EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Brussels, 17.7.2023
COM(2023) 439 final
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL
EVALUATION of the Council Recommendation of 19 December 2016 on Upskilling Pathways: New Opportunities for adults
This document is an excerpt from the EUR-Lex website
Document 52023DC0439
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL EVALUATION of the Council Recommendation of 19 December 2016 on Upskilling Pathways: New Opportunities for adults
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL EVALUATION of the Council Recommendation of 19 December 2016 on Upskilling Pathways: New Opportunities for adults
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL EVALUATION of the Council Recommendation of 19 December 2016 on Upskilling Pathways: New Opportunities for adults
COM/2023/439 final
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Brussels, 17.7.2023
COM(2023) 439 final
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL
EVALUATION of the Council Recommendation of 19 December 2016 on Upskilling Pathways: New Opportunities for adults
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL
EVALUATION of the Council Recommendation of 19 December 2016 on Upskilling Pathways: New opportunities for adults
1.Introduction
The accelerating digital and green transitions mean that the skills acquired during initial education and training are no longer sufficient to meet the evolving demands of the labour market, and adults need to develop their skills throughout their lives. Moreover, demographic trends leading to a shrinking workforce are expected to accelerate in the coming decade, increasing the pressure to use the full potential of the skills of everyone on the labour market. This is why the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan sets the target that at least 60% of adults should participate in training every year by 2030. EU leaders welcomed this ambitious target at the 2021 Porto Social Summit and Member States have translated them into national targets 1 .
The European Skills Agenda provides for a strategy to help individuals and businesses develop more and better skills. It delivers on the European Pillar of Social Rights and notably its first principle spelling out the right to quality and inclusive education, training and lifelong learning and inter-links with other policy initiatives that support the lifelong learning approach. Basic skills – literacy, numeracy and digital – are the foundation for full participation in society and the labour market. However, far too many adults in the EU do not possess a functional level of these skills 2 and they risk getting stuck in a “low skills-poor jobs trap” 3 . This calls for policy action to support basic skills acquisition.
The objective of the Council Recommendation on Upskilling Pathways 4 is to respond to this risk and provide adults with a low level of skills, knowledge or competence, for instance adults with a qualification below the secondary level, with opportunities to develop basic skills and/or acquire a wider set of skills, relevant for active participation in society and the labour market.
The mismatch between labour market demands and the supply of skilled labour also motivated the decision on the European Year of Skills which emphasises the need to upskill and reskill people as well as activate more for the labour market. 5 In her State of the European Union address announcing the proposal, President von der Leyen highlighted that “we need everyone on board” as Europe lacks not only high-end professionals but also “truck drivers, waiters and airport workers”. 6 The recent Green Deal Industrial Plan 7 , further emphasises the need to address today’s wide-spread skills shortages that hold back the EU’s investment and growth.
To reach the objectives of the Recommendation, Member States were invited to provide adults with a low level of skills with personalised support via an integrated pathway consisting of three steps.
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1) Skills assessment – identifying the existing skills of adults and any gaps in the skills set that need to be filled. |
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2) Provision of a tailored and flexible learning offer – providing a learning offer which fills the specific skills gaps identified through the skills assessment. |
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3) Validation and recognition – assessing and certifying the skills acquired and encouraging their certification towards a formal qualification |
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Member States were recommended to identify priority target groups, ensure effective coordination and partnership among stakeholders, and implement outreach, guidance and support measures to make potential beneficiaries aware of the existing opportunities and guide them through all steps of the process. The Recommendation asks the Commission to report to the Council on the implementation in Member States and at EU level. This report draws on the evaluation staff working document 8 .
2.Main Evaluation Findings
This chapter presents the extent to which the Recommendation is effective, efficient and coherent, provides EU added value and remains relevant to tackle present needs, bearing in mind that a Council Recommendation is of a non-binding nature.
Effectiveness
The available evidence paints a picture of overall moderate effectiveness of the Recommendation.
