Observing the transition from industrial work to more and more digitalised work in the last decades, in this paper we discuss changes in employment and the relevance of numeracy in adult basic education and in working environments. In a knowledge society, the demand for highly qualified professionals is growing. It is questionable what effects…

Non-formal education programmes to boost young people's development are increasingly common in the Global South. There is clear evidence of short-term impacts but much less is known about how far they lead to lasting change. Longitudinal studies from the Global North provide insights into the long-term effects of participation in extra-curricular…

The experience of developed countries--particularly member-states of the OECD--has shown that employers are actively investing in developing the human capital of their employees. According to research conducted by the World Bank, more than half of the companies in developed countries provide their employees with training in one form or another.…

An extensive body of research indicates a significant correlation between gender equality and the level of economic and social development of a country. Gender inequities have been found to influence the way members of the family spend their time and resources. Evidence suggests that women with more control over resources will spend more money on…

This paper was presented to a meeting of the Wellington Exchange, an international group of higher education officials, in December 2008. One of the topics of the meeting was around the issue of possible skills shortages emerging as a result of demographic trends, with the ageing of the population of developed countries. The paper argues that this…

A common strategy employed by wealthy industrial nations for dealing with short-term skill deficits is to recruit internationally; such was the case, around the millennium, when a teacher supply crisis occurred in the United Kingdom (UK). That immediate crisis is now over; yet irrespective of peaks and troughs, international teacher migration is…