The Copenhagen declaration (November 2002) set the basis for the development of a Common Quality Assurance Framework for VET n Europe (CQAF). In May 2004 the European Council endorsed the CQAF. CQAF builds on the target set by the European Council and is included in the report on the follow-up of the objectives of the education and training systems in Europe. The European Network for Quality Assurance in VET (ENQA-VET) established in October 2005, provided a number of initiative and projects at European and national levels, which were carried out to support, test and refine the CQAF.
BEQUAL project contributes to EU policies by promoting the use of CQAF in VET providers. BEQUAL uses CQAF as a basis to support development of quality assurance in VET, by promoting benchmarking and exchange of best practices among VET providers in the same or in different European countries.
BEQUAL project targets VET providers, policy makers and stakeholders.
The objectives of BEQUAL project are:
• To develop quality assurance in vocational education and training institutes.
• To promote the use of the Common Quality Assurance Framework (CQAF) in VET institutes, by identifying, comparing and exchanging best practices in quality assurance in VET
• To allow practical application of the CQAF in VET through the use of online benchmarking tool and best practice database
• To build and capitalize on previous work carried out by CEDEFOP, DG Education & Culture, European Training Forum, Leonardo da Vinci Programme and European Network for Quality Assurance in VET.
• To promote transnational cooperation through the operation of a thematic portal in quality assurance in VET and develop a Community of Practice.
The partnership is composed by 8 partners from 6 European countries, 3 consulting companies, 1 research organisation, 1 training centre, 1 trade union and 2 associations in the field of training that complement each other in terms of expertise and thus provide the necessary different points of view in the development of the products. Other participants involved in the project are national and regional VET policy makers and stakeholders and networks of VET providers.
Project results are:
Online benchmarking tool, which will be used to compare quality processes and practices of VET institutes with each other and with the CQAF, and to identify best practicesin quality assurance in VET,
Thematic portal, hosted in the address www.bequal.info. The portal includes the following functions: Online benchmarking tool, blogs, news and newsfeeds, links, library, resources and articles, polls, login module, who is on-line module, RSS function
Establishment of a Community of Practice (CoP) in the theme of quality assurance in VET. For the creation of the CoP, there have been a series of networking activities for VET stakeholders and practitioners, in view to facilitate the best practices exchange. The networking activities, so far, include direct contacts with VET providers and stakeholders, organisation of workshops, presentations in conferences and other events and the operation of blogs n the portal.
