A New Skills Agenda for Europe

Contracting Party: The European Committee of the Regions (CoR)(with the Framework Contract EYCR – Education, Youth, Culture and Research)

Period: 2016

URL: https://cor.europa.eu/en/engage/studies/Documents/New-Skills-Agenda-Europe.pdf 

Description:

The publishing of ‘A New Skills Agenda for Europe’ on June 2016 acknowledged some major concerns in domains of education and training such as the existence of skills gap and mismatch across the Union and within countries; a shortage of basic, digital, transversal, and entrepreneurial skills; a missing common understanding of key competences on the job; and the still low attractiveness of vocational education and training. First, the study, co-authored by Progress Consulting S.r.l., provides an overview across Europe of the state of the art of skills, focussing as much as possible on the regional level. Then, it looks into the measure and progress of skills market misalignment, the future demand of skills, and the hypothetical socio-economic consequences that skills gap and mismatch may have at the territorial level. Furthermore, through the analysis of about 30 initiatives, the challenges faced by local and regional authorities are discussed and framed towards the achievement of three main objectives: filling the skills gap, reducing the skills mismatch, and improving skills intelligence and information sharing. Overall, the research outlines policy options for subnational authorities that may add value to what has been or is already commonly implemented, and that take into account recent socio-economic developments.