From labour market to educational system: the case of ESCO

ESCO – a tool to facilitate a European labour market and VET system?

The EU has long had the aspiration of facilitating a European labour market with a co-ordinated vocational education and training (VET) system. The various attempts to do so over the last 30 years have primarily focussed on reforming the VET systems of EU member countries and developing forms of mutual recognition: the European Qualification Framework (EQF), the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET) and Europass are all examples. By contrast, European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO), under development since 2010, is a labour market mobility instrument aimed at the rapid development of information about skill demand across the EU. Skill demand should then translate into qualifications and credentials that indicate that a person has the necessary skills (cf. definition in the box).

The signals generated by ESCO can thus foster the creation of full-scale occupational qualifications, part-qualifications and microcredentials. Consisting of the three pillars skills, occupations and qualifications, it aims to provide both employers and jobseekers with information about the skills required for jobs. Drawing on methods first developed by the International Labour Organization (ILO), it analyses occupations in terms of the skills required.¹ According to ESCO, there are 13,939 skills in the European labour market at present.² It would be fair to say that the concept of skills is foundational to the ESCO approach: occupations and qualifications are built up from skill classifications.

Therefore, the approach so far has been to base labour market mobility and, consequently, VET system responsiveness, on the demand for skills. However, as a labour market instrument, ESCO is indirectly highly relevant to VET. Labour market signals concerning what packages of skills employers require can be registered within the ESCO skills pillar and then used by education and qualification bodies to design qualifications that will attract employers and jobseekers. Occupations are conceptualised as skill bundles. Employers can then use ESCO to create occupations by combining a selection of skills into a package. ESCO itself has been proactive in registering occupations based on the skills pillar and, using this method, has created 3,039 occupational profiles for easy reference by employers and jobseekers.

Occupational profiles can then serve as signals to VET providers to create and deliver qualifications and credentials. How? Using the concept of learning outcomes each ESCO skill can be associated with a description of learning required to exercise that skill. The EU defines learning outcomes as “…statements of what an individual should know, understand and/or be able to do at the end of a learning process, which are defined in terms of knowledge, skills and responsibility and autonomy.”³ An occupational profile with, for example, 17 skills can be associated with a qualification with 17 learning outcomes.

The term skill used by ESCO is ambiguous

The ESCO skills pillar, which is sometimes referred to as skills and competences pillar, applies a wide definition of skills (cf. Info box). It contains not only skills, but knowledge, skills and competences. In the skills pillar, ESCO distinguishes between 1. skill/competence concepts and 2. knowledge concepts by indicating the skill type. There is however no distinction between skills and competences recorded in the ESCO skills pillar.”⁴

From occupation to qualification: How skills are mapped onto learning outcomes

Broadly speaking, there are two ways to construct a vocational qualification. In the first, one starts with the aim of the occupation, works out the competencies needed to practise it, and then further sub-competencies are used to describe operations in more detail. Assessment concerns the ability of the candidate to demonstrate overall occupational competence. This is the approach adopted in the English Apprenticeship Standards or in the German Dual System training regulations, for example.

The other way of constructing an occupation seems to be favoured by the designers of ESCO. An occupational profile is constructed from a bundle of skills which are then mapped onto learning outcomes, which are in turn aggregated to form a qualification or credential. We can see how this might work out with an example. Taking a skill from the skills pillar such as “Safely operate hand equipment while suspended on a rope. Take on a secure and stable position before starting the operation. After finishing, store the equipment safely, usually by attaching it to a belt buckle” this can be mapped onto learning outcomes for three separate subskills.

• Is able to safely operate hand equipment while suspended on a rope.
• Is able to adopt a secure and stable position before working on a rope.
• On completion, is able to store equipment safely by attaching it to a belt buckle.

By aggregating these learning outcomes, a qualification describing the occupational profile is created. Such a qualification requires neither curriculum nor teaching, although it does not preclude them.

Content is set out through learning outcomes which can be assessed, if feasible, in a workplace environment, irrespective of how those learning outcomes have been acquired. If all the learning outcomes have been met, the candidate can receive the qualification. Assessment, rather than curriculum and didactics, is thus the dominant feature of such a qualification. All that matters is that the candidate can exercise the skills in a realistic setting. It does not matter where the ability came from nor how it is taught. Possession of a qualification achieved in this way is a guarantee that the holder satisfies the occupational profile which will then constitute an occupation within ESCO’s occupational pillar. Qualifications are thus created through a staged aggregative process.

1. The occupational profile is broken down into items from the ESCO skills pillar (reversing the occupational profile creation process).
2. Each skill is broken down into its components as in the example above.
3. Each component is mapped onto a learning outcome.
4. The learning outcomes are aggregated to form a microcredential, part-qualification or full-qualification.

A major problem with this approach is that meeting the requirements of an occupational profile by achieving all the learning outcomes does not guarantee occupational competence, even if a candidate possesses all the skills set out in the profile. The reason is that competence involves integration of all the elements and an understanding of the aims of the occupation. An aggregation of skills can guarantee neither their integration nor the candidate’s understanding of the purpose of the occupation. To use an analogy, a football team may comprise players with outstanding football skills. But unless they understand how to work as a team and integrate their own abilities with those of their team members, they will not become an outstanding team.

