SIRIUS Network Policy Brief Series While many European countries have well-established education systems, socioeconomically disadvantaged communities experience inequality of access and a lower quality of education across the continent. These groups tend to underperform at school, and children with a migrant background are disproportionately represented among the underperformers. In addition, children of a migrant background have a number of critical educational needs that mainstream education policies do not currently meet. In light of these facts, this policy brief outlines the urgent needs of children and youth in Europe and discusses how education systems could adapt in order to respond to these needs. The performance of education policies could be very crucial in determining whether the goals of the European Commission’s Education and Training Strategy (ET2020) are achieved.

Conclusiones del Consejo de 12 de mayo de 2009 sobre un marco estratégico para la cooperación europea en el ámbito de la educación y la formación («ET 2020»)

Estas conclusiones constituyen un marco estratégico para la cooperación europea en el ámbito de la educación y la formación hasta 2020. Dicho marco se basa en los logros del programa de trabajo “Educación y Formación 2010” (ET 2010), y tiene como objetivo responder a los retos pendientes para crear una Europa basada en el conocimiento y hacer del aprendizaje permanente una realidad para todos.

El objetivo primordial del marco es seguir apoyando el desarrollo de los sistemas de educación y formación en los Estados miembros. Estos sistemas deben proporcionar a todos los ciudadanos los medios para que exploten su potencial, y garantizar la prosperidad económica sostenible y la empleabilidad. El marco debe abarcar la totalidad de los sistemas de educación y de formación dentro de una perspectiva de aprendizaje permanente, en todos los niveles y contextos (incluidos los aprendizajes no formal e informal).

Las conclusiones establecen cuatro objetivos estratégicos para el marco:
i. Hacer realidad el aprendizaje permanente y la movilidad;
ii. Mejorar la calidad y la eficacia de la educación y la formación;
iii. Promover la equidad, la cohesión social y la ciudadanía activa;
iv. Incrementar la creatividad y la innovación, incluido el espíritu empresarial, en todos los niveles de la educación y la formación.

As the global community weighs next steps on the education and skills front, this book aims to provide the latest thinking on the critical importance of education and highlights what can be done to ensure that all people around the world can benefit. To this end, it critically reviews existing and new ideas, perspectives and frameworks on education through relevant analyses and case studies. The book explores the full array of social benefits of different programmes and interventions and related evidence of return on investment.

The real value-added of the publication is on conceptualizing and describing innovative, plausible, scalable, compelling and high-impact solutions that will improve access to education, strengthen educational quality, improve workers’ skills and increase equity – across income level, gender and other demographic subgroups. At the same time, the book tries to shine a light on the relevance of education and training to the labour market and the need to facilitate school-to-work transitions. In pursuing these goals, it takes a lifecycle approach, examining the full range of educational experiences – from pre-primary education to post-graduate training to worker education and training to mature worker reskilling. This vast educational experience can occur in both formal educational settings and informal systems.

This book also hopes to contribute to decision-making and research by presenting an accessible and up-to-date compilation of quantitative and qualitative education data across countries.

Conclusions du Conseil du 12 mai 2009 concernant un cadre stratégique pour la coopération européenne dans le domaine de l'éducation et de la formation( Éducation et formation 2020).

Ces conclusions prévoient un cadre stratégique en faveur de la coopération européenne dans le domaine de l’éducation et de la formation à l’horizon 2020. Ce cadre repose sur les acquis du programme de travail «Éducation et formation 2010» et vise à répondre aux défis que posent l’instauration d’une Europe de la connaissance et l’accès généralisé à l’éducation et la formation tout au long de la vie.

Son principal objectif consiste à soutenir les États membres dans le développement de leurs systèmes d’éducation et de formation. Ces derniers devraient offrir à tous les citoyens de meilleures perspectives qui leur permettent de réaliser tout leur potentiel et d’assurer une prospérité économique une employabilité durables. Ce cadre devrait prendre en considération tout le spectre des systèmes d’éducation et de formation dans la perspective de l’éducation et de la formation tout au long de la vie et couvrir tous les niveaux et les différents contextes (y compris l’éducation non formelle et informelle).

