- 2016Design
- 2017Design
- 2018Design
- 2019Pilot
- 2020Implementation
- 2021Implementation
- 2022Implementation
- 2023Implementation
- 2024Implementation
Description
The 2015-20 strategic plan for technical and vocational education and training aims to set up a national monitoring system of initial vocational education and training (IVET) and continuing vocational education and training (CVET) graduates, to inform the upgrading of the VET system. The Department of Secondary Technical and Vocational Education and Training (DoSTVET) purchased services for the design and development of the platform. The platform is operational as of April 2019. It is called Communication network with employers for technical occupations (???t?? ?p????????a? µe ????d?te? ??a ?e????? ?pa????µata - ?????) and aims to facilitate the communication between VET graduates and potential employers. With the assistance of this tool, graduates are more easily integrated into the labour market and employers are assisted to fill vacancies with technically qualified persons. The procedure is:
- graduates of technical and vocational schools of education and training (secondary VET), as well as those of the post-secondary institutes of VET (higher VET-MIEEK), can create their personal online profile. To be able to register on the platform, graduates must contact the administration office of the school that they have graduated from and get a registration code;
- employers(SMEs included) have the opportunity to create a corporate profile for their company provided that their information is validated by the platform administrator; ...
The 2015-20 strategic plan for technical and vocational education and training aims to set up a national monitoring system of initial vocational education and training (IVET) and continuing vocational education and training (CVET) graduates, to inform the upgrading of the VET system. The Department of Secondary Technical and Vocational Education and Training (DoSTVET) purchased services for the design and development of the platform. The platform is operational as of April 2019. It is called Communication network with employers for technical occupations (???t?? ?p????????a? µe ????d?te? ??a ?e????? ?pa????µata - ?????) and aims to facilitate the communication between VET graduates and potential employers. With the assistance of this tool, graduates are more easily integrated into the labour market and employers are assisted to fill vacancies with technically qualified persons. The procedure is:
- graduates of technical and vocational schools of education and training (secondary VET), as well as those of the post-secondary institutes of VET (higher VET-MIEEK), can create their personal online profile. To be able to register on the platform, graduates must contact the administration office of the school that they have graduated from and get a registration code;
- employers(SMEs included) have the opportunity to create a corporate profile for their company provided that their information is validated by the platform administrator;
- through their personal profile, VET graduates can upload information on their qualifications, knowledge and skills and their area of interest, creating an online resume. They can also search for employment opportunities, communicate with other network members and have access to the platform announcement board;
- employers indicate the available job positions in their company and the qualifications required in order to recruit technically qualified persons. They may also search, based on pre-set criteria, for available, qualified graduates.
The use of the platform by graduates can offer them better employment opportunities. This initiative was funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union.
In 2019, three enterprises and 10 learners/graduates registered on the platform.
In 2020,the number of registered learners/graduates increased (150) with the anticipation for a further increase. The department of STVET was in contact with a number of enterprises that expressed interest in registering on the platform.
In 2021, the number of registered learners/graduates increased to 200. Only learners/graduates from public schools of higher VET (MIEEK) were registered on the platform. The Department of STVET was in the process of upgrading the platform to include learners/graduates of secondary technical and vocational education. The planned upgrading includes the possibility of extracting statistical data on employment or further graduate studies per specialisation.
Also in 2021, 52 enterprises registered on the platform.
The number of registered learners/graduates increased to 385, including graduates of secondary technical and vocational education. The number of registered enterprises increased to 74. The upgraded platform provides the possibility of extracting statistical data regarding the employment of the registered users or their further studies per field/specialisation.
The number of registered learners/graduates increased to 360, including graduates of secondary technical and vocational education. The number of registered enterprises increased to 80. The upgraded platform provides the possibility of extracting statistical data regarding the employment of the registered users or their further studies per field/specialisation.
The number of registered learners/graduates increased to 484, including graduates of secondary technical and vocational education. The number of registered enterprises increased to 178. The upgraded platform provides the possibility of extracting statistical data regarding the employment of the registered users or their further studies per field/specialisation.
The Ministry of Education, Sport, and Youth has approved the process of purchasing services through a public contract to develop new functions on the 'Employers Communication Network with Technical Graduates' platform utilising the existing infrastructure.
Bodies responsible
- Ministry of Education, Sport and Youth (MESY)
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport and Youth (MoECSY) (until 2022)
- Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC) (until 2019)
Target groups
Learners
- Learners in upper secondary, including apprentices
- Adult learners
- Unemployed and jobseekers
Entities providing VET
- Companies
- Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
- VET providers (all kinds)
Other stakeholders
- Social partners (employer organisations and trade unions)
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
VET Recommendation
- VET agile in adapting to labour market challenges
Subsystem
Further reading
Country
Type of development
Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). VET - employers' matching platform: Cyprus. In Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Timeline of VET policies in Europe (2024 update) [Online tool].
https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/timeline-vet-policies-europe/search/28074