Agile Occupational and Training Standards for Responsive Skills Policies

In French-speaking Belgium, a dedicated organisation, the Service Francophone des Métiers et des Qualifications (SFMQ), was created in 2009 solely for the purpose of producing and updating occupational and training standards. Established by a co‑operation agreement between the College of the French community commission in Brussels, the Government of Wallonia and the government of the French-speaking community (Fédération Wallonie‑Bruxelles),1 the SFMQ brings together social partners and various stakeholders involved in vocational education and training and in the recognition of prior learning (RPL).

The SFMQ plays a central role in the education and training landscape of French-speaking Belgium. Its main responsibility is to provide a common language and set of references for the otherwise very diverse providers of vocational education and training. Such standardisation can foster mobility of learners between different providers, thereby facilitating lifelong learning. Indeed, in theory, a learner who validates units of learning outcomes within one provider could transfer to another operator without having to study for these units and pass the corresponding exams once again. A common language also encourages mobility between different regions of French-speaking Belgium and between VET providers and labour market institutions, such as the public employment services. Furthermore, the involvement of social partners in drafting occupational standards and the systematic link between occupational and training standards ensure that companies’ skill needs are taken into account and that the training offer is aligned with labour market needs. SFMQ also takes part in the positioning of vocational qualifications on the Francophone Qualifications Framework.

Occupational standards produced by SFMQ detail the tasks performed in occupations and list the skills required to perform these tasks. Occupational standards characterised by the same type of production or service form “occupational clusters”. This permits the identification of links between different occupations as well as possible professional pathways. Training standards translate professional skills contained in occupational standards into learning outcomes that are subsequently gathered into units of learning outcomes. This facilitates training modularisation. Training standards also contain assessment profiles, which present common assessment frameworks to be used by education and training providers and by the organisation in charge of RPL. Assessment profiles define tasks to be executed, elements of complexity in the execution of determined tasks as well as minimum performance standards required to obtain the qualifications. Additionally, training standards include equipment profiles, which determine the equipment and infrastructure needed to implement training standards. Since its creation, more than 180 standards have been created by SFMQ.

The production of occupational and training standards is a collective effort involving various stakeholders. SFMQ is the main responsible organisation, but it collaborates with many other institutions, gathered in different chambers and committees. The Chamber of Professions brings together organisations representing either workers or employers, as well as the public employment services and appoints experts that will take part in committees responsible for the development of occupational standards. These experts usually come from firms that employ workers in the specific occupation. The Education and Training Chamber is made up of representatives of education and training providers and of the organisation responsible for the recognition of prior learning (Consortium de Validation des Compétences) and appoints members that will take part in training standards committees. Most of these members themselves come from public education and training providers and from the RPL operator and are experts of the training in question.

The production of an occupational standard and its associated training standard is organised around five main stages displayed in Figure 1. At present, the whole process takes between two and three years on average.

Every year, the Chamber of Professions chooses which occupational standards to create or update. This decision is based on requests and recommendations emanating from the different ministries responsible for education, training, and employment, as well as proposals put forward by representatives of industries, by the public employment services, and by the Education and Training Chamber. Among its selection criteria, the Chamber of Professions must consider the economic context, the labour market situation, regional priorities, and, in the case of an update, the number of learners concerned by the associated training programmes.

A preliminary study is then carried out by SFMQ, to gain a better understanding of the job, its technical, regulatory and training environments, and the skills required. This study also investigates closely related occupations, to create job clusters for which the occupational standards will be developed simultaneously by the same committee of experts to exploit synergies and make the production process as efficient as possible. The preliminary study is based on existing occupational standards in other countries, such as the French ROME repository, the Flemish database Competent, documents provided by industry associations, desk research, field visits and interviews of experts.

Once the preliminary study is ready and validated by the Chamber of Professions, the occupational committee discusses the tasks performed in the occupation and the skills required to perform these tasks to establish the occupational standard. Once the occupational standard has been validated by the Chamber of Professions, the Education and Training Chamber is responsible for producing the corresponding training standard. More specifically, the training committee is tasked with translating the skills required in the occupation into learning outcomes organised into unit of learning outcomes. The training standard is based mainly on the occupational standard, but also on existing training programmes. This training standard needs to be validated by the Education and Training Chamber and by the Chamber of Professions, that checks whether it effectively corresponds to the occupational standard. Finally, the qualification issued from the training standard is positioned on the Francophone Qualifications Framework. A proposal is made by SFMQ and validated by the Francophone Qualifications Framework itself.

When major changes need to be made to occupational and/or training standards, for example to take account of changes in skill requirements following the introduction of new technology, standards are reviewed and updated. The update of an occupational standard and its associated training standard is initiated by the Chamber of Professions upon request or acting on its own initiative, and generally follows the same process as the creation of new occupational and training standards. However, a simplified procedure may be implemented when changes are deemed minor (for example if the update is related to a small modification of the legislation). When this is the case, changes to the standards are proposed by SFMQ, after consultations with occupational or training experts, and are validated by the Chambers.