The EdUP Project has conducted a course titled “Designing Educational Programs for Plumbing Professions.” The course curriculum was developed at the request of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (MoES) to implement EU recommendations and international best practices on introducing modularity into vocational education programs.
Participants included representatives from 26 vocational education institutions across Ukraine. The training was led by Nataliia Protsenko, an expert from the MoES Reform Support Team (RST).
“The new Law on Vocational Education has changed the approaches to both learning content and the design of educational pathways. This course helps participants master the skills needed to develop educational programs so that institutions can quickly adapt to the new regulations. We take into account labor market needs, learners’ opportunities, and institutional resources — creating flexible learning pathways.”
Throughout the course, participants engaged in both theoretical and practical sessions, where they:
🔹 Studied EU Council and Parliament recommendations in vocational education: National Qualifications Framework levels, transparent qualification design, micro-credentials for lifelong learning, use of ECTS in VET, short-term learning, and sustainable development goals.
🔹 Gained experience applying current legal and regulatory frameworks in education and VET.
🔹 Learned to use ISCO (International Standard Classification of Occupations) and ESCO (European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations) tools for designing educational programs.
🔹 Practiced unified approaches to designing educational pathways: creating training modules, defining micro-credentials, allocating learning workloads, and selecting program components.
🔹 Acquired practical skills in using MS Excel to reduce time spent developing educational programs.
During the hands-on sessions, teachers worked with a program design tool (“constructor”) to develop sample educational programs and practiced providing consultations on curriculum design.
“The course is important because the new standard requires us to update our existing programs. I wanted to understand how the program design tool works within the new law’s requirements. I’ve been creating training plans for 12 years, and doing everything manually made the process very complicated. With this constructor, we can now design programs more efficiently and faster. I’m thrilled with this approach — and what’s more, it can be applied across different professions.”
“I train future plumbing and sanitary system installers. This training is particularly valuable because it brings together many like-minded professionals, new ideas, and a fresh perspective on education. Developing educational programs is a new and powerful experience for me — previously, I worked with ready-made curricula, but now I can see how they’re built from the ground up. It’s especially useful that the program we are creating during the course reflects the realities of today’s labor market.”
After the offline training, participants will continue individual work at home, and in December, they will present their completed educational programs.
Upon successful completion and submission of the program, participants will receive a micro-qualification: “Consultant in Developing Educational Programs for Vocational Education.”
