Although the current Labour government is committed to developing the UK as a high skills society, there is much confusion as what such a society might look like and from where it might draw its inspiration. Some academic commentators have also expressed the need for a clearer vision of the kind of society to which the UK might choose to head for…

The notion of skills shortage pervades the rhetoric of economic reform and calls for Australia to become a skilled nation, and it is implicitly associated with conceptions of youth as attitudinally deficient and inadequately prepared to meet the needs of the contemporary economy. However, a lack of clarity exists regarding the term 'skills', the…

Such concepts as employment and unemployment have different meanings in former Communist countries. A typology of postcommunist school-to-work transition using Western concepts of private sector, public sector, self-employment, and unemployment can accurately describe the situation in the transition to a market economy. (SK)

Explores how an advertising degree course had to be positioned between competing definitions of valid and relevant, academic and experiential knowledge. Locates the issues within the context of credential inflation--credentials become worth less as more people acquire them. (SK)

At a Welsh university, an experimental program to encourage creativity evolved into a mainstream course on innovation. The modular program seeks to give students understanding of pressures for change, theoretical models of innovation, techniques to enhance abilities, and protection of intellectual property. (SK)