Vocational Education and Training in Spain

 

The Spanish National System for Qualifications and Vocational Education and Training, known in Spanish as SNCFP, was established by Spanish Organic Act 5/2002, of 19 June 2002. It consists of instruments and actions which are necessary to promote and develop the integration of Vocational Education and Training, as well as to assess and accredit professional competencies. The SNCFP was created to respond to the demand for qualifications of people and enterprises in a society trying out a continuous process of change and innovation.

The SNCFP objectives are to adapt the professional training to the qualification demands of productive organizations, to facilitate the adaptation of supply and demand on the labour market, to extend lifelong learning beyond the traditional educational period, and to promote the freedom of movement for workers. For these reasons, it plays an essential role in the labour and education world. The Spanish National Catalogue of Professional Qualifications, known in Spanish as CNCP, is an instrument of the Spanish National System for Qualifications and Vocational Educational and Training (VET) which arranges the professoinal qualifications according to competences appropiate for an occupational performance.

The professional qualifications are identified in the productive system and they are susceptible of being recognized and accredited. Some of the main objectives of the CNCP are to integrate the existing programs on VET in order to adapt them to the characteristics and demands of the Spanish productive system and to be a referent to asses the professional competences. The CNCP comprises the most important professional qualifications of the Spanish productive system. It includes VET contents related to each professional qualification. The contents are organized in modules which are included in a Spanish Modular Catalogue of Vocational Education and Training. 

The Spanish National Institute of Qualifications, known in Spanish as INCUAL, is responsible for defining, drawing up and updating the CNCP and the corresponding Modular Catalogue of VET. The CNCP consists of professional qualifications arranged in professional families and levels of qualification taking into account UE criteria. the 26 professional families which make up the CNCP have been created according to professional competence affinity criteria. The 5 levels of professional qualification are based on the professional competence required for each productive activity taking into account different criteria like knowledge, initiative, autonomy, responsibility and complexity, among others, necessary for the accomplishment of every activity.

Level 1: competence in a reduced group of relatively simple working activities related to normalized processes, in which the theoretical knowledge and practical capacities involved are limited. 

Level 2: competence in a group of well-defined professional activities with the capacity to use particular instruments and techniques concerning, mainly, an execution activity which can be autonomous within the limits of the above-mentioned techniques. It requires knowledge on the technical and scientific fundamentals of the activity concerned and capacities for the comprehension and the application of the process.

Level 3: competence in a group of professional activities which require the command o different techniques and can be executed in an autonomous way. It involves responsibility on the coordination and supervision of technical and specialized work. It demands the understanding of the technical and scientific fundamentals of the activities concerned as well as the assessment of the factors in the process and the assessment of the economic repercussions.