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Work-based learning (WBL) and in particular apprenticeship have been high on the policy agendas of many countries and international organisations for several years. The five EU candidate countries - Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey - have agreed on a new set of medium-term deliverables that includes WBL. All five countries have also become part of the European Alliance for Apprenticeships (EAfA). In the candidate countries, vocational education and training (VET) is mainly provided in three- and four-year programmes which are deeply rooted in the formal education system. The four-year programmes usually lead to certificates that allow learners to enter higher education. Very few of these three- and four-year programmes have compulsory WBL components. An exception is Turkey, where all four-year programmes include a small compulsory WBL part. Turkey is also the only country that has established an apprenticeship system.

The European Training Foundation (ETF) started to support each country in the development of policy options for WBL through an ex-ante impact assessment in 2016. This paper builds on the results of this analysis and aims to shed further light on the status of WBL in the five countries. It addresses the following questions: Which national institutions and stakeholders are involved in WBL? To what extent is practical training, and in particular WBL, anchored in formal (upper) secondary VET programmes? Are there cooperation mechanisms for WBL in place? How is WBL financed? Are there systems in place to prepare teachers and trainers for WBL? The analysis also covers the following two aspects of WBL: Are learning outcomes or learning objectives specified for the WBL components of the VET programmes? Are there assessment procedures or tools for WBL in place? Further, the annexes provide detailed information for each candidate country on the following issues: How many and what kind of VET programmes (occupation, sector) are offered in the country? How many students are enrolled in those VET programmes? How many schools offer those VET programmes? When were those VET programmes last reformed, and are there plans for future reforms?

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