- 2019Approved/Agreed
- 2020Implementation
- 2021Implementation
- 2022Implementation
- 2023Implementation
- 2024Implementation
Background
The 12 occupational councils have enjoyed a varying degree of professional support and some have been more active than others.
Objectives
To streamline and equalise the professional support given to the councils and thereby increase their productiveness and better coordinate their work.
Description
The occupational councils provide the education minister with guidance on vocational education at the upper secondary school level. The councils are responsible for defining job descriptions and competence requirements and provide reviews of upper secondary qualifications. The councils also keep a record of companies and workplaces that meet requirements for workplace learning. The coordination role was moved to the Directorate of Education instead of SA-Business Iceland.
The Directorate of Education believes that by taking over the services of the professional councils, it will be possible to coordinate their working methods and strengthen their role in VET. The occupational councils play an important role in defining job descriptions and competence requirements and provide reviews of upper secondary qualifications.
In March 2019, a special State-financed project manager took over servicing and coordinating the work of occupational councils, based at the headquarters of the main industry association (SA-Business Iceland). The new project manager will be responsible for leading the work and providing guidance and service to all the occupational councils. In this context, service means convening regular meetings and setting up meeting agendas in cooperation with the councils' chairpersons. The project manager is also responsible for receiving, preparing, and answering queries from public bodies and institutions. This is all done in close cooperation with the chairperson of each occupational council.
In early 2020, this policy changed and servicing and coordinating the work of the occupational councils was taken over by the Directorate of Education, although individual councils could decide to keep their earlier set-up, on the basis of a contract with the Directorate, until the end of 2020.
The change was due to take effect in May 2020. With the COVID-19 challenges postponing some meetings and coordination work, and with some councils happier than others with their current/previous service providers, individual councils were given the right to postpone the change until January 2021. By that time a new special project manager at the Directorate of Education, expected to commence work in autumn 2020, will have had time to make all necessary preparations.
In January 2021, all 12 occupational councils were taken over by the Directorate of Education. This plan runs as a regular practice.
The Directorate of Education keeps a record of companies and workplaces that meet requirements for workplace learning. This record is a part of the digital logbook project, which the Directorate of Education manages.
The project manager has been responsible for leading the work on revising all qualifications, under the domain of each council. This project is ongoing and expected to complete in 2022.
Some of the occupational councils have provided assistance to the Directorate of Education on revising VET curricula (curricula for electricians, maritime officers, mountain guides, fisheries technicians).
The occupational councils continue to revise job descriptions and skills requirements that are being implemented for the Digital Logbook, and this work is under constant review.
The structure of the occupational council is planned to remain unchanged until the pending abolishment of the Directorate of Education, in the autumn of 2023. This decision was based on the changes to the Icelandic education system announced in October 2022. The changes aimed to strengthen schools across the country and provide a new general framework for education, replacing the Directorate of Education. The new framework is part of the government's draft education policy until 2030, which aims to reorganise several agencies to better ensure quality and access to education for children from kindergarten to secondary school.
According to the Minister of Education and Children's Affairs, there was no comprehensive legislation on school services for nursery, primary and secondary schools and no central organisation with a defined role to implement and coordinate these services. Access to services varied both between and within school levels and municipalities, leading to inequalities. There was a need to coordinate systems to ensure a comprehensive, effective and high-quality service when students move between schools or between levels of education; and a need for greater consultation with school staff and support for schoolwork to enable resources to be made available to children and young people more quickly and efficiently.
In December 2023, a new institution was founded, replacing the former Directorate of Education. The new institution is called 'The Directorate of Education and School Services'.
The Directorate of Education and School Services opened in April 2024. It promotes excellence in education and the well-being of all children and young people. It does this through strong support and targeted services to preschools, elementary schools and secondary schools throughout the country.
The Directorate of Education and School Services administers and oversees the Occupational Councils.
The main role of the Occupational Councils is to:
- provide advice to the Minister of Education on matters of vocational education at secondary school level, and give feedback on curriculum descriptions that schools seek confirmation of;
- make proposals about the general objectives of the study and define the needs for skills and competences on which the course descriptions are based;
- make proposals about the final goals of the study; set criteria for the division of studies at school and at the workplace and make proposals about the structure and content of tests in individual professions;
- maintain a register of companies and workplaces that meet the requirements for workplace learning;
- make proposals for study programme descriptions for individual study programmes.
Course descriptions in vocational training are based on job descriptions and qualification requirements defined by the Occupational Councils. The Councils also provide feedback on vocational course descriptions for which schools apply for confirmation.
The Occupational Councils continue to work closely with the Directorate of Education and School Services, by providing assistance on revising job descriptions and skills requirements and the VET curricula (e.g. curricula for electricians, maritime officers, mountain guides, fisheries technicians).
Bodies responsible
- Directorate for Education
Target groups
Learners
- Learners in upper secondary, including apprentices
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.
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.
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.
VET standards and curricula define the content and outcomes of learning, most often at national or sectoral levels. VET programmes are based on standards and curricula and refer to specific vocations/occupations. They all need to be regularly reviewed, updated and aligned with the needs of the labour market and society. They need to include a balanced mix of vocational and technical skills corresponding to economic cycles, evolving jobs and working methods, and key competences, providing for resilience, lifelong learning, employability, social inclusion, active citizenship, sustainable awareness and personal development (Council of the European Union, 2020). The thematic sub-category also refers to establishing new VET programmes, reducing their number or discontinuing some. It also includes design of CVET programmes and training courses to adapt to labour market, sectoral or individual up- and re-skilling needs.
Subsystem
Further reading
Country
Type of development
Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Coordination of the work of occupational councils: Iceland. 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/28309