Relevant indicators show moderate positive trends and implementation has been uneven across the Member States with measures often lacking scale and coordination. Whilst some stakeholders view the Recommendation as a catalyst for renewed focus on support for adults to acquire basic skills 9 and consider the three step-approach as a useful reference point, the evaluation finds improvements in implementing the three steps of the Recommendation in only 14 Member States. 10
Skills assessment opportunities are now wide-spread across Member States, but require further staff professionalisation and a non-stigmatising social perception. This means that skills assessment can be communicated in a more positive and motivating way by emphasising existing skills to build upon. Several Member States have taken steps to improve the provision of tailored and flexible learning offers to low-skilled adults 11 , but challenges remain due to insufficient funding – often only EU project-based funding as opposed to domestic structural funding – to support the diverse target groups and barriers to access and take-up. Similarly, skills validation and recognition have improved in some Member States, but often with limited integration in the education and training system and low awareness and take-up among adults. 12
The share of low qualified adults 13 aged 25-64 decreased from 23.4% in 2016 (56.1 million) to 20.7% in 2021 14 (48.7 million). However, external factors other than this Recommendation, notably demographic changes, may have contributed to these trends. 15
National implementation measures identify a large number of priority target groups 16 , but stakeholders report that challenges remain in effectively reaching them. 17 Stakeholders also report that the impact of digitalisation has greatly increased the target group of the Recommendation. Nowadays, with the increasing move to digital environments, all individuals need at least basic digital skills. Additionally, they also highlighted the specific responsibility of public support for adult’s basic skills development, emphasising that such skills are often taken for granted by employers 18 .
Career guidance by the public employment services is widely available, but suffers from low levels of awareness, may be perceived as intimidating 19 , and is not always available to low-skilled who are not unemployed. 20
Member States have delivered implementation measures in cooperation with relevant stakeholders, in particular public employment services, social partners, NGOs and local actors including public libraries 21 . However, sometimes roles and responsibilities are not clear enough and coordination is not effective, for instance between the ministries of education and labour, and between national and regional authorities 22 .
A joined-up strategic approach between all three steps 23 is crucial to ensure that adult learners feel supported and stay committed to their upskilling pathway, but it is not common 24 . Some stakeholders note that to assist the low-skilled adults furthest away from learning, support concerning the three steps should be integrated with social services and labour market programmes. 25
Efficiency
Whilst stakeholders consider the implementation costs as proportionate 26 to the benefits, independently of the starting point of a Member State, no strong conclusions on efficiency can be drawn since Member States have not systematically collected data on the costs and benefits of implementation measures. This reflects low overall implementation costs in most Member States and comparatively large benefits in terms of direct upskilling measures, but also in the form of increased awareness and more attention to adults’ basic skills in the national debate.
EU funds have co-funded many of the implementation measures during the evaluation period, in particular, the European Social Fund (ESF) 27 . Efficiency of implementation is perceived to vary with the degree of presence of different features: i.e. clear responsibilities assigned between actors, processes in place to select quality training providers and involvement of specifically trained staff and cooperation with employers, as well as monitoring and evaluation used to improve delivery.
Coherence
Stakeholders consulted at both EU and national level consider the Recommendation to be internally coherent, with consistent objectives, recommendations and expected impacts. The measures proposed in the Recommendation are perceived to provide a comprehensive policy framework to guide implementation actions at national level. Stakeholders also report a high level of coherence between the Recommendation and relevant policies and strategies at national and regional level. However, insufficient integration of the three steps into a single pathway and a lack of strategic coordination between implementation measures and other parts of the adult learning system challenge the coherent implementation at national level.
The Recommendation is also perceived to be coherent with and complementary to other relevant EU initiatives related to skills and employment. 28
Almost all stakeholders consulted at both EU and national level considered that there was good policy coherence between the Recommendation and relevant EU funding mechanisms. 29
EU added value
Given that the Recommendation is non-binding, the EU added value materialised mostly in the form of increased policy attention on low basic skills among adults in several Member States. Moreover, the Recommendation provided a common framework for national policy action, fostered stakeholder collaboration within and across Member States, and/or mobilised funding and technical support for policy experimentation. In some Member States, the Recommendation served as an inspiration for reforms of the adult learning system. 30 In others, it served as a benchmark against which to compare the existing support systems, and pilot or introduce targeted provisions concerning one of the three steps.
