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The Youth Guarantee is an innovative approach to tackling youth unemployment to ensure that all young people under 25 - whether registered with employment services or not - get a good-quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education. [European Union] EU countries endorsed the principle of the Youth Guarantee in April 2013. This leaflet explains how the Youth Guarantee works and why it makes a difference.

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The is the sixth innovation report since the announcement of 'Backing Australia's ability', the Australian government's five year innovation statement. It provides an opportunity to reflect on the achievements of Australian government departments and agencies against the themes of 'Backing Australia's ability', along with their progress in addressing broader national goals through their implementation of the National Research Priorities. The report additionally presents the findings of the third Australian Innovation Scorecard, comparing Australia's innovation performance to that of other countries in the OECD. It thus provides a broader global context for Australia's innovation activities and a means of tracking the nation's progress in an increasingly competitive global economy. Finally, the report outlines the important role that key institutions and strategic planning processes are playing in informing the future of Australian science and innovation and ensuring that Australia remains well-placed to benefit from its investments in the future.

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[This report] is designed to support international engagement by the Australian [vocational education and training] VET sector by articulating some of the opportunities available and also some of the challenges faced. It is designed to encourage a shared vision, and greater collaboration and partnerships, amongst the key stakeholders of the sector. [This report] provides an overview of the Australian VET sector as well as Australia’s international education and training engagement, in order to ‘set the scene’ for the operating environment of the sector. Some key issues in the international education and training arena for the Australian VET sector have been highlighted. [This report] then proposes a range of objectives and strategies to maximise the opportunities available in the period 2007-2011.

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In 2009, the Council endorsed the renewed framework for European cooperation in the youth field (2010-2018), known in short as the [European Union] EU Youth Strategy. Its objectives are to: (1) create more and equal opportunities for all young people in education and in the labour market; and (2) promote the active citizenship, social inclusion and solidarity of all young people. This Staff working document supports the Commission Communication which presents the draft joint report on the EU Youth Report to the Council. Summarising the results of the first cycle (2010-2012), it presents the actions taken at EU-level and in Member States, as well as initiatives taken by young people themselves. Separate chapters report on achievements in all eight 'fields of action' of the strategy, the general organisation and approach to youth policy, and the structured dialogue between young people and policy-makers. The references made to Member States' activities are based on national youth reports submitted by them. Young people are represented in the report by the European Youth Forum, which is an umbrella organisation of approximately 40 National Youth Councils and more than 60 international non-governmental youth organisations in Europe.

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This annual report for 2002-03 contains information about the Department of Education, Science and Training's (DEST's) role, its corporate governance arrangements and management accountability framework, and its performance against the outcomes and outputs framework set out in the 2002-03 Portfolio Budget Statements. The first two chapters contain the Department Secretary's review of the year and an overview of DEST. Chapters three to five report on DEST's performance in achieving the following outcomes: students acquire high quality foundation skills and learning outcomes from schools; individuals achieve relevant skills and learning outcomes from post-school education and training for work and life; and Australia has a strong science, research and innovation capacity and is engaged internationally in science, education and training to advance its social development and economic growth. Chapter six looks at management and accountability arrangements. Included as appendices are: Occupational health and safety; Freedom of information; Payments to advertising and marker research organisations; Discretionary grants; Consultancies; Ecologically sustainable development and environmental performance reporting; Commonwealth disability strategy; Financial statements; Glossary and acronyms; Tables and figures. Show less

Language competences are a key dimension of modernising European education systems, and this staff working document [SWD] is part of a larger policy initiative contributing to Europe 2020. It offers analysis and insight to support the Commission communication on 'Re-thinking Education: a blueprint to invest in the skills of the future for better economic and social outcomes'. Raising the language competences of children, young people and adults will foster the mobility of workers and students and improve the employability of the European workforce. Therefore, improved language competences will contribute to achieving the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy of growth and jobs. This SWD presents ground-breaking evidence. It draws on the new European Survey on Language Competences (ESLC), which assesses pupils' knowledge of the first and second foreign languages at the end of lower secondary education. Show less

The Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) and the Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) funded a project in 2001 to analyse and report on industry requirements for ‘employability skills’. This project was jointly managed by the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and was completed in March 2002. Employability skills were defined for the purposes of the project as ‘skills required not only to gain employment, but also to progress within an enterprise so as to achieve one’s potential and contribute successfully to enterprise strategic directions’. The project was commissioned to provide: (a) advice on possible new requirements for generic employability competencies that industry needs, or will need in the forseeable future, since the development of the Mayer key competencies; (b) clear definitions of what Australian industry and enterprises perceive as employability skills and the terminology being used to describe them; and (c) a proposed suite of employability skills and assessment and reporting options. The project also investigated industry reactions to the proposed suite and reporting options and undertook case studies involving a number of large enterprises and focus group research with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This report is based on a review of Australian and overseas policy and research literature on key employability skills. It clarifies concepts and terminology, analyses the principles and purposes of different approaches to key employability skills, develops a framework of such skills to support the fieldwork aspects of the overall project, and suggests strategies to facilitate the development of these skills more effectively within Australian education and training.

The project final report is indexed at TD/TNC 70.178. The report on detailed case studies with large enterprises is indexed at TD/TNC 70.180 and the report on the SMEs research is indexed at TD/TNC 70.181. Show less

The aim of this report is to help industry, government policy makers and training providers better understand the drivers of skill needs in the agrifood industry and identify the options for meeting those needs. This report provides the findings of a high level review of the skills and workforce issues confronting the agrifood industry and its five industry sectors: food processing, meat, seafood, racing, and rural and related industries. The key drivers of skills needs for the agrifood industry are: development of the regions; worker attraction and retention; demographic change and employment arrangements; consumer and customer service demands; competitiveness and productivity demands; business compliance; innovation; and globalisation. The relationship between these drivers and skill requirements are analysed and conclusions are developed on how changing drivers may impact on the skills base. Participation, attainment and expenditure trends in vocational and technical education are also discussed. Strategies addressing a broad range of issues driving current and future skills and workforce needs, with a focus on the role of training are recommended. Some of these strategies include: utilising existing industry champions to promote the agrifood industry as a preferred career choice for people in regional and urban areas; the provision of incentives such as higher remuneration, better working conditions and flexible arrangments to encourage older and experienced workers to remain on the job longer; developing skills in international business management; creating partnerships with government, industry and communities to strategically invest in infrastructure development; education of the industry on the challenges and opportunities of globalisation, the importance of research and innovation, and the effecient use of new technology in the global marketplace; developing and distributing tools and resources relating to environment, food safety, occupational health and safety risks and sustainability; adopting a futures approach to the development of training packages to better link research and development to competencies; and providing clear information about career paths and job opportunities that enable informed employment and education choices. Show less

This report sets out steps to be taken without delay to get young people back into work, education or training. These steps cover: the implementation of the Youth Guarantee; investment in young people through the European Social Fund; the front-loading of the Youth Employment Initiative; support for intra-[European Union] EU labour mobility with EURES; steps to ease the transition from education to work by boosting the supply of high quality apprenticeships and traineeships and addressing skills shortages; an acceleration of reforms to deliver a genuine EU labour market in the longer run; and measures to support job creation in the immediate term, especially by [small and medium-sized] SMEs, and to incentivise the hiring of young people.

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This publication has been produced in response to the plan for Objective 3 in the United Kingdom. Chapter 1 provides a summary of the main features of the labour market over recent years and current trends; the results of the monitoring and evaluation exercise for Objective 3 and 4 in the previous period, and a prior appraisal of the UK plan. Chapter 2 gives an outline of the strategic approach, discusses the priorities for European Social Fund (ESF) support, and the nature of the measures within each ESF supported priority. It also presents the indicators against which the ESF contribution will be assessed. Chapter 3 looks at the financing plan by priority, the explanation of additionality, how it will be measured, the additionality table, and the explanation of concentration and the concentration table. Chapter 4 describes the committee structure for the administration of the program, the method to be applied in the UK for monitoring and evaluating ESF, an outline of the criteria for selecting projects, the approach to multiannual approvals and the Commission standard clauses on administration of ESF in Member States. Show less