The Right Skills for the Job?

Creating jobs and increasing productivity are at the top of agenda for policymakers across the world. This report brings new ideas on how to build and upgrade job relevant skills, focusing on three types of training programs relevant for individuals who are leaving the formal general schooling system or are already in the labor market:

• pre-employment technical and vocational education and training (TVET)
• on-the-job training (OJT)
• training-related active labor market programs (ALMPs)

Several previous studies have discussed some of the flaws in current systems and outlined options for reform. But, overall policies at these three levels of the training systems remain disconnected and there has not been an integrated framework linking them to the market and government failures that need to be addressed.

This book makes two important contributions. First, it takes an in-depth look at the types of market and government failures that can result in underinvestment in training or the supply of skills that are not immediately relevant to the labor market. Second, building on the analysis of the limitations of both markets and governments and the results of case studies and recent impact evaluations, the report develops new ideas to improve the design and performance of current training programs, which often involve interventions outside the education and training systems.