Quality Assurance Mechanisms
- Normative mechanisms: licensing, curricula and qualification requirements, skills demonstrations, financing, evaluation
- Voluntary mechanisms: Quality management, recommendations, quality awards.
Norms and regulations
The goal of the development of the vocational education and training as it is stated in the Development Plan for Education and Research, as confirmed by the Council of State, is to strengthen the competitive ability of Finnish working life and vocational education and training in the face of the internationalising operating environment by raising the nation’s level of vocational competence and by supporting working-life-based innovation activity. Pivotal development objectives include improvement of the quality, correspondence to working-life conditions, effectiveness and attractiveness of education and training. The purpose is to secure the ability of the vocational education and training to respond to the competence needs of various areas by forming providers of education into sufficiently large and diverse or otherwise powerful providers of education, vocational colleges, possessing the preconditions for developing the working life and to respond its competence needs.
As regards the steering and financing system of vocational education and training, the calculatory state-contribution based on student numbers and the core curricula and qualifications constitute the foundation for responding to the competence needs of the working life and quality assurance in education and training. In addition to these, quality assurance and development are supported by means of assessment external to education and quality development projects focusing on education. Working life organisations are represented in all of these mechanisms.
Legislation pertaining to vocational education and training provides the overall goals for education and the framework for the organising of education. The core curricula and qualifications define in more detail the professional competence required by the working life and which the various qualifications are required to produce. The various vocational qualifications form one of the centrally an important mechanism in quality assurance. The awarding of qualifications is based on skills demonstrations, which means that their approved completion also serves as a criterion of the quality of the person’s competence.
Accreditation of VET Providers / Registering of Training Providers by the Ministry of Education and Culture
It means accreditation in VET: fields of training, maximum number of students/year and other requirements and provisions. The Ministry of Education give also licence to arrange special education and other special tasks e.g. to arrange education for immigrants.
Financing System
The system of financing vocational education and training is based on calculatory student-specificunit price. The financing system has been developed in the direction being more encouraging by supplementing it with a performance-based financing system based on quantitative indicators (performance financing part) obtained from statistics and qualitative assessment (quality award). The objective of performance-based financing of the vocational education and training is to support the development of educational quality and improvement of its effectiveness and to encourage education providers to engage in long-term and objective-oriented development. It is also a tool for promoting the achieving of the objectives set for vocational education and training. This performance-based financing system produces development and steering information for application by both providers of education and educational administration.
In the performance-based financing system a final performance index is calculated based on different indicators. To arrive at this overall index, the different indicators are given different weights. VET-providers can be easily compared by using the overall performance index their performance evaluated by self-assessment and also use the information form performance-based financing in their self-assessment. Results of each provider are transparent, they are available via the internet. Thus the system allows benchmarking processes as a part of their assessment system between VET-providers all over the country and support the use of the result for the development of activities also at the providers level.
Quality Awards
Quality awards given in vocational education and training serve in supporting and encouraging education providers to engage in the continuous assessment and development of quality related to their basic tasks. Yet another objective is to pinpoint the best practices to serve the foundation of learning for other organisations. The targets and criteria of the quality award also create frameworks facilitating continuous self-assessment on part of the education provider’s performance. Moreover, quality awards are intended to promote general awareness, appreciation and attractiveness of vocational education and training. The presenting of quality awards is based on predefined criteria and on the education provider’s own assessment of the provider’s performance plus on external assessment. The European Quality Award Criteria (EFQM) is applied in competition and these criteria are annually supplemented by specific special themes determined with the Development Plan for Education and Research as approved by the Council of State as the basis. These are employed to draw attention to special objectives significant from the viewpoint of education policy.
The objectives of Quality awards for vocational education and training and apprenticeship training are:
- to encourage and promote quality management and evaluation of education
- to exchange of good practices
- to highlight the role of VET
- to improve the image of VET.
