- 2021Implementation
- 2022Implementation
Background
The Norwegian labour market and economy are in transition. Working life is changing rapidly, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this. New technology and the green shift require new knowledge and expertise. The analyses from KBU should provide a solid professional basis for designing new measures.
Objectives
The main goal of the Norwegian Committee on Skill Needs (KBU) is to find out what skills and competences the Norwegian labour market are needed in the future, to adapt the education system accordingly.
Description
Since 2017, the KBU has provided thorough professional assessments of Norway's future competence needs. Three comprehensive reports have ensured the authorities and the labour market, both regionally and nationally, a solid basis for both planning and making informed decisions. As part of the government's competence reform, the committee continues the work until 2027. The competence reforms goal is lifelong learning to ensure work.
The Committee on Skill Needs (KBU):
- analyse and assesses the available knowledge base and provide the best possible professional analysis and assessment of society’s future competence needs, including assessing the education system’s ability to cover this need;
- produces an analysis and assessment of future competence needs in the short, medium and long term;
- facilitates and stimulatse open dialogue and discussion about society's competence needs with various interest groups and in society in general. The committee works to make the views of the labour market become more apparent;
- submits at least one main report every 2 years. The committee may, on its own initiative, raise issues concerning competence needs in the reports, articles or other documents. The Ministry of Education and Research can also request thematic reports;
- the committee's work and deliveries support national and regional authorities in the development of sectoral policy, including dimensioning of the education sector.
Since 2017, the KBU has provided thorough professional assessments of Norway's future competence needs. Three comprehensive reports have ensured the authorities and the labour market, both regionally and nationally, a solid basis for both planning and making informed decisions. As part of the government's competence reform, the committee continues the work until 2027. The competence reforms goal is lifelong learning to ensure work.
The Committee on Skill Needs (KBU):
- analyse and assesses the available knowledge base and provide the best possible professional analysis and assessment of society’s future competence needs, including assessing the education system’s ability to cover this need;
- produces an analysis and assessment of future competence needs in the short, medium and long term;
- facilitates and stimulatse open dialogue and discussion about society's competence needs with various interest groups and in society in general. The committee works to make the views of the labour market become more apparent;
- submits at least one main report every 2 years. The committee may, on its own initiative, raise issues concerning competence needs in the reports, articles or other documents. The Ministry of Education and Research can also request thematic reports;
- the committee's work and deliveries support national and regional authorities in the development of sectoral policy, including dimensioning of the education sector.
The committee is chaired by the director of Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir), joined by a number of experts appointed for 2 years at a time, and representatives of the social partners. The county municipalities also have one representative.
The committee's work started in 2021 and is expected to continue until 2027.
The first report on higher vocational education and training was published on 14 June 2022. The report summarises the knowledge base of higher vocational education and the needs to assess and develop higher vocational education further. The thematic report discusses higher vocational education’s role in meeting existing and new skills needs arising from technological development, demographic change, and green transition. The role of higher vocational colleges and higher vocational education is to be the colleges for the world of work and to develop the relationship between the world of work and the education further.
Bodies responsible
- Ministry of Education and Research (KD)
Target groups
Education professionals
- Teachers
- Trainers
Entities providing VET
- Companies
- 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 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.
European priorities in VET
Osnabrück Declaration
- Resilience and excellence through quality, inclusive and flexible VET