The second edition of Cedefop’s VET policy briefs, charts five years of development of national VET policies as the Herning Declaration sets a fresh course for European vocational education and training (VET) toward learner and teacher well-being, innovative pedagogies, and advanced technologies.
Cedefop's newly published VET policy briefs offer a comprehensive assessment of VET reforms across EU Member States, Norway, and Iceland from 2021 to 2025. Monitoring over 400 measures reported by the ReferNet partners from 29 countries, the analysis reveals strong progress on making systems agile, flexible, and innovative, while implementation on inclusiveness, attractiveness, and quality assurance advances more gradually.
Cedefop presented the main trends in a recent virtual event, EU priorities in VET - from Osnabrück to Herning and beyond, which brought together 370 representatives from 35 countries. The presentation highlighted two persistent challenges: the complexity of coordinating VET governance across multiple stakeholders, and securing sustainable national funding for long-term reforms.
Twin transition leads the way
The policy briefs confirm that nearly all reporting countries have integrated digital skills into their VET reforms, while green skills are catching up at a slower pace, responding to evolving labour market needs. Approaches vary widely, from Austria's climate-neutral building roadmaps to Iceland's innovative cross-sectoral sustainability requirements embedded throughout qualification frameworks. Bulgaria and Slovakia's Centres of Vocational Excellence focused on the twin transition represent interesting examples of how clustering strategies can support specialized skills development in emerging areas.
Quality assurance: building foundations
Most countries are working to strengthen their national quality assurance frameworks under the European Quality Assurance Reference Framework for VET (EQAVET) principles, to ensuring quality across diverse educational pathways, with several pioneering graduate tracking systems. Croatia, Latvia, Slovakia, Romania, and Slovenia are piloting these tracking mechanisms to better understand VET outcomes and improve responsiveness to employer needs—an important step toward evidence-based policy development.
Diverse progress on EU targets
Performance against EU quantitative benchmarks reveals interesting patterns.
Norway achieves an impressive 95.5% employment rate for VET graduates, well above the EU benchmark of 82%.
Germany boasts the highest work-based learning rate at 94.5% for young adults (20-34 years old) exceeding the 60% EU target.
Sweden excels in the participation of adults in LLL with a 66.5%, surpassing the 50% EU target.
These variations reflect different starting points, labour market structures, and reform timelines across Member States.
Herning's focus: well-being and innovation
The September 2025 Herning Declaration's emphasis on learner and teacher well-being represents an important evolution in EU VET priorities. Countries like Czechia, Poland, and Norway are developing well-being programmes to support teachers, while the Netherlands, Slovakia, Czechia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Hungary look into learner mental and psychological well-being with targeted support and guidance, ensuring safe learning environments, and integrating transversal skills.
Equally notable are the emerging experiments with AI and immersive technologies in Belgium, Austria, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Slovenia, and Spain. These pilots explore how advanced tools can enhance and diversify theoretical and experiential learning while maintaining VET's distinctive pedagogical strengths.
Looking forward
As the Commission implements its Union of Skills framework, the policy briefs highlight the importance of strengthening coordination mechanisms, integrating resources effectively, and deepening social partner engagement. Countries that have made significant progress share common features: strong stakeholder collaboration, aligned funding streams, and clear governance structures.
Cedefop will continue monitoring how Member States adapt to the Herning priorities and support the exchange of effective practices. Making VET attractive, inclusive, and future-ready remains both a challenge and an opportunity for collaborative action —and the only way forward for a resilient, inclusive, and future-ready Europe.