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'Lifelong employability'- the capacity to be productive and to hold rewarding jobs over one's working life - is no longer guaranteed by the education and training received in childhood and youth. The continuous structural changes affecting all OECD economies have increased the importance of up-to-date skills and competences. Responding to this requirement calls for the development of effective strategies for lifelong learning.l
The strategy of lifelong learning for all offers a means of helping OECD countries anticipate, and benefit from, economic and social changes. Lifelong learning is far broader than the provision of `second-chance' education and training for adults. It is based on the view that everyone should be able, motivated and actively encouraged to learn throughout life. This view of learning embraces individual and social development of all kinds and in all settings: formally, in schools, vocational, higher- and adult-education institutions; and informally, at home, at work and in the community. Among its other purposes, lifelong learning has to be viewed as an integral part of employment and social policy and, as such, it has been endorsed by the OECD's member countries.2
Better-educated individuals have, on average, higher rates of participation in the labour force, lower unemployment and higher earnings than those with low qualifications. For example, individuals with university qualifications typically earn 50-100% more than those with only a secondary education; the unemployment rate for graduates is likewise, on average, only half as high. Recent data for seven countries (soon to be extended by another five) on the relationship between labour-market outcomes and another proxy measure of human capital degrees of literacy -- confirm this general pattern.3 There is also evidence of a macro-economic relationship between educational attainment and output and productivity growth. Studies covering a mix of OECD and other countries find education contributing up to a quarter of output growth. In sum, there is empirical support for the view that education and training lift productivity, both of individuals and economies as a whole.4
Moreover, the benefits of education and training during youth are amplified by learning later in life, as is demonstrated by the impact of training in enterprises:
training has the biggest impact on enterprise performance when it is undertaken in connection with changes in work organisation, job structure...