2. Also Abroad youth education - developing the learner's personality

The Danish VET system provides a broad-based education, not only covering vocational skills and knowledge, but also offering good opportunities for personal development of the students. This becomes evident from the objectives laid down in the Act on Vocational Education and Training:

• to motivate young people to learn and to ensure that all young persons who would like to undergo vocational training get a chance to do so and that they also have the opportunity of selecting a suitable option from a wide range of training schemes;
• to provide young people with education and training opportunities which form the basis for their future professional career and contribute to their personal development and to their understanding of society and its development;
• to satisfy the needs of the labour market for vocational and general skills and the competence necessary to contribute to the development of trade and industry including commercial and economic structures, labour market conditions, workplace organisation and technology;
• to provide young people seeking further education and training with a basis to do so.

Central regulation is confined to objectives and other content-driven framework conditions in important general areas. This provides maximum freedom to innovate, and dynamism at the local level. It allows for rapid innovations to be made in training courses, a more effective adaptation to the needs of the students and is generally resulting in more efficiency. Renewal and educational innovation therefore represent the cornerstones of the educational system. By decentralising a substantial part of the curricular development, local educational development work becomes a responsibility of the college - the colleges are encouraged to take on responsibility of educational innovations.

The underlying educational approach is shifting towards new types of education and training. It is aimed at problem-solving techniques, modern work organisation, self-assessment of students_ work etc. General skills, group work and autonomous work for which the student is responsible are provided by "open learning centres" and are designed to prepare young people for individual requirements of further training.

Students and adolescents participating in vocational education and training are assessed on the basis of their qualifications and individual skills obtained. Given the appropriate qualifications, they may skip education and training modules so that students with comparable educational levels can join the same class.

Denne side indgår i publikationen "New structure of the Danish Vocational Education and Training System" som kapitel 2 af 8
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