2016-02-25
National Audit Office completes audit of practical training centres in vocational schools
The National Audit Office completed an audit assessing whether investments in the country's vocational institutions have improved the quality and appeal of the education they offer. Having evaluated a selection of 26 sectoral practical training centres (from a total of 42), the auditors have come to the conclusion that the possibilities for vocational training are not being used to a satisfactory extent. The auditors have also identified various problems linked to how the resources of the practical training centres are used, how modern educational content is developed and how the competencies of vocational educators are kept up to date.
From 2012 to 2015, a total of 42 sectoral practical training centres were set up in 33 (of 74) vocational training institutions. They were equipped with up-to-date equipment for providing practical training to all of the country's residents. Approximately 118 million euros were invested to set these centres up. The audit revealed that the centres were not operating to full capacity: in more than half (60%) of the audited centres, practical training events took place for up to 5 hours a day, and in one of these, no training events took place at all in over a year. Auditors call to attention the fact that the strategy concept based up which the sectoral practical training centres were established indicates that educational and training equipment should be used for 16 hours a day.
What is more, not all of the vocational institutions have purposefully made any plans for activities that would make more effective use of the available infrastructure. By failing to attract external users, the institutions also fail to generate additional income from the centres. There is also no consistent method for setting training service fees. Each educational establishment calculates them in their own way, and some fail to account for all the expenses they incur (e.g., the depreciation of equipment), which means that they do not generate additional income for renewing the training centres and their equipment.
"We will be approaching the Ministry of Finance, as the managing authority of the action programme for EU structural fund investment, and encouraging officials to take note of the issues identified by the audit as they allocate funds for the further development of the centres", explained Auditor General Arūnas Dulkys, "In our opinion, grounds for funding and expected impact must be carefully evaluated because the results of our audit have demonstrated that even the millions of euros of investment over the 2007–2013 period have produced a host of centres that are not performing to full capacity".
The audit also revealed that 2.8 million euros were additionally invested in developing flexible and in-demand vocational education content: 10 vocational standards and 60 modular vocational training programmes were developed, however, not a single vocational standard has been legalised and only 9 of the programmes have begun to be tested in the vocational training establishments. A certain portion of the modular vocational training programmes will have to be revised in order to meet the newly established professional standards and necessary requirements. Our auditors also made several observations on how the development of vocational educators' technological competence is organised.
The National Audit Office has submitted recommendations to the Ministry of Education and Science as well as the Qualifications and Vocational Education and Training Development Centre for improving the use of vocational training possibilities and planning more results-oriented and effective additional investment.
The results of the audit will also be presented by the National Audit Office to the Seimas Committee on Audit and to the Seimas Committee on Education, Science and Culture.