Young people expect prospects for the future. Older employees or job-seekers must keep their qualifications up to date. The high level of dynamics on labour markets results from many national economies now opening up to international competition, the increasing rate of tech-nological development, as well as the growing number of job-seekers.

High unemployment prevails in many places. At the same time, there is a lack of qualified specialists. Nevertheless, education reforms often concentrate on general and academic education.

Any investment in the modernisation of technical and vocational education and training must take into account the needs of the economy while at the same time promoting social develop-ment. This gives rise to the following challenges:

• International competition is increasing at the cost of the poor. Counteracting this re-quires measures that would influence, for example, corporate decisions on the location of facilities, Technical and vocational education and training and efficient services in the labour market have a major role to play here.
• More and more young people are crowding into the labour market. At the same time, people are also living and remaining productive longer. Labour market-oriented train-ing ranks high among factors promoting people’s sustainable integration into a social framework.
  UNESCO’s Education for All Initiative is taking hold, thus making reforms in secon-dary education more urgent. Labour market-oriented services, including those for the poor, are needed. 
• Even in countries with continuous economic growth, the formal economy often cannot successfully absorb the labour force. That is why technical and vocational education and training must also open up prospects for work in the informal economy. 
• Modern technologies are gaining in importance for developing countries that want to stay in the running regionally and internationally. At the same time, traditional busi-ness sectors and set-ups offer employment for many people. Training must therefore promote a differentiated range of solutions.
• The public and private sectors need information in order to channel the flow of educa-tion. What is called for here is an active labour market policy with information sys-tems, counselling and placement services.  Convergence of supply and demand in the labour market alone is not enough to pro-mote economic and social development. Humane working conditions and protection of employees from being exploited must be guaranteed.

Meeting these challenges is an important contribution in achieving the Millennium Develop-ment Goals and the objectives of “Education for All”.  In order for new education and labour strategies to be successful, they first must meet an economy’s demand for skilled labour, sup-port technological development and structural change through selective further training, and promote the integration of job-seekers into the formal and informal labour markets.