The promotion of education systems which ensure increased participation and greater access for students described as having special educational needs or disabilities has been one of the key areas of educational development in most European countries in past decades. Many of the European governments have since signing the Salamanca statement (UNESCO 1994) aimed at strengthening their commitment to provide a more inclusive education during the last more than twenty years.  In addition, In European level multidimensional cooperation between vocational institutions and world of work, has been stressed to be one of the key point in developing employability of graduates. However, the present structures and processes in vocational education and in co-operation with world of work do not enable to response to the challenges and to the competences required in future work (e.g. Neuvonen-Rauhala 2009) These developments are also taking place in Kosovo with the support of recent strategic policy papers striving for educational reform. 

Nevertheless, Kosovo is aiming for wider aims emerging from extensive needs of Kosovo society, still suffering the post war situation: Kosovo is in urgent need to educate all young people to better respond to demands of lifelong learning and reduce the high youth unemployment in the country. Currently, Vocational Education and Training (VET) Schools in Kosovo are serving more than half of the upper secondary school students. Besides, vocational education and teachers are considered to be crucial for getting skilful workforce for the development of the society in large. Nevertheless, provision of pedagogical training for Vocational Education teachers is yet totally missing. Accordingly, VET teacher education is emphasised in the Kosovo Education Strategic Plan (KESP) 2011-2016 as one of the clear priority areas for teacher education development in Kosovo.

When considering educational system’s challenges in responding on demands on inclusion and employability for  all young people it is worth noticing that though development of inclusive education have been on the educational agenda in Europe and globally, much of the developments and research so far have focused on general education. Accordingly, they are not giving vocational education teachers sights enough for development of their work. This was also stated as an aim by Kosovar educational strategies emphasising a balance between VET teachers to have industrial experience, practical skills and pedagogical training (KESP, p.102). Though efforts to modernize teaching and learning in Kosovo VET to follow European trends have placed increasing pedagogical demands e.g. in more inclusive and learner-centred learning and teaching it would not alone be enough. Instead, these efforts are to be accompanied by VET teachers to develop competence-based teaching involving wider education - working-life development which are of uttermost importance in a longer perspective when promoting inclusion of young people into society.

Teachers’ competence development towards more inclusive education includes in general an ability to facilitate learning of diverse students and to develop school as well as educational environment so that the individual needs are taken into account. However, for further societal inclusion it also demands an ability to support development of competent work force and in wider contexts than the school alone. In this research described it is examined how Kosovar VET teachers themselves describe their competences needed in these developments.

To meet these challenges in VET education, Kosovo started an EU-funded project in January 2014. This paper describes research activities (to be) taken to gather Kosovo VET teachers beliefs on their needs to develop themselves in order to meet the demands for development of inclusive VET education and employability of their students

Handbook on Vocational Pedagogy for Teachers and Working Life Cooperation. Project “Improvement of VET teachers’ pedagogical skills and leadership skills of principals in Kosovo and Macedonia in 2010-2012”. JAMK 2013 (manuscript). Kosovo Education Strategic Plan (KESP) 2011-2016 Neuvonen-Rauhala, M.-L. (2009). Defining and applying working-life orientation in the polytechnic postgraduate experiment. [Original publication in Finnish: Työelämälähtöisyyden määrittäminen ja käyttäminen ammattikorkeakoulun jatkotutkintokokeilussa] Jyväskylä Studies in Education, Psychology and Social Research 367. Finland: Jyväskylä University Printing House. van den Akker, J., Gravemeijer, K., McKenney, S. & Nieveen, N. (toim.) 2006. Eduvational Design Research. New York, Routledge.