ABSTRACT
The Community, being mainly defined by the requirements of economic integration, has followed a utilitarian approach to education and training conducive to the 'good' functioning of the common market. This implies that education and training in the Community primarily aims to facilitate the reproduction of the labour force in an integrated labour market. The weaknesses involved in education and training programmes are twofold: one is the economic discrepancy between the limited financial resources supplied through these programmes and the growing needs of the member states for the improvement of the qualities of human capital and the reproduction of the labour force. The other is the structural discrepancy between the unified rules of operation of the education programmes and the uneven development of the member states of the Community. These discrepancies combined tend to reproduce existing regional and social inequalities thereby perpetuating the fragmentation of the European labour market.
