- 2018Approved/Agreed
- 2019Implementation
- 2020Implementation
- 2021Legislative process
- 2022Approved/Agreed
- 2023Approved/Agreed
- 2024Implementation
Objectives
Analyse the offer of vocational education, anticipate future needs and contribute to educational policy on vocational education.
Description
The Observatory on Vocational and Qualifying Education, Trades and Technologies was created on 6 June 2018. As provided by the Pact for excellence in education, the observatory is part of the new governance framework for vocational education (nationally referred to as qualifying education). It is expected to contribute to the new governance framework through:
- developing - with the support of the 10 local VET committees (Bassins), tools and indicators for analysing the supply of vocational education in schools of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and the labour market developments, including the anticipation of technological, societal, demographic and economic changes that affect the labour market;
- developing a business watch and a strategic vision for improving the matching of supply of vocational education with the labour market skill demand of companies and SMEs, which should be in particular based on the work of the Walloon Office for Vocational Training and Placement (Forem) and Brussels public employment service (Actiris);
- based on this work, supporting the new governance and decision-making, which will aim at better matching VET offer and skills demand on the labour market.
In 2019, tools and indicators for analysing the supply of VET in schools of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation were developed, e.g. Register of regular secondary qualification and vocational education, Register of secondary qualification and vocational education for learners with special education needs.
In 2020, further implementation of the tools and indicators for analysing the VET supply in schools of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.
In 2021, the body of regulations aiming at reforming the governance of the VET system entered the drafting stage. As provided by the process of the Pact for excellence in education, in-depth discussion with the education system stakeholders is taking place before draft regulations are submitted to the Government.
In 2022 (20 July 2022), the Decree on the Vocational Education Pathway (PEQ) was adopted, which offers modular vocational training and qualification over three years. Works are still continuing on the reform of the steering processes for the provision of vocational training.
On the 22nd June 2023, the Decree on the governance of the supply of grouped basic options in full and part-time qualifying secondary education was adopted (qualifying secondary education is the national term referring to vocational and technical secondary education). It covers the provisions and processes relating to the scheduling and closure of options, aims to improve the way in which socio-economic needs are taken into account in the provision of qualifying options, and to achieve greater coherence in the provision of qualifying education.
In 2024, the first provisions and processes provided for the 2023 decree were implemented: development of a decision-making tool available to schools and operationalisation of the new options programming process. The procedure of development of other processes for steering provision is ongoing.
Bodies responsible
- Observatory on Vocational and Qualifying Education, Trades and Technology
- Ministry of the French Community
Target groups
Education professionals
- School leaders
Entities providing VET
- Companies
- Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
- VET providers (all kinds)
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.
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.
Subsystem
Further reading
Country
Type of development
Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Reforming the provision of vocational education: Belgium-FR. In Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Timeline of VET policies in Europe (2024 update) [Online tool].
https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/lv/tools/timeline-vet-policies-europe/search/28024