In November and December Cedefop welcomed three visiting groups in connection with its conferences on globalisation of vocational education and training (VET) and on maximising skills for jobs and jobs for skills.

Layla El Khadraoui from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DEVCO) visited Cedefop to learn about its work on the formulation of the forthcoming EU regional VET programmes for Latin America and the Caribbean.

She said: ‘The visit came at a very opportune time as my participation in the conference on the impact of globalisation on VET and the discussions held with the Cedefop colleagues allowed for experience-sharing on VET policies in Europe, Latin America and beyond (with examples from Australia, India, etc.). These exchanges will definitely help to further develop the proposed actions.’

Ms El Khadraoui added: ‘We intend to keep Cedefop duly informed of the progress of the EU regional cooperation programme on VET in Latin America (with an identification study to be launched in January 2016). Further collaboration between the two services could be envisaged in the form of seminar participation where Cedefop colleagues would be invited to DEVCO-organised events in the region, so as to benefit from their expert knowledge and expertise.’

At the same time, Cedefop welcomed two visitors from Business Iceland (the Director of Education and a senior advisor). Their main interest was Cedefop’s skills team work. They expressed their intention to continue cooperation with Cedefop in two areas: presenting Iceland data in the Skills Panorama and cooperating with the agency on the Iceland country report.

The last group was from Norway’s National Association for Adult Learning. They linked their visit to Cedefop’s conference on maximising skills where they actively contributed.