On 21st and 22nd April, ESU organised the validation conference for its’ pilot project on involving stakeholders in the European Qualifications’ Framework. The project, which has been running for the last 18 months, was intended to bring stakeholders from around Europe together to have national and trans-national discussions on the implementation of the EQF and their role in any such implementations. ESU has been working on the project together with the following partners:

-    AuGENT – the Ghent University Association
-    EON – the Norwegian School Student Union
-    SVIZ – the Slovenian Teachers’ Trade Union
-    USI – the Irish National Union of Students
-    BDA – the German Employers’ Union

In addition, FZS, the German national union of students, also aided ESU in implementing the project during its’ final stages. During the course of the project, each partner held two dialogues in their respective countries, bringing together a wide base of stakeholders, to discuss the EQF, their impressions of it, and their perceived roles in implementing it. Following this, the Lake Bled conference was intended to bring together these experiences, and draw some conclusions which might be applied at European level from such.

The main themes that arose from the conference, as summarised by the general rapporteur Benardette Farrell (USI), were as following:

-    Stakeholder involvement, not only in the general processes of educational reform, but in particular in NQF and EQF development is imperative
The partner reports showed without doubt, that the development of national frameworks in countries where stakeholders were involved, was more successful in terms of the level of ownership felt by stakeholders over the whole process, the applicability of the NQF to all areas of learning, especially those outside the formal (or traditional) ambit, and the overall adoption of the concept of qualification frameworks by the educational and business communities as a whole

-    There is a need to broaden our current concept of stakeholder groups
The stakeholder principle is meant to embrace the concept that any group of people who have a stake in an educational process, also deserve a say in such process proportionate to that stake. As qualification frameworks help to widen the borders of such educational process, especially in terms of the profile of participants in education, the need to redefine our conception of the traditional stakeholder groups is being increasingly felt.

-    Not all stakeholders are sufficiently empowered to contribute to the process
Reasons for this were varied, with the many gripes being of financial or knowledge limitations. While claiming the need and right for representation, stakeholders also voiced the concern that the method of involvement must take into account the national organisational realities of the NGO sector, and adapt accordingly.

-    The limited awareness of both NQF and EQF is an area of concern for stakeholders
It was felt that the language of educational reform and of frameworks in particular can be prohibitive for many stakeholders, as well as for the general public and therefore effective communication of the frameworks to all stakeholders needs to be addressed. It must also be noted that, primarily due to this reason not all stakeholders involved in the conference believe the benefits of the framework sufficient to encourage their support.
There are many challenges still to face in the development of frameworks but with the involvement of stakeholders and strong underpinning tools creating transparency and trust, strong integrated education frameworks may be a reality.