Les conclusions énoncent quatre objectifs stratégiques:
i.faire en sorte que l’éducation et la formation tout au long de la vie et la mobilité deviennent une réalité;
ii.améliorer la qualité et l’efficacité de l’éducation et de la formation;
iii.favoriser l’équité, la cohésion sociale et la citoyenneté active;
iv.encourager la créativité et l’innovation, y compris l’esprit d’entreprise, à tous les niveaux de l’éducation et de la formation.

NORRAG News 48 After the dearth of global skills analysis for many years, there is now suddenly a glut. 2012 has been a significant year for those interested in the links among Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), skills, and jobs - especially evident in the launch of a number of global reports on these topics. Global reports range from the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) ‘Global Employment Trends 2012: Preventing a Deeper Jobs Crisis’, to the World Bank’s ‘World Development Report 2013: Jobs’.

This issue of NORRAG News examines the different meanings of skills in global reports: high, medium, low, foundation, transferable, technical and vocational skills, as well as life-skills. It also focuses on the state of skills in urban and rural areas, and the current usage of ‘skills-for-poverty-reduction’, as well as ‘skills-for-growth’. The reports under examination cover skills in the informal economy, as well as work-based skills and on-the-job training. Some of the reports also consider the emerging meanings and frontiers of TVET.

Yunnan is a medium-sized Chinese province with abundant natural resources and high levels of ethnic diversity. Although Yunnan is still one of the poorest provinces in China, it has experienced rapid economic growth rates over the last decade and is expected to maintain an annual growth rate of 10 percent or higher. The recent national Bridgehead Strategy has further positioned Yunnan as a strategic gateway in the Southwest region, providing tremendous new opportunities for its development. Faced with an increasing demand for skills, especially for professional and technical workers and operative frontline workers, the stock of skills among Yunnan’s current labor force appears insufficient. The lack of required skills has been the most commonly cited problem in the hiring of highly skilled professionals and technical occupations, as well as operative frontline positions. In addition, the mismatch of wage expectations poses a major issue for firms hiring high-skilled managers, professionals, and technicians. For construction workers and operative frontline jobs, the lack of applicants is an issue.

This report consists of three parts. The first part, Skills Challenges: Demand, Gaps, and Mismatch, examines the sources of the mismatch of supply and demand for skilled labor in Yunnan. The second part, Education and Training, sets out the challenges facing Yunnan as it seeks to strengthen the Technical and Vocational Training and Education (TVET) system, improve access to education and the quality of educational outputs, encourage more robust work-based and rural training, and invest additional resources in general education. Finally, in Conclusions and Policy Implications, the report lays out specific policy proposals that cross both sector lines and address sector-specific issues. The policy recommendations for cross-subsector issues are focused on governance and coordination, industry participation, quality assurance, financing TVET, and monitoring and evaluation. For subsector - specific issues, recommendations are focused on non-formal training, incentives and technical assistance for work-based training, and pre-primary education.

An important aspect of Rwanda’s development and stability in the last decade has been the country’s national Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) program. From the onset, the country’s DDR program has been closely linked to economic development and social inclusion efforts which in turn have contributed to economic and social parity between ex-combatants and civilians. The central objective Rwanda’s Demobilization and Reintegration Programme (RDRP) has been to support ex-combatants in their efforts to be reintegrated into social and economic networks of the civilian society. It is in this context that the Rwanda Demobilization and Reintegration Commission has offered vocational skills training as an integral component of the reintegration effort, with the hope that it would be a catalyst towards sustainable employment.

This report details the findings from a research study of outcomes of the vocational training provided to ex-combatant beneficiaries through the RDRP. Implementing DDR programs for more than a decade, Rwanda’s reintegration experiences and the country’s DDR vocational training framework provide an important opportunity to explore the factors that may influence the sustainability and efficacy of vocational training and reintegration outcomes.

L’économie mondiale change rapidement et la compétitivité des économies de l’Union européenne risque de prendre du retard dans un marché mondial de plus en plus concurrentiel. La récente crise économique et financière mondiale a durement touché l’Union européenne (l’EU), en entraînant de sérieuses menaces pour l’emploi et un recul de nombreuses économies parmi les pays membres de l’UE. Dans le cadre d’une économie intelligente, durable et équitable, l’apprentissage tout au long de la vie doit devenir un élément essentiel de stratégie. Cet apprentissage devrait assurer une passerelle entre métier et emploi et éviter le chômage de longue durée qui entraîne une perte du capital humain.

