Business organisations: new Occupational Qualifications and Skills Act must not reduce employers’ role

The Estonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, together with five business organisations, proposed to the Cultural Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu that the draft Occupational Qualifications and Skills Act be amended so that employers retain a substantive role in developing occupational standards and assessing the quality of vocational education.

According to the business organisations, the changes currently planned could weaken cooperation between vocational schools and employers and reduce confidence in the quality of occupational qualifications.

The Estonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Estonian Employers’ Confederation, the Estonian Association of Information Technology and Telecommunications, the Estonian Association of Construction Entrepreneurs, the Federation of Estonian Engineering Industry and the Estonian Forest and Wood Industries Association consider that the objective of the Act must be to improve the connection between education and the world of work. To achieve this, the development and validation of competences must be based on cooperation between the private and public sectors.

At a meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Education and Research on 7 September, the business organisations reached a possible compromise. To implement it, three important principles in the draft Act must be changed.

The sectoral expert council must retain substantive decision-making powers

Under the draft Act, the sectoral expert council, which consists of representatives of education and the world of work, would become an advisory body to the qualifications authority.

According to the business organisations, a purely advisory role is not sufficient, as it would allow the qualifications authority to depart from the opinion of the expert council.

The organisations therefore proposed that occupational standards and competence profiles should be developed, updated and established with the approval of the sectoral expert council. Without such approval, the qualifications authority should be able to make decisions only in exceptional cases clearly stipulated by law.

Appointing several awarding bodies requires the approval of the expert council

The draft Act allows the right to award a particular occupational qualification to be granted to several awarding bodies where justified. The business organisations generally see no practical need for this and point to the risk that, where several awarding bodies are involved, resources may become fragmented and covering the costs associated with awarding qualifications may become more difficult.

If the use of several awarding bodies is nevertheless justified, the business organisations propose that the decision should be approved by the sectoral expert council.

The quality of an initial occupational qualification must be validated by the world of work

One of the more significant changes concerns the awarding of initial occupational qualifications. At present, obtaining an initial occupational qualification requires passing an occupational qualification examination organised by an awarding body selected through a competition, whereas under the draft Act, a decision by the educational institution would in future be sufficient. Each educational institution would be able to decide for itself how to assess a learner’s competence during the learning process or upon completion of studies.

According to the business organisations, such a change could reduce the role of employers in assessing the quality of acquired skills and create a situation in which the same initial occupational qualification would no longer necessarily represent a uniform and comparable level of competence across different educational institutions. Cooperation between educational institutions and employers could also weaken, as the role of employers in assessing learning outcomes and the quality of acquired skills would be reduced or disappear altogether.

The awarding of an initial occupational qualification must therefore involve an awarding body representing the world of work in the relevant sector or, if no such body exists, the sectoral expert council. If no independent assessment of competence involving the world of work takes place, the business organisations believe that the qualification received upon graduating from school should not be called an initial occupational qualification, but rather a school-leaving certificate or a diploma of applied upper secondary education.