Europass is a tool to help people make their skills and qualifications clearly and easily understood in Europe.

Europass is a tool to help people make their skills and qualifications clearly and easily understood in Europe.

It is a personal portfolio of different documents intended to anyone who needs an effective way to convey their competencies throughout Europe. Europass is an open system established by the Decision of the European Parliament and the Council in December 2004. Europass creates a single transparency framework for qualifications and competences.

Europass work is co-ordinated by National Europass Centres

In every country there is a Europass Centre coordinating the implementation and development of the Europass documents. Europass work in Finland is co-ordinated in the National Board of Education (NBE), in the Recognition and Comparability of Qualifications Unit - which is also the Finnish ENIC/NARIC and the Finnish NRP.

The Finnish Europass Centre provides support and information services to its partners to help promote Europass and make its use more effective.

Implementing Europass in Finland

Europass has been well received in Finland and its value as a tool widely recognised. For example the Europass Diploma Supplement (for graduates of higher education) and Certificate Supplement (for graduates of vocational education) are well implemented. All higher education graduates receive a Diploma Supplement automatically and free of charge. Graduates from vocational education can download their own Certificate Supplement from a database.

The Finnish Europass Centre also participates to a European-wide project developing the newest Europass document, the Mobility Passport. The Mobility Passport is not yet fully implemented in Europe and the project aims to build an ambitious IT-solution for the management of the document.

More work to promote Europass and to reach all its potential users is, however, necessary in Finland and throughout Europe. Europass is still a relatively new system. The aim is that all students would learn about Europass well before they graduate. It is also important that employers and education institutions learn more about the system and how they can best use it.

More information on Europass