Education and training issues tend to be similar across Europe and, thanks to informal cooperation among Member States, policies are growing closer to each other as well. But how can we be sure we mean the same thing by the same term? Cedefop’s new language tool is here to help.
The new Multilingual Synopsis of the European Training Thesaurus is an electronic publication relevant to anyone working in the education, training and employment fields. It selects 1207 terms and concepts which appear frequently in literature related to European vocational education and training. The aim is for users to develop a common understanding of the terms used in the field.
The synopsis, which allows for a quick navigation by language, term and topic, forms the basis of the full-fledged online thesaurus Cedefop is currently preparing.
Marc Willem, Head of Cedefop’s Library and Documentation service, which manages the thesaurus project, explains: ‘We have found that people working in education and employment need a kind of ‘Swiss Army Knife’ that will allow them to pin down the meaning of terms and tie similar ideas together. This is what we believe this synopsis can provide.’
Each term is presented in 11 languages: Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Swedish.