- 2023Approved/Agreed
- 2024Implementation
Background
The labour ministry established sectoral councils and the umbrella Alliance of Sectoral Councils to support the creation of the National System of Occupations (NSO). The NSO was to define the requirements for knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to perform work activities at jobs in the labour market. NSO and its occupational standards were developed for job positions following SK ISCO (4-digit granularity) and revised as necessary, supported by European sources. The Act on employment services (5/2004) and the statute approved by the labour ministry originally established the alliance as an advisory body of the ministry in the field of employment and active labour market policies. According to the statute, the alliance meeting had to be held at least once every calendar quarter. Under pressure from employer representatives who found in the alliance and sectoral councils a platform to express their interests, the labour ministry decided to reconstitute the alliance as a brick-and-mortar institution, Sectoral Councils Alliance (SCA), legally connected to public resources and to transfer to it several responsibilities originally performed by the state.
Objectives
In the submission report to the 2022 amendment to the Act on employment services (5/2004), the labour ministry declared the strategic nature of the scope of the Sectoral Councils Alliance and sector councils and the need to 'ensure the sustainability of the management system of these decisive instruments of active labour market policy aimed at describing the demands of the labour market for jobs and the transfer of these needs to the system of lifelong learning'.
Description
The amendment to the Act on employment services established the Sector Councils Alliance (SCA) as the interest association of legal entities. Membership is stipulated by law containing labour and education ministry representatives, representative associations of employers and representative associations of trade unions. Admission of other members is possible based on the statute of the SCA agreed with the government.
According to law, the SCA 'establishes sectoral councils covering relevant sectors of the economy, ensures their activity and evaluates their functionality and efficiency'. The SCA can be funded by the European Union, the State budget, and other sources, including membership fees and income from own activities. The SCA becomes a strong political player since the influence of the education ministry on the performance of sector councils is only possible through the SCA.
On 1 February 2023, the Sector Councils Alliance (SCA) and its office were registered in the Register of interest associations of legal entities. The labour ministry, the education ministry, and several employer and trade union organisations (the Federation of Employers' Associations of the Slovak Republic, the National Union of Employers, the Association of Industrial Unions and Transport, the Association of Towns and Municipalities of Slovakia, the Confederation of Trade Unions of the Slovak Republic and the Joint Trade Unions of Slovakia) are among its founders.
The SCA's main activities include:
- coordinating and updating the National System of Occupations (NSO) and National Qualifications System (NQS);
- establishing and evaluating the performance of sectoral councils, ensuring their activity;
- aligning the lifelong learning system with the current and future needs of the labour market;
- determining the standards of professional knowledge, professional skills and abilities for the performance of work activities in jobs on the labour market;
- creating, for national and international purposes, a database of knowledge and skills necessary for employment in the labour market, aligned with the current and future needs of the labour market;
- cooperating in the creation and updating of qualification standards and assessment standards;
- proposing changes to the conditions for verifying qualifications;
- being actively involved in solutions for setting up the lifelong learning system so that it meets the requirements of employees in the labour market, development trends, and current and anticipated innovation trends;
- determining the areas of development of key competences in the lifelong learning system with a special focus on digital skills, business skills and financial literacy;
- coordinating activities related to strengthening the motivation of individuals for vocational training based on the needs of the labour market, including the coordination of financial instruments designed to support lifelong learning;
- assessing the quality of educational programmes intended for education and preparation for the labour market and assessing the quality of further education programmes, including their compliance with the current and future needs of the labour market;
- coordinating the process of detecting, monitoring and predicting development trends in the labour market, including skills necessary for the performance of work activities, the creation and disappearance of jobs, and emerging and disappearing occupations;
- ensuring inter-ministerial coordination of activities related to monitoring trends in the labour market and defining quantitative and qualitative workforce requirements in connection with their qualified preparation for employment in the labour market;
- sharing information and experience from the implementation of NSO and NQS through publicly available information portals;
- publishing documents and materials prepared within the scope of the alliance and information about its activities on its NSO website;
- supporting the strengthening of professional and analytical capacities of social partners for building the infrastructure and communication platform of social dialogue and for the development of social partnership;
- performing other tasks and goals set by the association for itself.
In 2023, the SCA launched two projects funded by the Programme Slovakia 2021-27
- Development of professional capacities of social partners, with an allocation of EUR 23.7 million for the years 2023-29 to strengthen social dialogue. One of the explicitly named sub-activities is 'building expert and analytical capacities' to strengthen the quality of policymaking;
- Sectoral Councils Alliance - forecasting labour market trends and needs, with an allocation of EUR 29.9 for the years 2023-28. The main goal is 'to create a system environment for forecasting the needs of the labour market and aligning the educational offer accordingly through the activities of experts in 24 sector councils' (collecting data, forecasting labour market developments, adjusting occupational and qualification standards).
