TVET policies and programmes are of core importance to ensure that all people can enjoy inclusive skills development leading to both individuals’ affirmation and the creation of diversified learning environments.  As reported by Srinvas Reddy, Chief of the ILO Skills and Employability Branch, “inclusive skills development and lifelong learning opportunities are vital to prevent people from being left behind, to maintain people’s employability, and to ensure that economies and enterprises recover promptly from the crisis”.  (Guide on making TVET and skills development inclusive for all, ILO Skills and Employability Branch, 2020). 

Yet, as a result of rapid and increasing societal changes – as the digital transformation, climate change, globalisation, and demographic trends – in-depth transformation has been taking place in the labour market creating further constraints to inclusion and societal wellbeing. This condition has been further amplified by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the creation of the so-called ‘lockdown generation’.

The AER has been actively working on societal challenges throughout the past years. In 2018, it adopted a Position to express the need for new solutions (societal innovation) to societal and territorial challenges while ensuring quality public services and jobs.

In this context, public authorities, VET experts, and civil society organisations have a primary role in redefining and improving the TVET system at the local level and developing societal innovation to ensure that learning opportunities address everyone’s needs and specific conditions. 

The webinar aims to contribute to fostering an inclusive TVET system and skills development by offering a space for the exchange of knowledge and practices among policymakers, VET experts, and practitioners. Specifically, the webinar looked at:

•   Persisting challenges to inclusive learning and skills development
•   What are the changes needed in the TVET system to make it inclusive for everyone and what tools are available at the EU-level to this aim;
•   Existing successful societal innovation for inclusive TVET and skills development.