Vocational education and training - VET

Skills have become the global currency of the 21st century. Without proper investment in skills, people languish on the margins of society, technological progress does not translate into economic growth, and countries can no longer compete in an increasingly knowledge-based global society. The OECD Skills Strategy is designed to help countries build better skills policies and turn them into jobs, growth, and better lives.

In this paper, we investigate the effects of works councils on apprenticeship training in Germany. The German law attributes works councils substantial information and co-determination rights to training-related issues. Thus, works councils may also have an impact on the cost-benefit relation of workplace training. Using detailed firm-level data containing information on the costs and benefits of apprenticeship training, we find that firms with works councils make a significantly higher net investment in training compared with firms without such an institution. We also find that the fraction of former trainees still employed with the same firm five years after training is significantly higher in the presence of works councils, thus enabling firms to recoup training investments over a longer time horizon. Furthermore, all works council effects are much more pronounced for firms covered by collective bargaining agreements.

The Air Force typically trains 30,000 to 40,000 new airmen in some 300 specialties each year. It utilizes two methods for training its enlistees: centralized initial skills training (IST, or “schoolhouse” training) and decentralized on-the-job training (OJT). All too often, only IST costs are considered when “pricing” training, seriously underestimating the overall cost to train an airman. When all the costs are considered, including those of OJT, decisions related to the length of IST can be better informed.

From a statistical analysis of data taken from surveys of senior enlisted personnel, they were able to assess how productivity changes when IST course length changes and to make recommendations concerning the IST course lengths that would produce the most productive airmen for the least possible cost.

The aim of the research was to determine the type of information that would most effectively support learners, employers and advice and guidance intermediaries in making choices about post-16 provision.

A skilled workforce is an essential asset to develop a competitive, sustainable and innovative economy in line with Europe 2020 goals. In times of budgetary constraints and unprecedented global competitive pressures, EU employment and skills policies that help shape the transition to a green, smart and innovative economy must be a matter of priority.

The Directory is a tool to promote lifelong learning policy, research and practice. The overall aim is to build networks and facilitate policy development, research and capacity-building and to provide an opportunity for policy-makers and experts to collaborate in lifelong learning.

The Directory is a compilation of the details of over 200 governmental departments, institutions and agencies responsible for formulating lifelong learning policy at national level and leading research institutions or university faculties engaged in the study of lifelong learning

Job Chart 2012 provides information about hundreds of Saskatchewan jobs.

Job Chart contains the following relevant information for each job title listed: Job Description; Number Emp. (2006); Avg. Income (2010); Training and Education Routes; Prospects to 2014.

This report offers a comprehensive set of recommendations for strategically revamping the Massachusetts community college system to better align it with the needs of a 21st-century workforce.

Informal learning communities in which participants show critically reflective work behaviour (CRWB) have the potential to support lifelong learning. In practice this behaviour does not always occur in groups of autonomous professionals. The results of this study, combining issues of design and implementation, could contribute to the discussion about the support and set-up of learning communities for autonomous professionals.

In the new connected workplace, current training, e-learning or blended learning services, which take a top-down, ”command and control” approach to organising and managing “learning” will not be appropriate to support these new ways of working and learning.

The Workplace Development Services (WDS) framework has therefore been developed to help organisations understand the range of new services and activities that will be required, as well as the tools and platforms to power these activities, and the new skills and mindset involved.

Based on 515 bridge programs representing 345 communities across 47 states, the survey reports on the depth and breadth of bridge programs (e.g. program characteristics, industry focus, funding) throughout the United States and provides recommendations for the field.

Academics and policy makers have clearly identified the urgent need to strengthen the evidence base attesting to the efficacy of career development services. However, it is unclear whether those providing career development services also recognize the importance of evaluation and are able to engage in evaluation in an effective manner.

The apprenticeships programme has been providing a good return for public spending. Nevertheless, the Department should set its sights higher in order to get better value from the £0.5 billion and rising now spent on adult apprenticeships each year. It needs to target resources more effectively; confirm the training provided is in addition to what would have been provided without public support; and make sure that the funding system is informed by robust information on the cost of delivery.

See also Estimating economic benefits from apprenticeships – Technical paper

http://www.nao.org.uk//idoc.ashx?docId=76bd2da6-6179-47dc-8e54-f2260a149a02&version;=-1

Fact sheet on educational attainment and employment rates at the pan-Canadian and provincial and territorial levels. The fact sheet also includes data for 12 OECD countries that are of key comparative interest for Canada.

New European targets on the employability and the mobility of students to stimulate and guide education reforms in Europe by 2020. A new benchmark on the mobility of students would measure the share of young people with learning experiences abroad. A new benchmark on education and training for employability would monitor the success rate of young people with different education levels in the labour market in the years after graduation.

The report aims to offer a review of the current volume of adult learning in higher education institutions (HEIs) and raise a limited number of key questions in this area.

The sector studies reveal the increasing polarization of the demand for skills and competencies. All economic sectors report a need for continuous up skilling of the labour force among others driven by internationalisation, specialisation, rising climate concerns, ICT and new technological possibilities. To deepen the challenges for Europe even further, most sectors also forecast a shrinking supply of labour available due to the ageing of the European labour force.

The Kenyan voucher program shows that youth will take advantage of job training when the costs are covered through vouchers. And among those who do enroll, a majority stay with the program. This underscores the potential usefulness of including the private sector in public policy programs designed to boost demand for job training.

The Allied Health Initiative (AHI) was designed to respond to a serious need voiced by leaders of Boston hospitals about current and anticipated shortages of allied health professionals. The documents relates the hospitals’ expressed interest in training their own entry-level employees as a way both to fill the jobs they had vacant and offer life-altering opportunities to their own employees.

Based on the Demand-Control-Support (DCS) model, the present paper aims to investigate the influence of job characteristics such as job demands, job control, social support at work and self-directed learning orientation on the work related learning behaviour of workers.

While much of the literature on immigrants' assimilation has focused on countries with a large tradition of receiving immigrants and with flexible labor markets, very little is known on how immigrants adjust to other types of host economies. With its severe dual labor market, and an unprecedented immigration boom, Spain presents a quite unique experience to analyze immigrations' assimilation process. Using alternative datasets and methodologies, this paper provides evidence of a differential assimilation pattern for low- versus high-skilled immigrants in Spain: our key finding is that having a high-school degree does not give immigrants an advantage in terms occupational or wage assimilation (relative to their native counterparts).