La connaissance des langues étrangères procure un avantage concurrentiel à nos entreprises et à nos acteurs économiques. Les personnes qui maîtrisent plus de langues ont le choix dans un plus large éventail de travail, y compris pour les emplois à l’étranger. D’autre part, l’absence de compétences linguistiques est considérée comme le principal obstacle à l’obtention d’un travail à l’étranger, limitant ainsi l’impact de la politique de mobilité. Les marchés émergents sont de plus en plus importants pour les entreprises de l’UE et les compétences linguistiques et interculturelles sont nécessaires pour être compétitif dans ces pays.

Cette publication est financé par la Commission européenne, à travers le programme Life Long Learning, Activité 2 – Langues. La publication a pour but d’être un guide pratique qui pourra aider les décideurs à concevoir des programmes et des politiques de formation linguistique efficaces en transférant les meilleurs éléments des bonnes pratiques observées au niveau régional, national et européen par le réseau LILAMA. Le champ des bonnes pratiques de politique linguistique couvre l’approche de communication dans une langue étrangère en tant que compétence clé de la formation tout au long de la vie. Les bonnes pratiques sont donc centrées principalement sur les initiatives et les politiques de formation en langues.

The UNDP Istanbul International Center for Private Sector in Development (IICPSD) produced this report as part of its mandate to guide and define the role of the private sector in poverty reduction and inclusive development. Developed by an interdisciplinary team of 18 leading poverty experts, the report leverages an ecological approach to understanding barriers to poverty reduction. The report presents poverty as a complex web of accumulating and interacting disadvantages facing people living in poverty, which in turn, sustain and perpetuate a life of socioeconomic exclusion. The barriers are clustered into five broad categories: Early Developmental Barriers, Health Barriers, Skill Barriers, Social Barriers, and Decision-making Barriers. (See Chapter four on Skill Barriers and Opportunities.)

Using this framework, the IICPSD surveyed a diverse group of practitioners to understand what are some of the opportunities private sector actors can undertake to help tackle these barriers. The report clusters private sector actions into four broad approaches, each within its own commercial logic: Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Enterprise, Inclusive Business, and Mainstream Business. Through a survey of policy makers and experts, the report also discusses the role of critical enablers that can facilitate a great role for the private sector in poverty reduction and inclusive development. The report looks into how the public sector, international organizations and development agencies, academia, NGOs, innovative inclusive financing and impact investing, and technology, can catalyze further private sector action in poverty reduction. The report ends with a note that if poverty means a life of socioeconomic exclusion for people at the base of the pyramid, the solution is to preclude poverty through social inclusion—and the private sector can play a much more substantial and strategic role towards this end.

‘Green growth’ has gained international support as a way to reconcile the need for ongoing economic growth, with the imperative of staying within environmental limits and maintaining healthy ecosystems. Strategies and plans in pursuit of green growth however vary from country to country, and from sector to sector.

Featuring more than sixty (60) case studies from developed and developing countries, this report is the first comprehensive international assessment of lessons and experiences of pursuing green growth across all levels of government and all regions. It focuses on nine non-linear and interlinked elements that are commonly used by governments in green growth analysis, planning, implementation, and monitoring. These elements (including planning and coordination processes, and monitoring and evaluation) are as follows: establishing a vision, targets, and baselines; assessing and communicating benefits; prioritizing options and pathways; policy design and implementation; mobilizing investment; public-private collaboration; and integrating subnational action.

Emerging from the review of green growth country experiences are the conclusions that: Green growth could unlock substantial economic, social and environmental benefits; Integrated and robust planning, analysis, implementation, and monitoring are essential; Broad support for transformative change is required; and that further efforts are needed to assess and validate the long-term and transformational benefits of green growth.

This report received funding from the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), European Climate Foundation (ECF), Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), UK Department for International Development, and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (through the CDKN).