ABSTRACT
Education and training for young people in Western Europe is in the throes of traumatic change. Unemployment and the transformation of those jobs that remain has highlighted the need to look afresh at how young people are helped to prepare for adult life.
Four key issues tend to dominate the discussion: the relevance of education and training to working life (and to other aspects of life in an uncertain world); the need for flexibility on the part of people (young and old); the need to improve people’s ability to make reasoned choices about education and employment, and who will pay the cost of this education and training.
These factors are causing the current diversity within Western Europe to diminish as countries share their experiences and seek to create open, dynamic, relevant and cost-effective education, training and (more slowly) guidance systems, to help young people through the turbulent teenage years.
