- 2024Implementation
Background
Considering low participation rate of adults in learning activities in Romania compared to the EU average, the Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity, in its capacity as National Coordinator for the Implementation of the Renewed European Agenda for Adult Learning, has elaborated the National strategy for adult training 2024-27. The strategy was approved by the Government in December 2023.
Objectives
The overall objective of the strategy is to increase the share of adults participating in lifelong learning to 12% by 2027 through more and better formal, non-formal and informal learning.
The specific objectives of the strategy 2024-2027 are:
- intensification of the role of partners/partnerships for the support and development of the strategic framework for adults' professional training,
- improving personalised / tailored - made and specific learning offers,
- facilitating adults' access to lifelong learning by creating a culture of learning,
- ensuring quality in adult training system and promoting inclusion and social equity in lifelong learning,
- developing green and digital skills of adults.
These are in line with EU agenda on cooperation in education and training and the EU funding priorities of the programming period.
Description
The strategy was developed with the support of EU funding (Erasmus+ 101051428-SNFA-ERASMUS-EDU-2021-AL-AGENDA-IBA).
During the design phase, the labour ministry consulted employers, professional training providers, social partners, regional employment agencies, and NGOs.
The cooperation pillar focuses on updating legislation and strengthening the role of partnerships in adult training, alongside capacity building for training providers.
The personalised learning pillar promotes flexible learning pathways, individual learning accounts, enhanced career management services, and incentives for employers and training providers.
The learning culture pillar aims to raise awareness among adults about the benefits of lifelong learning. It includes modularising training programmes, operationalising transferable credits, introducing new assessment tools, and expanding services to recognise previously acquired skills. It also provides incentives for adult learners. The quality, inclusion, and social equity pillar supports teacher, instructor, evaluator, and specialist training. It promotes learner and trainer mobility, incentives for vulnerable groups, and the development of quality assurance systems for training providers.
Finally, green and digital skills will be embedded in all training programmes and occupational standards, with an expanded provision of these programmes.
The 2024-27 action plan and annual action plans will support the...
The strategy was developed with the support of EU funding (Erasmus+ 101051428-SNFA-ERASMUS-EDU-2021-AL-AGENDA-IBA).
During the design phase, the labour ministry consulted employers, professional training providers, social partners, regional employment agencies, and NGOs.
The cooperation pillar focuses on updating legislation and strengthening the role of partnerships in adult training, alongside capacity building for training providers.
The personalised learning pillar promotes flexible learning pathways, individual learning accounts, enhanced career management services, and incentives for employers and training providers.
The learning culture pillar aims to raise awareness among adults about the benefits of lifelong learning. It includes modularising training programmes, operationalising transferable credits, introducing new assessment tools, and expanding services to recognise previously acquired skills. It also provides incentives for adult learners. The quality, inclusion, and social equity pillar supports teacher, instructor, evaluator, and specialist training. It promotes learner and trainer mobility, incentives for vulnerable groups, and the development of quality assurance systems for training providers.
Finally, green and digital skills will be embedded in all training programmes and occupational standards, with an expanded provision of these programmes.
The 2024-27 action plan and annual action plans will support the implementation of the strategy.
The 2024 action plan was approved by the Minister for Labour and Social Solidarity.
Key actions include improving the legal framework for sectoral committees, ensuring regular data collection from training institutions, and piloting individual learning accounts. The plan also foresees a national study on career management systems, the use of transferable credits, improved career guidance, counselling, skills evaluation, and tailored training for individuals with low or no formal education as well as other initiatives.
Bodies responsible
- Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity
- Ministry of Education
- National Centre for TVET Development (CNDIPT)
- National Qualifications Authority (ANC)
- National Agency for Employment (ANOFM)
- Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Tourism
- Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development
- Ministry of European Investments and Projects
- National Institute for Scientific Research in the Field of Labour and Social protection (INCSMPS)
Target groups
Learners
- Young people (15-29 years old)
- Young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs)
- Learners with migrant background, including refugees
- Adult learners
- Older workers and employees (55 - 64 years old)
- Unemployed and jobseekers
- Persons in employment, including those at risk of unemployment
- Low-skilled/qualified persons
- Learners from other groups at risk of exclusion (minorities, people with fewer opportunities due to geographical location or social-economic disadvantaged position)
Education professionals
- Adult educators
- Guidance practitioners
Entities providing VET
- Companies
- Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
- 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 to the integration of VET into economic, industrial, innovation, social and employment strategies, including those linked to recovery, green and digital transitions, and where VET is seen as a driver for innovation and growth. It includes national, regional, sectoral strategic documents or initiatives that make VET an integral part of broader policies, or applying a mix of policies to address an issue VET is part of, e.g. in addressing youth unemployment measures through VET, social and active labour market policies that are implemented in combination. National skill strategies aiming at quality and inclusive lifelong learning also fall into this sub-category.
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.
Transparency and portability of VET skills and qualifications
European principles and tools, such as EQF, ESCO, ECTS, Europass and ECVET, provide a strong basis for transparency and portability of national and sectoral qualifications across Europe, including the issuing of digital diplomas and certificates.
