National policies for quality in initial VET mobility

The European Union policy for education and training attaches great importance to enabling learners to become familiar with international mobility. Acquiring such experience while in studies is seen as crucial to improving labour mobility later.

This allows EU economies to address spatial imbalances in labour availability and transnational enterprise needs for mobile staff. A range of EU-level vocational education and training (VET) policy initiatives to support learner mobility has been undertaken since the 1960s. Major moves to ensure the quality of mobilities were made in 2006 (European Quality Charter for Mobility) and 2011 (Youth on the move recommendation).

This policy brief takes stock of national efforts to improve the quality of international learning mobility in initial VET over the past decade. It shows that countries have made progress, although areas for improvement remain in terms of quality frameworks and policy governance.