A brief historical detour: learning from the past

Is there evidence of the aggregative approach to qualification design being successful? Fortunately, there is. The UK experimented with this approach between 1986 and 2015 and abandoned it. Why? National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) were designed along the lines described above (cf. Jessup 1991; Raggatt/Williams 1999). They were meant to correspond to employer needs but employers’ interest in them remained limited and they had a poor reputation in wider society. They were used primarily to create qualifications for semi-skilled occupations and their market returns for employees were poor compared to the returns from other vocational qualifications. They have since been replaced by vocational qualifications that emphasise a more holistic idea of occupational competence and which employers have a significant role in designing. These qualifications, such as the Apprenticeship Standards mentioned above, do not use an aggregative learning outcome design. To quote from an English government document contrasting the old learning outcome-based framework qualifications with the new standards:

“In a framework, apprentices are assessed throughout their apprenticeship. They have to obtain a number of qualifications during the apprenticeship. Once they’ve completed a unit, it is ticked off and they won’t necessarily need to demonstrate the skill again. There is no overall end assessment, which means no one is actually checking if the apprentice has the right skills to do their role.”⁵

It is regrettable that neither the UK’s experience in managing learning outcome-based qualifications nor the extensive critical literature on the experiment does not appear to have been taken into account in the launching of the ESCO initiative, with the predictable result that many of the mistakes made in the UK context have been replicated in this European initiative.

Other possible approaches

Because occupations are not bundles of skills, learning outcome-based qualifications based on this conceptualisation are also flawed. Mottweiler et al. (2023) research suggests that the conceptual flaws inherent in aggregating skills into occupational profiles contribute to the ESCO lowest common denominator style of European Occupations set out in the ESCO Occupations Pillar. The Construction Scaffolder, an occupational profile already available in the ESCO Occupation Pillar⁶, is a good example here. It consists of 17 essential and 11 optional skills, one item of essential and two of optional knowledge. These are not ordered in any way. Some of these skills are highly specific: “recognise signs of wood rot”, while other are so general they do no more than gesture at a range of competencies: “follow health and safety procedures in construction”. By way of contrast, the specification of the German Ausbildungsberuf in Gerüstbau describes the purpose of the occupation and the cyclical nature of scaffolding activities, situating skills and competencies within this framework:

“Scaffolders fit facades with working and protective scaffolding. They select the required scaffolding components, load them using lifting equipment, transport them to the construction site and assemble them. If necessary, they level the ground or attach load bearing supports before assembly. They assemble system components and anchor the scaffolding to the building. In special scaffolding construction, they not only erect the usual scaffolding on houses, but also erect special constructions such as supporting scaffolding as a substructure for concrete formwork, e.g. for bridge construction, or mobile working platforms, e.g. on high-rise buildings. When the scaffolding is no longer needed, they dismantle it professionally. They store the scaffolding parts and maintain them” (cf. Bundesagentur für Arbeit 2023).

Compared with the German occupational profile the ESCO profile falls woefully short, failing to provide a coherent account of the principal aims and activities involved in scaffolding. The example clearly illustrates the risks of producing occupational profiles and qualifications through an aggregative bottom-up approach.

A solution?

Any approach that does not correspond to employer needs is unlikely to succeed. Besides unskilled occupations, most employers want occupational competencies that involve worker autonomy and understanding. They are best served by social partners defining an occupational aim (as in the German Dual System), identifying the competencies and sub-competencies needed to realise that aim, then using these to design a qualification. Even this approach will not work, however, if there is not a demand for such qualifications on the European labour market. Creating a European qualification for an occupation that would satisfy employers and unions across Europe is a complex and costly undertaking.

Employer associations will only invest in creating European occupational profiles and associated qualifications if they decide there is a need in their sector. While the EQF is a flexible template that could potentially fulfil this task, there are still challenges. For example the Bricklayer Project across eight countries (cf. Hanf 2011; Brockmann/Clarke/Winch 2010) demonstrated that although the occupation referred to as ‘bricklaying’ can be grouped into cognate families, it still shows significant variation depending on the country.⁷ Bolster-Up, another EU project, looked at upholstery and cabinetmaking across seven countries (cf. Galla et al. 2014) and proposed minimum European standards for this occupational group.⁸ However, it is difficult to achieve consensus, especially as some countries feel disadvantaged by such an exercise. Scaffolding is another example of large variations in occupational profile and VET across different EU jurisdictions (cf. Clarke/Duran-Palma/Georgiadou 2024).⁹

Finale: Towards European occupational profiles?

ESCO shows the limitations of using a bottom-up approach to occupational profiling and qualification design. The result is likely to be a lowest common denominator approach. A flexible European labour market might be achieved at the cost of deskilling the European workforce. In any event, there is only a need for cross-European profiles and qualifications if there is a demand for them from businesses operating across national borders. Sometimes this is achieved through EU regulation (e.g. nursing) and sometimes through internal qualifications supplied by companies operating cross-nationally. ENIC-NARIC¹⁰ is a cross-national body that operates throughout the EU and beyond. It has developed a methodology allowing for the mutual recognition of higher education qualifications. The UK NARIC has also developed a methodology for mutual recognition of vocational qualifications and operates on a commercial basis. It has built up a database of qualifications using its own methodology which differs from that of ESCO, focussing on the content of qualifications via the comparison of curricula.¹¹ Extension of this approach with EU support would be a better solution for cross-national mobility than a flawed framework which has yet to see widespread interest from European social partners. Through such an approach mutual recognition could be developed where a need for it existed, taking account of the varying needs of different economic sectors across Europe. ESCO is not in a position to move this process forward and consumes resources that could be better deployed elsewhere.

Christopher Winch
Professor of Educational Philosophy and Policy at King’s College London

(A German translation of the article has been published in BWP 2/2025)