Microcredentials promise to connect skills with demand in a rapidly changing labour market. They can strengthen vocational education and training (VET) relevant to the labour market, supporting national, regional and sectoral upskilling and retraining strategies, and offering learners and employers targeted training for better employment prospects, career advancement, productivity and keeping pace with technological progress.

Peer learning

Microcredentials have spread in recent years in all economic sectors and levels of education, strengthening European and national efforts for their better understanding and development. But as they gain more and more importance, greater progress is also needed in educational policies and their research in order to ultimately provide real value to end users.

The Erasmus+ project MC.VET Microcredentials – A New Path for Capacity Building in VET wants to contribute to the definition of microcredentials in the West Balkans countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, in order to strengthen the value and relevance of vocational education and training. Since it is a capacity-building project, one of the main activities for exchanging experiences and gaining new insights into microcredentials are peer-learning activities (PLA).

The aim of the peer learning activity are:

• show VET teachers and experts, as well as policy makers, new approaches to microcredentials in order to bring the labour market closer to VET and align national VET systems with changes in EU strategies
• improve the level of competence of VET teachers and trainers through PLAs in specific topics of implementation and development of microcredentials, including WBL, quality assurance and NQF-EQF linkage.

Achieved results

The goal of the MC.VET project was to implement two transnational peer learning activities in Zagreb (March 2023) and in Novi Mesto (September 2023). Partners have afterwards organized national PLAs to share ideas, experiences and knowledge about the definition and implementation of microcredentials in EU and Croatia with other VET experts as well as with employers in their countries.

Out of the planned 10 national activities, the partners organized 12 with the participation of a total of 257 participants. Since microcredentials concern not only experts in education, a whole range of stakeholders participated in the activities, consisting of representatives of national institutions and agencies in charge of VET, representatives of regional and national ministries, employers, representatives of employment offices as well as a whole range of employers and representatives of employers’ associations.

The interest in the subject of microcredentials is extremely high, so that the partners gathered over 250 participants for the activities. Although the educational systems of partner countries in which microcredentials are or will be implemented, all participants in the PLAs agree that they are very necessary and will help the VET system.

At the same time, it is important to set frameworks that will define compliance with the needs of the labour market and include European mechanisms of transparency and quality assurance.

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