Quality of Education and Training

The quality of education and training is a critical factor for generating smart growth — training the staff needed for research, development and innovation and providing a highly productive and adaptable workforce. It is also instrumental for sustainable growth to off-set the impact of demographic ageing on the workforce by increasing employment, reducing skills mismatches. Facilitating the access to quality education and training is crucial to achieving inclusive growth by breaking the transmission of poverty from one generation to the next through higher employability. This requires in particular, tackling the problem that almost 20% of young people lack the most basic skills, which renders them effectively nonemployable.
To boost growth and jobs and to prevent skills bottlenecks and shortages, education and training systems have to deliver quality; they have to equip people with skills that pave the way for a smooth transition to the labour market; and, what’s more, a more pro-active management of skills supply can drive innovation, create new markets and induce the emergence of dynamic growth sectors.1