OECD. Capitalising on WorldSkills, the OECD held a one day conference/showcase titled “Competing for Skills: VET in the 21st Century”. What the presentations from member countries clearly showed was that the global policy agenda has coalesced around a set of very similar ideas about how VET can be deployed to help solve economic problems. This meant that there were no novel solutions, but rather the recycling of ideas that are recorded as having worked in the past. This is not to say that the ideas were without merit, rather that these were cyclical solutions to a global financial crisis that is widely recognised now as structural. Some structural solutions came in the keynote address delivered by Jack Dusseldorp, who framed his address with three macro-level themes for VET in the 21st century: identity, mobility and sustainability. For further details have a look at Jack’s paper which has been posted on this site.

This blog has also appeared as a ‘comment’ to a general WorldSkills post prior.