Abstract

In order to present the state of long-term mobility in apprenticeships in Belgium,In order to present the state of long-term mobility in apprenticeships in Belgium,we must first define “long-term mobility” and who it concerns within the complicatedBelgian educational and training systems. The term “long-term mobility” refers toindividual international mobility within the European Union which last more thanthree months. Apprentices are learners aged from 15 to 25 enrolled inapprenticeships within work-based learning (WBL) schemes at an ISCED 3 or 4level. The term “apprenticeship” follows Cedefop’s definition, i.e. “education andtraining underpinned by structured alternation of learning in an education andtraining setting with learning and working at a workplace and leading to arecognized qualification. (…) An apprentice has a contract with the employer andreceives a compensation (wage or allowance) from the employer according to therelevant regulations”.

Within this context, long-term mobility in WBL, thus also in apprenticeships, isnot even a niche topic in Belgium: it simply does not exist. Given this state of affairs,a number of circumstances and obstacles can be identified and commented upon.This article will try to detail them, order them by importance and provide potentialsolutions and recommendations. However, one thing will immediately becomeapparent to the reader, as has been confirmed by all of the people we spoke to:although long-term mobility is appealing to apprenticeship and VET in general andit can represent a chance for schemes and programmes that are not attractiveenough, no Belgian stakeholder says he is in real need of it. As a result,discussions have led to the idea that long-term mobility in apprenticeship must beconceived as a sui generis model, still to be designed.

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