In Europe, all states are seeking to flexibilise their VET systems. Old systems were built on stable economies and labour market institutions (e.g. Germany and the Netherlands) or were built on a low-skill equilibrium (e.g. UK; see Finegold, 1991). In both cases, powerful economic forces urge the upgrading and flexibilisation of VET systems; globalisation of markets, high-speed technological innovation, and ICT development are examples of these forces.

In all VET systems the search is on for new equilibria:

• Between initial VET and lifelong learning.
• Between VET and Labour markets (VET-to-working place transition)
• Between traditional occupations and flexible qualifications
• Between specialised or more broader occupational profiles (specific Kernberufe debate in German speaking speaking countries)
• Between school-based learning and qualification through work experience and informal learning.
• Between social demands and economic markets
• Between employment and entrepreneurship

Policy-makers and other stakeholders (i.e. chambers, Industrial Associations and Groupings, industry) try to formulate these new equilibria, but in each case, the institutional set-up of the VET system is at stake. The old regulations and appointments and the social-economic meaning of VET are changing. The design of new VET is the “reinvention” of VET-institutions; because of the socio-cultural roots of institutions this will take a long time at the cost of much struggle. Stakeholders (like community colleges, employers, trade unions and the government) are forced to reposition themselves towards the newly developing VET systems which leaves the strategy formulation (Whittington (2001) points out four perspectives on strategy: Classical, evolutionary, systemic, processual) as an very urgent request in this policy discourse. To understand changes in the system, the challenges and directions for change needs to be clear.

In the discussion on the VET systems’ change lifelong learning is the main focus. The acquisition of knowledge and skills is increasingly seen as the main challenge. Living in a learning society filled with knowledge workers and the rapid changes in knowledge, there is a need for learning as a permanent process (Crouch et al, 1999). The modern VET-systems have been built for the industrial economy of the 20th century, in which sequential production lines are usual (training before working). The emerging knowledge economy of the 21st century needs a training and skilling system which is connected parallel to working careers (Gavigan, 2000). Accreditation for informal learning is of high value for this kind of scenario (Bjornavold, J. 2001. 213-252).

In most VET systems, these signals are received absorptively, looking for new arrangements within the old systems. A VET-system for the learning economy should fundamentally be based on the acceptance of uncertainty: the requirements of the future labor market are difficult to predict-but answers to these questions are urgently needed for curriculum design for career guidance etc.. Or, as Wenger (1998) states, VET..” cannot be a closed system that shelters a well-engineered but self-contained learning process. On the contrary, it must aim to offer dense connections to communities outside its setting.” New VET should be an open system both in time, and in content as well as in participation, but this requires re-engineering of working conditions and incentive structures. Attractive VET cannot be built by prescription beforehand. When there are many possible scenarios for the future it may well be impossible to construct any single static policy that will perform well in all of them. It is likely that the uncertainties that confront planners will be resolved over the course of time by new information (Walker, 2001). Because of the need to deal with problems in a rapidly changing, complex and unpredictable world, uncertainty has become an increasingly important element in policy formulations. Policies need to be adjusted as the world changes and as new information becomes available. Therefore policies should be adaptive- devised not to be optimal for a best-estimated future, but robust across a range of plausible futures. Such policies will indicate near term actions that combine those that are time urgent, those that make important commitments to shape the future and those that that preserve needed flexibility for the future (Walker, 2001).

In this symposium we want to bring together research on policy design for VET development by making use recently finished research projects, expert opinions and studies. In Germany research is targeting on the de-centralization of VET by adopting a regional approach. The EU-Observe project, in which the presenters from Denmark and the Netherlands are involved, VET policies are investigated from an evolutionary perspective. Based on this perspective cases will be analysed and generalised towards a design of a learning VET policy on national and European level. In Greece, the interaction between science and policy is rather close: lessons will be drawn for the use of knowledge in policy design.