The second project aims to update occupational and qualification standards to reflect changes in the labour market, the growing demand for a qualified workforce, and the creation of new occupational standards, as the basis for updating the NQS. At the same time, the project outputs should 'form the basis for determining the structure and content of the educational system at all levels and in all forms, with special regard to further education'. This indicates that the SCA and the sectoral councils should be capable of shaping the 'educational system at all levels'.
The Sector Councils Alliance (SCA) declares on its website its role in formalising and intensifying cooperation between central government represented by education and labour ministries, employer representatives and trade union representatives in defining changes in the labour market and setting up 'adequate education', to bring better employability of the inhabitants and more efficient spending of public financing on education for the labour market.
Via the Act on adult education (292/2024) amending the Act on VET (61/2015), the education ministry strengthened the influence of the SCA on formal education, especially secondary VET. The SCA is now explicitly named as a participant in coordinating vocational education and training 'for the labour market at the national level', in addition to professional and employer organisations with responsibility for the respective fields of study already selected by the education ministry as 'sectoral assignees'. The alliance was originally supposed to cooperate with the education ministry in the creation and updating of qualification standards and assessment standards but by a decision of the ministry, the SCA is now entrusted with ensuring their creation and updating. At the same time, the education ministry commissioned the SCA to publish the 'National Qualifications System' on its website, although it was originally supposed to be built under the auspices of the education ministry on its platform. The SCA has indirectly become an institution of normative power: while qualification standards are not explicitly mandated by education legislation, the SCA has gained influence over them.
Currently, secondary schools follow educational standards when offering programmes leading to qualification documents, such as apprenticeship certificates. In the future, they may face pressure to align with SCA standards rather than those set by the ministry. There is no clear process to reconcile educational standards, which consider students' personal development, with the SCA's qualification standards, which may prioritise immediate labour market needs over long-term adaptability. According to the Education Act (245/2008), national curricula are issued by the education ministry in coordination with national-level VET bodies. With its recent inclusion in the list of coordinators under the Act on VET (61/2015), the SCA now has a role in shaping state educational programmes (national curricula).
Bodies responsible
- Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family
- Sector Councils Alliance
Target groups
Learners
- Learners in upper secondary, including apprentices
- Young people (15-29 years old)
- Young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs)
- Learners with migrant background, including refugees
- Learners at risk of early leaving or/and early leavers
- Learners with disabilities
- Adult learners
- Older workers and employees (55 - 64 years old)
- Unemployed and jobseekers
- Persons in employment, including those at risk of unemployment
- Low-skilled/qualified persons
- Learners from other groups at risk of exclusion (minorities, people with fewer opportunities due to geographical location or social-economic disadvantaged position)
Education professionals
- Teachers
- Trainers
- School leaders
- Adult educators
- Guidance practitioners
Entities providing VET
- Companies
- Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
- VET providers (all kinds)
Other stakeholders
- Social partners (employer organisations and trade unions)
- National, regional and local authorities
Thematic categories
Governance of VET and lifelong learning
This thematic category looks at existing legal frameworks providing for strategic, operational – including quality assurance – and financing arrangements for VET and lifelong learning (LLL). It examines how VET and LLL-related policies are placed in broad national socioeconomic contexts and coordinate with other strategies and policies, such as economic, social and employment, growth and innovation, recovery and resilience.
This thematic category covers partnerships and collaboration networks of VET stakeholders – especially the social partners – to shape and implement VET in a country, including looking at how their roles and responsibilities for VET at national, regional and local levels are shared and distributed, ensuring an appropriate degree of autonomy for VET providers to adapt their offer.
The thematic category also includes efforts to create national, regional and sectoral skills intelligence systems (skills anticipation and graduate tracking) and using skills intelligence for making decisions about VET and LLL on quality, inclusiveness and flexibility.
This thematic sub-category refers to the integration of VET into economic, industrial, innovation, social and employment strategies, including those linked to recovery, green and digital transitions, and where VET is seen as a driver for innovation and growth. It includes national, regional, sectoral strategic documents or initiatives that make VET an integral part of broader policies, or applying a mix of policies to address an issue VET is part of, e.g. in addressing youth unemployment measures through VET, social and active labour market policies that are implemented in combination. National skill strategies aiming at quality and inclusive lifelong learning also fall into this sub-category.
European priorities in VET
VET Recommendation
- VET agile in adapting to labour market challenges
- Flexibility and progression opportunities at the core of VET
- VET as a driver for innovation and growth preparing for digital and green transitions and occupations in high demand
- VET underpinned by a culture of quality assurance
Osnabrück Declaration
- Resilience and excellence through quality, inclusive and flexible VET
- Establishing a new lifelong learning culture - relevance of continuing VET and digitalisation
Subsystem
Further reading
Country
Type of development
Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Sector Councils Alliance: Slovakia. In Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Timeline of VET policies in Europe (2024 update) [Online tool].
https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/el/tools/timeline-vet-policies-europe/search/47910