TVETipedia Glossary

European credit system for vocational education and training (ECVET)

The European Union (EU) has several common instruments helping individuals in transfer, recognition and accumulation of their assessed learning outcomes, to achieve a qualification or to take part in lifelong learning. The European credit system for vocational education and training (ECVET) is one of these instruments; it uses flexible and individualised learning pathways, including transnational mobility.

Source:
Cedefop, Glossary. Terminology of European education and training policy, (accessed 03/2023)
Cedefop, Glossary. Terminology of European education and training policy, (accessed 03/2023)
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This multilingual glossary (provided in a multitude of European languages) defines a selection of key terms used in European education and training policy. It is a revised and expanded version of the “Terminology of European education and training policy – A selection of 130 key terms” (2014). It considers new priorities of European Union policy, mainly concerning skills intelligence and employment. New definitions have been developed in collaboration with the experts of Cedefop’s departments VET and Skills and VET and Qualifications.

ECVET allows learners to accumulate, transfer and use their learning in units as these units are achieved. This enables building a qualification at learners’ own pace from learning outcomes acquired in formal, non-formal and informal contexts, in their own country and abroad. The system is based on units of learning outcomes as part of qualifications that can be assessed and validated.

It offers a framework for making learners more mobile and qualifications more portable, laying down principles and technical specifications and making use of existing national legislation and regulations. It applies to VET (vocational education and training) qualifications at all levels of the European qualifications framework.

ECVET complements and builds on concepts and principles shared with the European qualifications framework (EQF), Europass and the European quality assurance reference framework for VET (EQARF).