Foundation seminar series - Developing workers' skills: actors and actions, 2008
The scale of current economic and social change, the rapid transition to a knowledge-based society, and demographic pressures resulting from an ageing population in Europe are all challenges which demand a new approach to education and training. Firms are specifically interested in skills development as one way to increase firms’ innovativeness and creativity. From the workers point of view, developing skills and competences is an essential part of improving quality of work and which might generate higher income and greater employability. The importance of skills development have been singled out as a strategic priority in the European Commission’s Lisbon Strategy:
'Investment in skills is of crucial strategic importance for the European Union that strives to be the leading knowledge based society with high quality jobs and strong social cohesion (Lisbon Strategy, 2000)'.
Objectives of the seminar
The 2008 Foundation seminar explored the role of the social partners and public authorities in skills development of the European workers. The seminar was organised in eight training modules taking place in two sessions.
The first session outlined the macroeconomic challenges and the European strategies on skills. It aimed at mapping European trends and discussing development of workers’ skills by tackling issues such as skills forecasting, specific skills development due to restructuring or specific work organisations as well as the role of partnership in developing workers’ skills.
The second session was dedicated to national policies and. practical examples of policies and projects implemented by companies or local authorities. Participants presented national policies and country situations based on the assignments they had completed in between the sessions. Issues such as skill recognition and skill validation, partnership for skills development, financing mechanism or Individual Training Paths were discussed.
The tripartite debate showed once again the importance of exchange amongst actors and policy makers at national level when designing and implementing the best policies. Deepening the knowledge on the issue and the networking initiated in the process were both highly praised by all participants.