New Europass Decision and the role of Open Badges

Since over ten years, Europass is a succesful portfolio of clearly defined but closed set of documents that individuals can use to communicate and present their qualifications and competences.

But the labour market has transformed. People communicate and manage their skills and qualifications in new ways; employers need information to assist them understand, trust and recognise all forms of skills acquired by potential employees from different sources; and educational institutions are equally interested in skills and experiences of individuals that may be seeking validation of learning or entry into programmes.

The Europass Innovation working group published in April 2016 a report (Europass 2020: A vision for meeting the current and future needs of modern European citizens in recording and promoting skills, qualifications and experience). The opinion of this working group in short: Currently there is a landscape of scattered EU tools that get outdated rapidly. Integration of tools and real improvements are needed to reach digital and semantical compatibility. A popular service such as Europass should enable users to communicate validated skills and competences from various sources in a user friendly and personalised way. We were very happy to see the new Europass Decision (published October 4, a proposal “on a common framework for the provision of better services for skills and qualifications”) move in the same direction, including recognition of the potential of Open Badges. And that is very good news!