SEIS, Health Industry Employers’ Association Of Turkey, has launched Healthy Vocational Education Project, which aims at developing of vocational qualifications in health industry sector, within Leonardo Da Vinci Transfer of Innovation Project of EU on 28th February together with Turkish partners EDUSER and SADER, Italian partners Centro Servizi SRL Training Centre and The Culture Net Training Centre, and Greek partner VFA.

The project, which can be seen as the first steps towards determining the vocational standards, is believed to introduce a change in the health industry sector, an important and developing sector in Turkey with approximately 12.000 firms and 120.000 employees. In this sector reliant on technology, human capital and resources have critical importance due to large scope of services. The project will last 24 months and will contribute to the need of qualified work force in the sector through preparing standards of vocational qualifications in five areas and through developing training programmes and certification systems in two of them. We strongly believe that these standards and training programmes developed will contribute to validation of the informal and non-formal training in Turkey, in partner countries and at EU level as a whole.

This project aims at the enhancement of the quality of VET systems. Thus in the long run, the development of Vocational Qualifications (VQs), adaptation of training programmes, testing of certification methodologies from previously implemented projects at EU level as part of the valorization process in health sector will contribute to the “free movement” goal of EU. This standardization facilitating the mobility of workers in health will also contribute to the improvement of Turkey - EU interaction.