National Curricula, Qualification Requirements, Skills Demonstrations and Skills Tests
The Government decides on the general objectives of vocational education and training, the general structure of the study programmes and on the common studies. The Ministry of Education decides on the details and scope of the study programmes. Finnish National Board of Education issues the national core curricula determining the objectives and core contents of the studies. The core curricula are dealt with by tripartite expert bodies, training committees, which were established under the Ministry of Education to plan and develop vocational education. Based on these, each provider of education prepares its curriculum. Providers of education also have tripartite expert bodies, consultative committees, which participate in the planning and development of education at the local level.
Very important mechanisms of quality assurance are skills demonstrations and skills tests. Skills tests came into force in 1994 a part of the system in adult VET and in 2006 in all VET qualifications. In competence-based qualification system FNBE verifies the qualifications requirements, appoints qualification committees and evaluates the conditions of educational institutions to arrange skills tests. The educational institutions can organize preparatory training leading to the competence-based qualifications. The qualification committees make contracts with educational institutions which in practice organize and implement the tests of competence. The committees are also responsible for the quality of the tests. They oversee the arrangements of competence tests and award qualification certificates.
The system of evaluation by learning outcomes shall be integrated in the future with the skills demonstration system and the concomitant system of assessment by skills tests. The necessary information is gleaned from the skills demonstrations administered by the organiser of education, where the competence of the student is assessed in a context that is similar to the real situations the student will be confronted with when entering working life. Evaluation data is gathered from these demonstrations by study entity throughout the student's training.
Anticipation of the Match Between Bemand and Supply
Anticipation is important task both at national and regional levels. Main emphasis is in the co-operation between enterprises and VET -providers.
Evaluation of Education System
Regulations
The purpose of evaluation of education and training is to ensure that the Vocational Education and Training Act to implement and to support the development of education and training, and to improve the preconditions for learning. This act obliges the providers of vocational education and training to assess their educational offering and its effectiveness, and to participate in the external assessment of their operation. The Ministry of Education in Finland has within its organisation a body called the Education Evaluation Council for the purpose of conducting external assessments. The Council organises its functioning via a network of assessment experts representing universities, the National Board of Education and other related organisations.
National Evaluations
The purpose of the national evaluation system of learning outcomes and the performance of education and training is to produce information on the quality if learning outcomes. The results of these evaluations are utilised in the development of the education system and national core curricula, as well as in quality improvement of VET providers and in practical teaching. The results are also used to monitor the achievement of equality in education and training.
Self-Evaluation of VET providers
Vocational education act obligates the organiser/provider of education to develop its self-evaluation system and to evaluate the education provided and its effectiveness, and to participate in the external evaluation of its operation. There is no obligation for the VET-providers to use specific model or framework. There is however some recommendations concerning quality management and self-assessment at the providers level. That way it gives flexibility to chose the model, framework and tools of self-evaluation that takes best in account the needs of the provider and the educational field (business). Educational institutions have also recommend to implement internal audits/evaluations and peer reviews with each other and benchmarking activities as a part of evaluation. More and more often the VET-providers and educational institutions use external audits/evaluations in quality improvement. External audit/evaluation is based on the self-assessment of VET provider.
Quality Management Recommendations
The quality management recommendations and quality development projects in vocational education and training play important roles in supporting the quality development and assessment of providers of vocational education and training. The quality management recommendations are intended to create clear and uniform frameworks to support independent quality management on part of the education providers. The quality management recommendation for vocational education and training and for apprenticeship training is being reformed and updated.
The new recommendation will take into consideration the challenges, including on-the-job learning, created by the criteria of the renewed curricula and vocational basic qualifications. One premise for this work is provided by the EU’s policy outlines related to quality management in vocational education and training. One of the goals of this project is to develop concrete methods and practical of tools for VET-providers and schools. The recommendations shall be updated and developed according to the dimensions and aspects of the CQAF-model. At first phase of the project there have been studied the use of and the development needs for the previous recommendations and the need for new recommendations in reference to the CQAF-model. The objective is for the recommendation to be ready by the beginning of 2006. Tools supporting quality management in vocational education and training will be developed later in the project, during 2006.