The following proposal to start activities for better quality within your VET organisation aims at reviewing and adapting the PDCA cycle to your own staff. While the PDCA cycle starts with planning activities, which logically is obvious, the proposal here is to start with an assessment phase, since tackling specific problems and finding solutions for them is more likely to attract people’s attention and stimulate their engagement.

Box 44. Proposals of the EQAVET recommendation

Another equally important proposal is to promote communication and create awareness among teachers, trainers and other stakeholders of existence of critical aspects within the organisation, thus generating and stimulating the need for change and improvement.

Box 45. Self-assessment

There is no single approach to self-assessment, which could be applied successfully to every institution. The most formal systems for external accreditation provide guidelines for self-assessment and in several European Member States not only is it a legal obligation for VET institutions to undertake self-assessment regularly, but national authorities also provide guidelines and criteria on how to do it.

The final aim of self-assessment is to develop a long-term QMS and a sustainable culture of quality in your VET institution. Repeating self-assessment again and again allows you to measure continuously progress you have made, compare current with previous performance and provide for consistent quality development.