PEER REVIEW OF THE QUALITY OF THE SLOVENIAN SECONDARY VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING SYSTEM – part of the EQAVET NRP SLO 2021–2023 project

In November 2020 the Council of the European Union published the Council Recommendation  on vocational education and training (VET) for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness and resilience, which called on the EQAVET network to develop a specific methodology for peer reviews of quality assurance between Member States. The purpose of the peer reviews is to support the improvement and transparency of quality assurance arrangements in Member States at the level of VET systems.

In 2021 the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL), which is the European Commission department responsible for EU policy on employment, social affairs, skills, labour mobility and related EU funding programmes, and the EQAVET Secretariat agreed on a joint methodology for peer reviews and presented it in a manual.

The Quality Assurance National Reference Points (EQAVET NRPs) of 21 Member States, including Slovenia, agreed to undertake an external evaluation of quality management at VET system level in the form of EQAVET system peer reviews between Member States.

The theme of this evaluation in Slovenia was the national system of support for internal quality management at secondary vocational and professional schools. EQAVET system peer reviews were performed by representatives from the EQAVET NRPs of Austria, Greece, Croatia, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, under the supervision of an European expert. The peer review visit was coordinated by the EQAVET NRP in Slovenia and the EQAVET Secretariat.

Peer reviews take place in accordance with the joint methodology and in several parallel phases. In the preparatory phase, Slovenia drafted a self-evaluation report on the basis of which it designed the peer review visit in collaboration with the EQAVET Secretariat. The visit took place on 1 and 2 June 2023 at KULT316 at BIC Ljubljana. Representatives of four secondary vocational and professional schools/school centres, representatives of the Department for Quality Assurance and Analysis at the Ministry of Education’s Office for Development and Quality Assurance, and a representative of the National Examinations Centre took part in the visit, in addition to representatives of the EQAVET NRP at the Institute for Vocational Education and Training. As it does in every country, the EQAVET Secretariat also provided the support of an objective national expert, who worked with the EQAVET NRP during preparations for the peer review and the peer review itself.

At the conclusion of the visit, we received the first feedback from the assessment team of foreign experts in which they stressed the importance of having a ‘critical friend’ and external evaluation. We received the final evaluation report at the end of June 2023. Evaluation findings are an important resource in the planning of improvements to the national system of support to secondary vocational and professional schools in their internal quality management efforts.  For us, the representatives of national stakeholders, the findings present an opportunity for thorough reflection and consideration of the next development steps in the area of quality management in education in Slovenia. The assessors’ questions prompted us to reflect deeply and led prompted a number of interesting professional debates. The meeting helped us take a big stride forward in strengthening professional national-level cooperation, and established mutual trust between all participating countries, which encouraged us to engage in further cooperation and networking within the EQAVET project.

STRENGTHS HIGHLIGHTED BY THE ASSESSORS:

• The assessors praised the openness and motivation of the Ministry of Education in identifying the reasons for inactivity or insufficient activity in systematic quality management on the part of a significant percentage of schools.
• They acknowledged that the EQAVET NRP was a strong intermediate partner in the provision of support to schools, praised the tailoring of support to the needs of schools, and encouraged us to continue developing further policy orientations. They encouraged the CPI to use the available resources, knowledge and competences of staff, provide support to schools and expand that support to all schools.
• They confirmed that some schools represented examples of good quality management practice and could serve as model schools offering support to others.
• They acknowledged that the stakeholders present were aware that the task of ensuring the quality of secondary vocational education and training was everyone’s responsibility, and that we had to resolve problems together.
• They praised the establishment of school quality committees, which include pupils and external partners (parents and employers) and whose existence is guaranteed in law, as they can work as an advisory support body for schools.
• They acknowledged that they provided a great deal of guidance material and tools to schools in the country, including self-evaluation; in addition, schools could enhance their approaches by taking part in development projects.

AREAS FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION HIGHLIGHTED BY THE ASSESSORS:

• The assessors advised the Ministry of Education to formulate a clear vision setting out the purpose and a set of clear objectives in relation to quality assurance and development, and to continue to develop a national quality assurance framework for education and training.
• They advised it to undertake additional work to clarify the quality assurance terminology, compile a national glossary of terms, promote the use of common terminology, and provide a precise explanation of the role of self-evaluation reports in the school quality assurance process.
• They advised the ministry and the CPI to engage in constant dialogue, and to establish partnerships with all schools to allow schools to present the advantages of systematic quality management on a regular basis. They made particular mention of the importance of constant dialogue with those schools that remain inactive or insufficiently active in the area of systematic quality management and do not compile and/or publish quality reports. It is important to acknowledge the reasons for this and understand their position, so as to make it possible to design the appropriate support for them. They proposed that a communication plan with all schools be prepared for the purpose of leading constant dialogue.
• They proposed encouraging schools to consider the long-term strategic objectives and use of self-evaluation or internal quality assurance systems as tools in the pursuit of the strategic objectives. At the same time they proposed a change of focus from self-evaluation to the establishment of all-encompassing internal quality assurance systems at schools. This should include a development programme and a comprehensive quality assurance cycle as an integral process within the system (and not as additional work). Quality assurance systems should have clearly defined objectives, tools and responsibilities.
• The assessors stressed that the roles and responsibilities of all quality management stakeholders, both at system level (Ministry of Education, public institutes, etc.) and school level (headteachers, teachers, pupils, consortiums of school centres, etc.), should be clarified.
• They acknowledged the difficulties in striking a balance between central control and school autonomy in quality management at schools. They proposed that consideration be given to the introduction of a more centralised approach to guiding schools through the quality management process, particularly those that remained inactive or insufficiently active in this area, and to add forms of external evaluation with the aim of improving support to schools that remain ‘outside’ the system.
• They proposed the establishment of quality assurance networks of schools and greater recognition of the expert knowledge of team members and quality assurance professionals. This recognition could take the form of various formalised incentives (e.g. in terms of career development).

We agreed that the peer review was very successful and would contribute to the further development and promotion of a culture of systematic quality management in vocational education and training in Slovenia.