Episode 12: Cedefop expert Jens Bjørnåvold on a career dedicated to vocational education and training
Skillset and match
Cedefop
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🗓️ 2 December 2022
⏱️ 19 minutes
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Summary
As he approaches retirement after 26 years of serving European vocational education and training (VET), award-winning Cedefop expert Jens Bjørnåvold shares his career experience, views and predictions on the future of VET, lifelong learning, validation of prior learning and qualifications. Will VET withstand the test of the changing education and labour market landscape? Jens says he cannot imagine a society without vocational training and points to lifelong learning as a basic driver of future individual and collective development. He also assures us that he will continue to be involved in the field, only this time from his hometown in Norway. Listen to his fascinating insights.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | He is one of the longest-serving set of employees and an award-winning expert on vocational education and training or vet. |
| 0:20.6 | Yes, Bjornowold will be retiring in a few weeks' time |
| 0:23.8 | after 26 years of service, first in Thessaloniki and then in Brussels. |
| 0:29.6 | He joined as a seconded national expert from Norway |
| 0:33.0 | and in the process received recognition as one of Europe's authorities on all things vet. |
| 0:43.3 | Hello and welcome to the SETE for podcast, Skillset and Match. |
| 0:47.3 | I'm Rosie Vooduri and Jens is in the studio with me to tell us all about his distinguished career |
| 0:53.3 | and how he sees Vets' future. Thank you for |
| 0:56.5 | joining us, Jens. Thank you for having me. Why don't we start from the beginning? How did you |
| 1:01.5 | end up joining Sedefov? By chance, really, because I was working in Norway as a researcher. |
| 1:07.6 | I was doing some evaluations of national reforms in vocational education and training for the ministry. Norway at that point, I was doing some evaluations of national reforms in vocational education |
| 1:12.1 | and training for the Ministry. |
| 1:14.2 | Norway at that point joined the European Economic Area, after having said no to the European |
| 1:19.3 | Union by the way, and that opened up for the possibility of having national seconded |
| 1:24.6 | expert in EU institutions. |
| 1:26.6 | And then the ministry told me, well, there is a |
| 1:28.8 | possibility in this agency in Greece working on Vetsa, would you be interested? And yes, I was interested |
| 1:35.7 | and my family was interested and off we went to Tosolonecke. That signalled the beginning of your |
| 1:41.3 | career here. And of course, as you said, apart from the EU member states, Norway and Iceland, |
| 1:47.1 | are also two countries that SEDAFOP works with. |
| 1:51.1 | Yes, that's correct. |
| 1:52.3 | And that arrangement came about in 1996 as part of the European Economic Area Agreement |
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