The Erasmus+ project deals with governance in vocational teacher education (VTE) in Ukraine. The professionalization of teachers working in the field of vocational education and training (VET) is considered to be more complex than in the general education system as here the relevance of teachers’ competences not only has an impact on learners (vocational students), but also on the quality of VET as such and its functionality for the employment sector. An overarching quality criterion is to ensure that expectations of vocational schools and the motivations and competences of future teachers can be aligned.
This ‘matching problem’ is materialized by the ‘theory-practice gap’ as the ‘users’ of VTE qualifications, being the employers of future teachers, are normally not involved in setting up or at least influencing how teachers are trained and how whatever they learn at university can be linked with and applied to in the classroom. This one-sided institutional reality explains why teachers do not feel well prepared for their future occupational destination.
PBG (partnership-based governance) is seen as an instrument to tackle this problem by including VET schools in activities such as curricula development or teaching methodology, and it even could mean establishing a governance system based on partnerships reaching beyond these two stakeholders. Since decentralisation is a major aspect of current Ukrainian VET policy, PGB in VTE fits into the political agenda, by questioning traditional roles of responsible institutions.
The project aims at developing and piloting governance structures between the Ukrainian partner HEIs and regional VET schools. The focus is on overcoming the theory-practice gap between university education and teaching requirement in VET, and on setting up governance in a new, i.e. partnership-based manner between relevant institutions in VTE.
The project aims at creating awareness for a modern VTE system in Ukraine, and at raising the status of the teaching profession.
