Sustainability 2015, 7(6), 7156-7174; doi:10.3390/su7067156
Sustainability Assessment Framework for VET Organizations
Petru Maior" University of Tirgu-Mures, 1 Nicolae Iorga Street, Tirgu-Mures 540088, Romania
Academic Editor: Marc A. Rosen
Received: 13 February 2015 / Revised: 6 May 2015 / Accepted: 27 May 2015 / Published: 2 June 2015
Abstract
This paper presents a new and innovative approach to assessing Vocational Education and Training (VET) organizations institutional sustainability in terms of five key pillars: institutional capacity, environmental, economic, social, and training provision. In the five areas of the proposed new and original sustainability assessment framework, a total of 40 performance indicators are used to make the assessment. The assessment process is based on a novel approach for the couple values for performance and importance of the indicators, by using scales from 1 to 5 for both. There are five performance categories (awareness, measures, action, innovation and excellence) and five importance categories for each indicator. The framework is innovative, both by its objective, which consists in impact determining and improvement on environmental, economic, social and quality of the training system and by development of a strategy based on performance indicators that integrates sustainable development. The implementation methodology is based on the newly developed framework and detailed application guidelines are provided. Exact results from a case study carried out and an analysis of the results for the environmental area are presented in order to validate the methodology in action. The results are used to establish a sustainability baseline, to identify possibilities for improvement, and to prioritize implementation. View Full-TextKeywords:
sustainability assessment; framework; environmental pillar; performance indicators; vocational education and training
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).
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Moldovan, L. Sustainability Assessment Framework for VET Organizations. Sustainability 2015, 7, 7156-7174.
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