Quality Assurance in Austria

Quality of apprenticeship training is based on the continuous development and modernisation of training contents to reflect economic and technological developments as well as the training of IVET and CVET trainers. Standards for final apprenticeship-exams are checked by the clearing office set up in the Ministry of Economy. The Quality Management in Apprenticeship (Qualitätsmanagement Lehrlingsausbildung, QML) initiative was launched in 2013. This builds on a set of annually evaluated indicators. The part-time vocational schools have, their own quality management system in place in the form of QIBB, the VET Quality Initiative.

Quality assurance in apprenticeship training is focused on certain input factors such as the continuous adaptation of apprenticeship occupations to economic and technological developments, the accreditation procedure for training companies, the training and qualification of IVET and CVET trainers. The standards of the final apprenticeship examination are secured through the separation of training and validation (the exam is organised by the Apprenticeship Office). The clearing office set up in the Ministry of Economy safeguards uniform quality standards as it checks tasks, assessment guidelines and solution options throughout Austria. The Quality Management in Apprenticeship (Qualitätsmanagement Lehrlingsausbildung, QML) initiative was launched in 2013. Indicators are evaluated annually and comprise apprenticeship dropouts, the number of apprentices who (do not) sit for the final exam as well as the number of apprentices who (do not) acquire the apprenticeship certificate.

Since 2006/07, Austrian part-time vocational schools have used the quality management system QIBB (Qualitätsinitiative BerufsBildung, (www.qibb.at), a VET Quality Initiative which was launched by the ministry of education’s General Directorate VET in 2004 as a voluntary instrument. In 2011, quality assurance became an obligatory task for all Austrian schools. QIBB is based on the quality assurance and improvement cycle plan – do – check – act (Deming Cycle). The evaluation instruments are mostly based on self-evaluation. Management and performance reviews as well as quality reports have to be done regularly. Since 2009, Peer Review in QIBB (www.peer-review-in-qibb.at) has been offered for VET schools and colleges within QIBB. A Peer Review process is carried out by a group of external experts, also known as peers, who are invited to evaluate the quality of various areas of the hosting VET school.