What is Europass?
Europass is a frame work providing transparency of qualifications and competences through a set of documents citizens can use freely.
Why Europass?
Europass helps individuals to communicate better their qualifications, skills and competences when looking for a job or for admission to a learning scheme. Europass also aims to facilitate mobility throughout Europe for lifelong learning purposes, therefore contributing to the development of quality education and training.
What help can Europass offer?
Individuals
Europass helps individuals highlight their abilities in a clear and effective way, promoting mobility by removing barriers to working, studying or training in Europe.
Organisations
Europass consists of five documents that help potential employers, educational institutions and training providers understand which subjects have been studied, what training has been completed or how much experience has been gained working. It also records non-formal learning and language skills – helping organisations with the recruitment process.
Europass consists of five documents:
- Europass Curriculum Vitae (CV)
- Europass Language Passport
- Europass Mobility Document
- Europass Certificate Supplement
- Europass Diploma Supplement
The National Europass Centres
Europass is supported by a network of National Europass Centres located in every country of the European Union, the European Economic Area and the candidate countries of Croatia, Iceland and Turkey. The National Europass Centre coordinates all activities related to the Europass documents. It is the first point of contact for any person or organisation interested in using or learning more about Europass. The Centre contributes to make the transparency instruments easier to access and more effective.
The main functions of the National Europass Centres are to:
- Coordinate the management of Europass documents;
- Promote Europass and Europass documents;
- Ensure that information and guidance centres are well informed about Europass and the Europass documents;
- Ensure that Europass documents are also available in paper versions;
Act as a national partner in the European network of National Europass Centres.The Centre also plays an indirect role in relation to other specific objectives such as supporting European policy developments related to the transparency of competences and qualifications. Further more, the close association of guidance services with the coordinated operation of the Europass transparency framework aim to improve information on issues related to transparency and mobility.
The main objectives of Europass are to:
- Enable individuals to communicate effectively their qualifications, skills and competences when looking for a job or for admission to a learning scheme
- Provide a comprehensive tool for users based on an accessible electronic format
- Facilitate mobility throughout Europe for lifelong learning purposes and employment:
- By enabling people with diverse backgrounds and experiences to gain access to opportunities for learning and employment throughout Europe,
- By helping people to move between countries or across employment sectors
- Encourage cooperation between education and training, business and industry, to ensure that competences and qualifications continue to be relevant and adequate.
