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In the present economic environment--marked by the introduction and diffusion of new technologies, the internationalization of markets, fierce international competition and structural adjustment--a high quality workforce is a major advantage for both countries and enterprises.
Vocational education and training (VET) are indispensable instruments for improving labour mobility, adaptability and productivity, thus contributing to enhancing firms' competitiveness and redressing labour market imbalances. In order to adjust to the new environment, most countries, both developed and developing, are now in the process of reviewing, adapting and sometimes redesigning their education and training systems.
The situation and problems to be dealt with obviously differ widely from one country to another, and from one region to another. In advanced industrialized countries the challenge is to meet the requirements of an increasingly knowledge-intensive economy, while finding jobs for a growing number of unemployed. In the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe the collapse of the USSR and CMEA and the transition towards a market economy have led to a sharp downturn in production and a dramatic rise in the number of unemployed. Rebuilding their productive capacity on new foundations and fighting unemployment call for the adoption of a large-scale programme of further training and retraining together with a refocusing of educational and training policies. Developing countries grappling with economic crisis and structural adjustment programmes are confronted with a significant decline in formal sector employment and the growing importance of the informal sector. In consequence, these countries will probably have to scale down their state-financed vocational education and training systems and refocus them on the needs of the informal sector. By contrast, the newly industrialized countries of Asia, which are experiencing very high rates of economic growth, face a widespread shortage of skilled workers, calling for a general upgrading of their workforce in order to sustain the reorientation of their economies towards increasingly technology-intensive production.
Though the problems and the resources available to cope with them may differ, some basic questions are common to all countries:
--How can the quality of education and training be improved and the needs of the economy more effectively met?
--How can training systems be made more responsive to the rapidly changing, and often unpredictable, needs of labour markets?
--How can the efficiency of...