- 2015Pilot
- 2016Pilot
- 2017Pilot
- 2018Approved/Agreed
- 2019Implementation
- 2020Implementation
- 2021Implementation
- 2022Implementation
Background
An evaluation of the existing system of learning and working showed some major drawbacks. The system of dual learning was created to mitigate these drawbacks.
Objectives
The dual learning system, which includes a large proportion of work-based learning, aims to close the gap between education and the labour market, and reduce early school leaving and youth unemployment.
Description
In April 2015, the Flemish government approved the resolution for implementing pilot projects on dual learning. Between 2015 and 2019, a series of pilot projects experimented with the concept of dual learning.
Dual learning is an integrated secondary education pathway that consists of general education, vocational training and work experience at the workplace and leads to a secondary education qualification. How many days a week are spent on the job depends on the field of study. In dual learning, learners have a contract with their employer and training provider.
In 2018, the Decree on the legislative framework for the full-scale implementation of dual learning was adopted. From 1 September 2019 onwards, the full-scale implementation of the dual learning system in secondary education started, targeting young people until the age of 25 years to replace the two existing learning and working alternance schemes by 2023.
In November 2018, the Flemish Parliament approved a decree that makes dual learning possible within Special Needs Secondary Education (BuSO).
As education and labour market partners are involved, both the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training and the Flemish Ministry of Work and Social Economy are responsible for the development and implementation of dual learning in secondary education in Flanders. The Flemish Partnership dual learning was established in 2016 with the authority to recognise a...
In April 2015, the Flemish government approved the resolution for implementing pilot projects on dual learning. Between 2015 and 2019, a series of pilot projects experimented with the concept of dual learning.
Dual learning is an integrated secondary education pathway that consists of general education, vocational training and work experience at the workplace and leads to a secondary education qualification. How many days a week are spent on the job depends on the field of study. In dual learning, learners have a contract with their employer and training provider.
In 2018, the Decree on the legislative framework for the full-scale implementation of dual learning was adopted. From 1 September 2019 onwards, the full-scale implementation of the dual learning system in secondary education started, targeting young people until the age of 25 years to replace the two existing learning and working alternance schemes by 2023.
In November 2018, the Flemish Parliament approved a decree that makes dual learning possible within Special Needs Secondary Education (BuSO).
As education and labour market partners are involved, both the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training and the Flemish Ministry of Work and Social Economy are responsible for the development and implementation of dual learning in secondary education in Flanders. The Flemish Partnership dual learning was established in 2016 with the authority to recognise a company as a high-quality workplace in the context of dual and other alternating courses. It is also responsible for monitoring the implementation of the agreements in the workplace, informing companies about dual learning, supporting and mobilising companies according to the supply of workplaces and to provide advice on dual learning, such as through annual monitoring reports.
In 2019, the dual learning system started to be fully implemented in the secondary education including in the Special Needs Secondary Education (BuSO).
In 2020, the full-scale implementation phase with minor adaptations as a result of COVID-19 continued.
On 16 July 2021, the Flemish Government definitively approved the decree setting the conversion calendar. The conversion of the learning and working programmes to dual learning must be completed simultaneously with the modernisation of secondary education in the school year 2025/26.
Dual learning in secondary education is operational and ran as regular practice.
Bodies responsible
- Flemish Ministry of Education and Training
- Flemish Partnership Dual Learning
- Flemish Ministry of Work and Social Economy
Target groups
Learners
- Learners in upper secondary, including apprentices
- Young people (15-29 years old)
- Learners at risk of early leaving or/and early leavers
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 both to formal mechanisms of stakeholder engagement in VET governance and to informal cooperation among stakeholders, which motivate shared responsibility for quality VET. Formal engagement is usually based on legally established institutional procedures that clearly define the role and responsibilities for relevant stakeholders in designing, implementing and improving VET. It also refers to establishing and increasing the degree of autonomy of VET providers for agile and flexible VET provision.
In terms of informal cooperation, the sub-category covers targeted actions by different stakeholders to promote or implement VET. This cooperation often leads to creating sustainable partnerships and making commitments for targeted actions, in line with the national context and regulation, e.g. national alliances for apprenticeships, pacts for youth or partnerships between schools and employers. It can also include initiatives and projects run by the social partners or sectoral organisations or networks of voluntary experts and executives, retired or on sabbatical, to support their peers in the fields of VET and apprenticeships, as part of the EAfA.
High-quality and timely skills intelligence is a powerful policy tool, helping improve economic competitiveness and fostering social progress and equality through the provision of targeted skills training to all citizens (Cedefop, 2020). Skills intelligence is the outcome of an expert-driven process of identifying, analysing, synthesising and presenting quantitative and/or qualitative skills and labour market information. Skills intelligence draws on data from multiple sources, such as graduate tracking systems, skills anticipation mechanisms, including at sectoral and regional levels. Actions related to establishing and developing such systems fall under this thematic sub-category.
Modernising VET offer and delivery
This thematic category looks at what and how individuals learn, how learning content and learning outcomes in initial and continuing VET are defined, adapted and updated. First and foremost, it examines how VET standards, curricula, programmes and training courses are updated and modernised or new ones created. Updated and renewed VET content ensures that learners acquire a balanced mix of competences that address modern demands, and are more closely aligned with the realities of the labour market, including key competences, digital competences and skills for green transition and sustainability, both sector-specific and across sectors. Using learning outcomes as a basis is important to facilitate this modernisation, including modularisation of VET programmes. Updating and developing teaching and learning materials to support the above is also part of the category.
The thematic category continues to focus on strengthening high-quality and inclusive apprenticeships and work-based learning in real-life work environments and in line with the European framework for quality and effective apprenticeships. It looks at expanding apprenticeship to continuing vocational training and at developing VET programmes at EQF levels 5-8 for better permeability and lifelong learning and to support the need for higher vocational skills.
This thematic category also focuses on VET delivery through a mix of open, digital and participative learning environments, including workplaces conducive to learning, which are flexible, more adaptable to the ways individuals learn, and provide more access and outreach to various groups of learners, diversifying modes of learning and exploiting the potential of digital learning solutions and blended learning to complement face-to-face learning.
Centres of vocational excellence that connect VET to innovation and skill ecosystems and facilitate stronger cooperation with business and research also fall into this category.
This thematic sub-category covers all developments related to work-based learning (WBL) elements in VET programmes and apprenticeships which continue to be important in the policy agenda. It includes measures to stabilise the offer of apprenticeships, the implementation of the European framework for quality and effective apprenticeships, and using the EU on-demand support services and policy learning initiatives among the Member States. It also covers further expansion of apprenticeships and WBL to continuing VET (CVET), for transition to work and inclusion of vulnerable groups, and for improving citizens’ qualification levels.
European priorities in VET
VET Recommendation
- VET agile in adapting to labour market challenges