Configuration of European Vocational Education policy to meet the new demands of the labor market

Abstract

The Education and, especially, the vocational training cannot be distant to the transformations of
the social and economic structure, and must pay particular attention to the changes that have
resulted from the processes of globalization and development of new technologies of information
and communication involving a new restructuring of work and therefore need to rethink the
education and training of workers.
In this scenario, the European systems of Vocational Education and Training (VET), at present are
engaged in a process of changes to meet the challenges raised by the Summit of Lisbon before the
beginning of the century and make the European Union becomes the most competitive society of
knowledge in the world. This raises the need for national reforms following the same direction to
achieve common goals, designed to do the Open Method of Coordination (OMT).
A key concept of the present European Education Policy is "lifelong learning", which will become
the protagonist in the political discourse referred to education and training in the European Union.
Another concept that will impregnate the educational European policy is "professional
competence". By extending the concept of lifelong learning and emphasize the professional
competences, may facilitate the access to education and raise the level of it (objective of
educational policies of the European Union).
In this article, we reflect on what implications all that have on the professional education who are
reconfigured along these lines