Stakeholders appreciated the Recommendation’s role in fostering knowledge sharing across Member States 31 . Technical assistance was provided via the Structural Reform Support Programme (SRSP) or its successor, the Technical Support Instrument (TSI) 32 , as well as indirectly by supporting the OECD in developing national skills strategies and diagnostic reports in several Member States. 33 Finally, stakeholders highlighted that the Recommendation helped to direct EU funds from the various funding streams towards basic skills development projects for diverse target groups.
Relevance
Stakeholders are nearly unanimous in their view that the Recommendation’s objectives are still relevant 34 , which is reflected also in the recent high-level EU targets. Similarly, stakeholders consider the measures defined in the Recommendation to be still relevant to meet its objectives: they highlighted the continued need for supporting the low-skilled with specifically tailored measures and the continued relevance of the Recommendation’s “system building” approach.
Stakeholders also perceive that the EU level attention to implementation continues to be relevant 35 as it has made a difference over the evaluation period by increasing policy attention for adult basic skills development, and fostering national reform and policy experimentation.
3.Ways Forward to Strengthen Implementation
Despite the progress made, significant implementation challenges still remain:
·The first main challenge is uneven implementation progress among Member States, with large discrepancies in upskilling opportunities available for low-skilled adults.
·The second main challenge is the often still small scale and insufficient effective outreach 36 of implementation measures taken by the Member States
·The third main challenge is the dominant role of project-based EU funding as opposed to structural domestic funding.
·A fourth main challenge is the often insufficient integration of the three steps of the Recommendation into a comprehensive pathway, reflecting an insufficient degree of strategic coordination. The joined-up approach of the Recommendation is often not reflected in Member States’ implementation measures. This limits the scope for monitoring and evaluation, and the capacity to draw lessons from the evidence.
As labour shortages and skills mismatches are increasing, the Commission considers that more should be done to improve the implementation of the Council Recommendation on Upskilling Pathways. This is necessary to provide everyone with opportunities on the labour market and in society and avoid the “low skills-poor jobs trap”. This is equally necessary to fill the skills gaps on the labour market and drive forward the EU’s competitiveness and the green and digital transitions. It also recognises that skills development throughout life is an individual right as spelled out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the European Pillar of Social Rights 37 and translated into its Action Plan 38 .
To strengthen implementation, Member States, supported by the Commission, should be invited to:
·Strengthen strategic cooperation at national level to create integrated upskilling pathways and open up learning communities, including by developing and reviewing whole-of-government national skills strategies in close partnership with social partners, public employment services and other relevant stakeholders.
·Encourage collective action and a broad partnership approach on basic skills among private and public stakeholders, including through the Pact for Skills 39 , with a focus on the workplace as a learning environment.
·Better define the beneficiaries of upskilling to reflect trends such as digitalisation and greening of the economy, making sure no one is left behind, while adapting the support measures accordingly and tailoring them to specific needs on an individual basis.
·Broaden communicative outreach notably to the “hardest to reach” whilst avoiding stigmatisation through an emphasis on future upskilling benefits as opposed to current skills deficits.
·Use the significant EU resources under the national Recovery and Resilience Plans 40 and the European Social Fund Plus programmes to drive investment in skills, infrastructure and domestic reforms and sustain them through domestic funding in the medium to long-term to lead to structural improvements.
·Use the implementation of the Council Recommendation on individual learning accounts 41 to scale up the provision of non-stigmatising tailored, flexible and quality training opportunities, and facilitate their user-friendly integration with skills assessment, validation and career guidance supported by adequate domestic funding.
·Use the implementation of the Council Recommendation on micro-credentials 42 to increase transparency and recognition of the outcomes of short training courses.
Decision of the European Parliament and the Council on a European Year of Skills 2023 .
Adults with low level of educational attainment (i.e. ISCED levels 0-2).
87% of respondents to the public consultation agreed that EU policy guidance is still required to a fairly large or very large extent. Cf. also the position paper by the World Employment Confederation Europe, which states that “EU guidance is required to a fairly large extent to promote the exchange of good practices and promote mutual learning and bench-learning”.