ABSTRACT
For a number of decades governments around the world have stressed the need for more effective training for both young people and adults and have linked this objective specifically to the needs of the labour market. There is a perceived need for a more highly trained and educated workforce to meet the requirements of the economy in the competitive, globalised and highly technological market of the early twenty-first century. Initial training and education are seen to be inadequate to meet the changing demands of the workplace and the workforce at all levels needs to access further education and training on a continuing basis in a world where lifetime employment in one career or job is no longer the norm. Commentators have used a variety of vivid expressions to describe the demands upon individuals and enterprises such as this: an era of discontinuous change (Handy, 1989) where the half-life of knowledge is decreasing (Barnett, 1994) and where to sustain economic advantage we have to work smarter not harder (Thurow, 1991). Given the changes in nature of work practices over the past few decades it might be more accurate for commentators with this perspective to say that all of us have to work ‘smarter and harder’.
