Comparison of Britain's Training and Enterprise Councils/Local Enterprise Companies with the United States' Private Industry Councils (PICs) shows common problems: inadequate financing, labor market fragmentation, staff turnover, and lack of national strategy. PICs have a clearer mission and greater success in developing partnerships with local…

Education and adult life/work are concurrent, not consecutive. To address this new paradigm, Work Keys provide a common language for education and business to prepare people for education and employment transitions. Work Keys components are job profiling, skills assessments, and targets for instruction. (SK)

Labor market planning techniques must take into account the dynamic nature of economies. A better approach than labor needs forecasting is use of labor market signals developed by monitoring wage and employment changes and evaluating training programs. (SK)

Redesigning jobs, training, and retraining may be the most important economic challenge facing this country for the next decade. Training must support jobs that are really changing and retraining has to prepare people for jobs that really exist. (Author/JOW)

Although in most developing countries, major vocational training programs are financed from general government revenues, earmarked payroll taxes are becoming increasingly popular. This paper summarizes international experience with these payroll taxes, distinguishing between the more traditional revenue-raising schemes of the Latin American model…

Examines the perspectives of needs assessment described in performance technology and human resource development literature. Perspectives embodied in definitions and conceptualizations of the terms need, needs assessment, needs analysis, front end analysis, and performance analysis are examined, and different views about where the needs assessment…

A General Accounting Office study examined strategies used to prepare youth for employment in the United States and four competitor nations and found that other countries have higher expectations of students, invest heavily in education and training, have national training standards, and have higher literacy rates among young adults. (JOW)

Technical-vocational education increasingly carries the burden of providing the needed labor force for the attainment of an industrialized economy. More collaboration is necessary to implement the best possible programs, strengthen intellectual and development, and promote their relevance to national development. (Author/JOW)

Includes "National Education Goals/America 2000: The Budget"; "Current Status of Proposed Solutions"; "America 2000: An Education Strategy"; "America 2000 Questions and Answers; "Bottom-up Reform from the Top Down" (Chubb); and "The Federal Role Comes of Age" (Doyle). (SK)

A major surplus of food products in Europe highlights the need for development of training programs to coordinate agricultural and food industry labor needs and market considerations. These largely traditional industries are changing rapidly. Efforts currently under way are emphasizing the international dimension of the business issues and…

The job training system needs to emphasize the basic and functional skills; it needs competency standards and certifications; advanced training should be vouchered; individuals should be tracked over time; and staff development is critical. (JOW)

Higher education is under pressure to create a workforce making the United States more competitive internationally. Demographic and workforce influences are shaping teaching, support services and management. Colleges and universities should increase quality, use of technology and communications, and labor productivity and efficiency, and reduce…

Vocational-technical education can play a substantial role in work force preparation if (1) unfounded assumptions are avoided; (2) supply/demand information is improved; and (3) equity effects of different policy options are examined. More educated trainees often benefit more from training than less educated ones. (SK)

Comparison of national policies in South Korea, Singapore, and Britain to respond to low-skills equilibria (self-reinforcing institutions that stifle demand for skill improvements) shows that different responses stem from national differences in supply/demand and the differential impact of globalization due to the individual economic and social…

Discusses free agent learners--those who take responsibility for self-directed learning--and offers recommendations related to the problems of recruiting, developing, and retaining competent workers in a period of labor market shortages and rapid technological change. (JOW)