations. Excellence in the context of vocational education and training (VET) usually refers to high quality of training and education but also to relevance in relation to the world of work and to the attractiveness of the educational offer to learners and to employers. Vocational excellence may also imply an enlarged, more comprehensive and inclusive conceptualisation of skills provision – addressing innovation, pedagogy, social inclusion, organisational and professional learning and community needs.
Sometimes, the term vocational excellence is instrumentalised in policy-making and made to serve as a euphemism for other reforms: rationalisation, restructuring of governance, cost-reduction, heightened accountability or greater competition. Centres of vocational excellence (CoVEs) can be understood as the institution that embodies vocational excellence. However, the purpose, structure and functions of CoVEs vary greatly from one context to another. Differences and similarities are often disguised by the use of specific terminology and nomenclature. CoVEs are assigned different roles in policy-making and enjoy different levels of political commitment and prioritisation of resources. Quite often, CoVEs exist in isolation and in the absence of partnerships at national and international level. Sometimes CoVEs are fundamentally skills providers – vocational schools or training centres – but sometimes they are coordination or development centres or networks rather than providers.
At EU level, CoVEs is an emerging priority associated to VET, for which the European Commission currently runs pilot projects and foresees funding via the new Erasmus programme post -2020. The EU is aiming to support the development of Platforms of Centres of Vocational Excellence at transnational level within common sectors or across common issues while also supporting at national level the development of new centres of vocational excellence.
Within this background, the ETF has done a mapping exercise in partner countries aiming to identify the perceptions on CoVEs and identify good examples. The findings of mapping together with desk research and analysis are recorded in the ETF paper Centres of Vocational Excellence – An engine for VET development?. In the current times of crisis due to the outbreak of Covid19, the ETF focused attention on the special elements of CoVES that make them more resilient in times of crisis. Elements like autonomy of CoVEs, infrastructure and competences of teachers have had a special importance in supporting learning and training in these conditions. Furthermore, these elements among others, formed the basis of partnerships and cooperation among institutions.
The ETF has launched in 2020 an international Network of CoVEs which aims to support CoVEs and offer a platform for continuous exchange of practices and partnerships among new and existing CoVEs at local, national or international level. Thus, the Network is becoming the tool to identify needs, provide opportunities for exchange of knowledge and good practices and facilitate international partnerships. In particular, it can help open up opportunities for funding and help drive VET change towards better quality and excellence of VET provision.