This report made at a Senate-House Joint Economic Committee hearing on the problems of youth unemployment is based on data gathered through academic research and personal visits to several industrialized countries. (WL)

Trends in vocational education and training (VET) within the European Union (EU) are examined from three viewpoints (education, geography, and industrial sociology) to determine whether policies have fostered the desired convergence of economies. Factors considered include pressures motivating VET reform, changes in national VET policies, and…

States that a successful partnership with private business requires attention to issues of benefit and value. Recounts the gradual process by which Carl Sandburg College (Illinois) made these connections in opening the Center for Manufacturing Excellence, which houses a business incubator and provides many creative ideas for workforce development…

Discusses the background and purpose of 1994's School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA). Focuses on the implementation of STWOA's three components (i.e., school-based learning, work-based learning, and connecting activities), highlighting the role of tech prep in joining school- and work-based instruction. Argues that community colleges are…

Nearly all tertiary institutions in Hong Kong now offer associate degrees; the intent is a broad-based science and humanities curriculum with the aim of achieving the government goal of increasing access to higher education. However, a narrowly focused curriculum still predominates and few associate degree recipients view it as a terminal…

The influx of minorities into the workplace requires attention to their participation in workplace training, to race relations and organizational culture, and to potential communication difficulties. Human resource professionals must address cultural diversity issues as they affect the attainment of organizational goals. (SK)

In the postindustrial era, industry's primary resource is capable people, not minerals and materials--because of the new dependence on computers, communication networks, and instantaneous information processing. Policy and program planners must make the reforms produce the intended outcomes. In twenty-first century planning, nothing in the current…

Reviews the status of new workplace technologies. Discusses the impact of these new technologies on individual employees, on management methods, and on organizational structure and design. Discusses the role of industrial psychologists, and how they might contribute to systematic research aimed at productivity improvement. (JS)

Examines the frequency and types of evaluation research methods used in communication training programs. Finds that human resource (HR) trainers rarely conduct needs analyses while planning communication training programs, and that systematic and controlled evaluation research is not being undertaken to plan, implement, and assess communication…

Today private-sector partnerships and business involvement aimed at improving the educational system operate at several levels: (1) policy; (2) systemic educational improvements; (3) management assistance; (4) teacher training and development; and (5) classroom programs. Early intervention for the future work force is the motivating factor.…

Human resource investments are increasingly viewed as critical to the process of human development. In the future, a country's competitiveness in the world market will depend upon the quality of its human resources--knowledge, learning, information, and skilled intelligence. (JOW)

The National Center for Educational Leadership, a consortium of Harvard, Vanderbilt, and Chicago universities, was federally funded to develop and disseminate knowledge to improve educational leadership quality. This article summarizes the panel's deliberations, highlighting three issues: leadership effectiveness, administrator preparation, and…

Provides microeconomic estimates of the returns to education in Spain, using 1990 Spanish labor force survey data. The rate of return to education is higher for self-employed than for wage and salary workers. Secondary education is better compensated in the private sector, whereas a university education is better compensated in the public sector.…

To establish high employability in the United States, higher education, other educational providers, workers, employers, unions, state and federal governments must create partnerships. Coalition must have a shared agenda and concrete programs to advance it. The value of college credentials may diminish, but the value of teaching expertise will…

There are inherent problems when unskilled or semiskilled workers are retrained for high skilled jobs that do not and will not exist. Although the consensus is that smarter workers will make the nation more competitive in the world market, the occupation that will add the most jobs by the year 2005 is retail clerk. (JOW)