Demand for Skills Upgrading

1. Demand for Skills Upgrading Mary Canning The World Bank

2. Life Long Learning “Workers must be equipped not simply with technical know-how but also with the ability to create, analyze and transform information and to interact effectively with others. Moreover, that learning will increasingly be a lifelong activity” Alan Greenspan

3. Demand for Skills “Successful business are looking for employees who can adapt to changing needs, juggle multiple responsibilities and routinely make decisions on their own.” Learning for the 21st century. Report and mile guide for 21st century skills.

4. A vision of lifelong learning: 1 • General agreement on the need for higher level of traditional academic skills • Literacy, numeracy, science, technology/ICT (and international language) • Emerging agreement on the need for a different set of ‘soft’ skills • self-regulated learning • tolerance for ambiguity • creative thinking • ability to work in a team • learning how to learn

5. A vision of lifelong learning: 2 • More diversity in types of learner as countries move towards a lifelong learning system • Expanding population of learners • Different types and quality of preparation for learning • Different learning styles (“multiple intelligences”)

6. A vision of lifelong learning: 3 • Additional learning modalities • Modular • Part-time • Distance/e-learning • Summary: additional competencies, types of learners and learning modalities require a different approach to learning (pedagogy)

7. Access to lifelong learning • Currently, however, participation in continuing education and training is very unevenly distributed. • Those with highest participation rates are: • Better educated • Richer • Male • Employed • Employed in the formal sector

8. The need for transformation • So to make lifelong learning a reality will require a transformation of the way education and training systems are financed, operated and managed.

9. Competitive Enterprises • Successful companies in the Europe and Central Asia region will increasingly rely on knowledge for their value added • This requires a continual upgrading of the skills and knowledge of the workforce • And not just of the managers • So, the way enterprises think about training needs to change

10. Implications for Training Policy • Governments have typically focused on formal, pre-employment training conducted in public sector institutions • But even in the poorest countries, the vast majority of training is paid for by enterprises not by governments

11. What is the role of Government? • Provider? • Training Funds? • Levy Grant Schemes? • Quality assurance and information only?

12. This session • This session looks at the role of enterprises, as a source of demand for training, of demand for higher skills and more knowledge in their workforce • In particular, it focuses on those businesses that have re-engineered themselves around high-performance working practices

13. The speakers • David Ashton is Emeritus professor and founder of the Centre for Labor Market Studies of the University of Leicester in the UK. Among his many books and articles is Supporting Workplace Learning for High Performance Working. He will talk about what it means to be a High Performance Work Organization. • Ayse Oncu is Regional HR Director for South East Europe of Ernst and Young. She will talk from the enterprise perspective on the role of upgrading skills and knowledge, and incentives on enterprises to do so.

14. Discussion:21st Century Skills • Supply and demand • SMEs and Multinationals the same? • Traditional versus High Tech? • More PhDs?/More Technical skills? • Are education and training systems meeting those demands?