ECVET and learners change of pathways (1/2)

There is a large number of young people in Europe who leave education and training without holding any labour market related qualifications. If these people find employment, they often will only be able to take up unqualified jobs. This correlates with greater risk of unemployment and low wages. Providing these young people with suitable learning opportunities which prepare them for a qualification and a profession, is high on the political agenda of many European countries.
 
The use of ECVET can have a role to play in preventing young people from dropping out of education and training, as well as bringing young people back into education and training.
 
Use of ECVET in preventive measures: sometimes young people are at risk of dropping out, among other things, because the pathway that they follow is not adapted to their learning styles or aspirations. Reori­entation towards a more adapted education and training programme can be part of the solution to prevent dropping out. However, if the person is already advanced in his/her pathway, having to start from the begin­ning might have a contrary effect and lead to further de-motivation. ECVET could be used to enable recogni­tion of at least part of the credit (assessed learning outcomes) achieved in the past so that the learner does not have to start everything from zero again.
Use of ECVET in curative measures: when young people who have dropped out for some time from education and training return, they could also gain credit recognition for what they have learnt while in formal educa­tion and training; this could be combined with recognition for what they have learnt while working, if that was the case. Like above, the idea is to avoid the possibly de-motivating effect of having to start everything from the beginning while the person already has the relevant knowledge, skills and competence.
 
The competent authorities in charge of the qualifications system can decide to use ECVET to develop links and equivalences between units of different qualifications. Different qualifications can also contain common units (the same unit can be found in different qualifications9). It is possible that the relative weight of these units, as expressed in terms of ECVET points, is the same when the unit is common to several qualifications. However, depending on the system rules on the allocation of credit points, it is also possible that the relative weight would differ from one qualification to another even if the unit is the same.