This thematic category looks at how individuals are supported in transferring, accumulating, and validating skills and competences acquired in formal, non-formal and informal settings – including learning on the job – and in having their learning recognised towards a qualification at any point of their lives. This is only possible if qualifications are transparent and comparable and are part of comprehensive national qualifications frameworks. Availability of qualifications smaller than full and acquirable in shorter periods of time is necessary; some countries have recently worked on developing partial qualifications, microcredentials, etc.
This thematic sub-category refers to the application of EU transparency tools that allow recognition of qualifications among EU Member States (EQF, Europass, ESCO, ECTS). Among others, it includes linking national VET platforms and databases to Europass in accordance with the Europass Decision and EQF Recommendation and the use of the ECVET principles and tools, such as memoranda of understanding or learning agreements applied in mobility actions. The sub-category also covers measures on recognition of foreign/third-country qualifications for specific target groups, e.g. migrants or highly skilled professionals.
This thematic sub-category refers to validation mechanisms allowing individuals to accumulate, transfer, and recognise learning outcomes acquired non-formally and informally, including on-the-job learning, or in another formal system. In case they are not automatically recognised, a learner can have these learning outcomes validated and recognised through a particular process with a view to obtaining a partial or full qualification. This thematic sub-category covers such provisions and mechanisms.
Supporting lifelong learning culture and increasing participation
Lifelong learning refers to all learning (formal, non-formal or informal) taking place at all stages in life and resulting in an improvement or update in knowledge, skills, competences and attitudes or in participation in society from a personal, civic, cultural, social or employment-related perspective (Erasmus+, Glossary of terms, https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/programme-guide/part-d/glossary-common-terms). A systemic approach to CVET is crucial to ensure adaptability to evolving demands.
This broad thematic category looks at ways of creating opportunities and ensuring access to re-skilling and upskilling pathways, allowing individuals to progress smoothly in their learning throughout their lives with better permeability between general and vocational education and training, and better integration and compatibility between initial and continuing VET and with higher education. Individuals should be supported in acquiring and updating their skills and competences and navigating easily through education and training systems. Strategies and campaigns that promote VET and LLL as an attractive and high-quality pathway, providing quality lifelong guidance and tailored support to design learning and career paths, and various incentives (financial and non-financial) to attract and support participation in VET and LLL fall into this thematic category as well.
This thematic category also includes many initiatives on making VET inclusive and ensuring equal education and training opportunities for various groups of learners, regardless of their personal and economic background and place of residence – especially those at risk of disadvantage or exclusion, such as persons with disabilities, the low-skilled and low-qualified, minorities, migrants, refugees and others.
This thematic sub-category refers to initiatives that promote VET and lifelong learning implemented at any level and by any stakeholder. It also covers measures to ensure and broaden access to information about VET to various target groups, including targeted information and promotional campaigns (e.g. for parents, adult learners, vulnerable groups). Among others, it includes national skill competitions and fairs organised to attract learners to VET.
This thematic sub-category refers to providing the possibility for individuals who are already in the labour market/in employment to reskill and/or acquire higher levels of skills, and to ensuring targeted information resources on the benefits of CVET and lifelong learning. It also covers the availability of CVET programmes adaptable to labour market, sectoral or individual up- and reskilling needs. The sub-category includes working with respective stakeholders to develop digital learning solutions supporting access to CVET opportunities and awarding CVET credentials and certificates.
This thematic sub-category refers to providing high-quality lifelong learning and career guidance services, including making full use of Europass and other digital services and resources.
This thematic sub-category refers to making VET pathways and programmes inclusive and accessible for all. It concerns measures and targeted actions to increase access and participation in VET and lifelong learning for learners from all vulnerable groups, and to support their school/training-to-work transitions. It includes measures to prevent early leaving from education and training. The thematic sub-category covers measures promoting gender balance in traditionally ‘male’ and ‘female’ professions and addressing gender-related and other stereotypes. The vulnerable groups are, but not limited to: persons with disabilities; the low-qualified/-skilled; minorities; persons of migrant background, including refugees; people with fewer opportunities due to their geographical location and/or their socioeconomically disadvantaged circumstances.
European and international dimensions of VET
This thematic category covers both European and international cooperation in initial and continuing VET, aimed at promoting EU VET systems as a European education and training area and making it a reference for learners in neighbouring countries and across the globe.
Expanding opportunities and increasing participation of VET learners, young and adult, and staff in international mobility for learning and work, including apprenticeship and virtual and blended mobility, account for most initiatives in this thematic category.
Apart from established and financially supported EU cooperation, VET opens up to cooperation and promotion of European values and national practices beyond the EU, which is becoming a trend. This thematic category also encompasses internationalisation strategies, transnational cooperation projects and initiatives – including those where joint VET programmes, examinations and qualifications are developed – and participation in international skills competitions that promote the image of VET. Using international qualifications – awarded by legally established international bodies or by a national body acting on behalf of an international body – in the national VET systems and recognising them towards national qualifications is also in focus.
European priorities in VET
VET Recommendation
- VET agile in adapting to labour market challenges
Osnabrück Declaration
- Establishing a new lifelong learning culture - relevance of continuing VET and digitalisation
Subsystem
Further reading
Country
Type of development
Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). National strategy for adult training 2024-27: Romania. 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/47440