Press release

Donetsk

SCM has become partner of the European Training Foundation (ETF) as part of the project to establish in Ukraine a modern national qualifications framework and develop professional standards.

The project targets to develop professional standards and establish a new qualifications system in Ukraine.

"Professional standards are a kind of "phrase-book", which will help employers, universities, existing and upcoming employees to find a common language. Professional standard is a clear list of expertise, knowledge and skills for each profession, which a good specialist should have. The standard will allow the future employees to understand clearly what to learn, universities - what to teach, while the labour market - what assessment criteria to use", said Natalya Yemchenko, SCM Director of Public Relations and Communications. "Of course, employers should themselves develop professional standards. Government and education system will not and must not do it without proactive role of businesses. Being the biggest employer of Ukraine, SCM is ready to take an active part in pilot projects and we are currently discussing potential areas with ETF. We hope that our initiative will be a success and Ukraine's biggest companies will join us as soon as this year. Ukraine might face a real vogue for professional standards development, as it has once happened in Europe and is happening in Russia".

ETF has already tested the method of standards development and jointly with Confederation of Employers set professional standards for catering business. A chain of restaurants Kozyrnaya Karta stepped as ETF partner in this area.

ETF Coordinator in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia Timo Kuusela said: "I'm glad that professional standards raise a keen interest in Ukraine. The country has done a lot in this area, though, I have to admit, we still have a lot of problems and questions. Today our mutual goal is to understand, how we can consolidate the efforts of all stakeholders, put all experience together; and what we should do to bring the Ukrainian education in compliance with the demands of the market and the society".

"Currently we are completing the pilot stage of the project and, in our view, now is the best time to determine further steps, which could help business and education become equal partners. ETF is open for cooperation with all stakeholders. We call employers to consolidate their efforts, because it's employers, who are the main drive of the process to develop professional standards. It's them who should lay the basis, which could be used by the education system to think, how to teach current and future specialists", added Mr Kuusela.

National qualifications framework regulates professional standards, which underpin education programmes in universities and vocational schools. Today Ukraine has an outmoded, Soviet qualifications framework and has no developed and approved professional standards. Alongside, the global practice shows that all education programmes should base on common professional standards. This will allow to minimize the gap between the labour market and education, raise the quality of education and professional training in Ukraine, as well as provide broader opportunities for employees at the labour market.

To develop the "road map" ETF held a workshop in Kiev "Professional standards as a basis for national qualifications framework" supported by SCM. Participants of the workshop included the delegates from Confederation of Employers of Ukraine, ETF, European Commission to Ukraine, Ministry of Education and Science, the British Council, etc. They discussed the current state of Ukrainian education, weaknesses of the existing qualifications framework and foreign practices, as well as ways to develop and introduce common standards for labour market and education in all areas of industry and economy.

Profile: 

SCM is a professional investor that owns and controls assets in mining and metals, energy-generation, telecommunications, banking, insurance, media as well as in retail and real estate.

SCM Group includes Metinvest Holding, DTEK, VegaTelecom Group, Segodnya Multimedia, TRK Ukraina, ESTA Holding, Ukrainskiy Retail and others.

SCM is 100% owned by businessman Rinat Akhmetov.

European Training Foundation  (ETF) is the EU agency, which primarily targets to support EU partners to establish high-quality education and training systems and put them into practice. Working on behalf of the EU, the Foundation helps develop professional skills and knowledge of people, thus favouring improvement of their living conditions, development of active citizenship, improvement of democratic social foundations based on respect for human rights and encouragement of cultural diversity.

National qualification framework is the basis for standardization of professional activity and education.

Professional standards are standards containing requirements to employees competence on different qualification levels.

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