This open access book presents contemporary perspectives on the role of a learning society from the lens of leading practitioners, experts from universities, governments, and industry leaders. The think pieces argue for a learning society as a major driver of change with far-reaching influence on learning to serve the needs of economies and societies. The book is a testimonial to the importance of ‘learning communities.’ It highlights the pivotal role that can be played by non-traditional actors such as city and urban planners, citizens, transport professionals, and technology companies. This collection seeks to contribute to the discourse on strengthening the fabric of a learning society crucial for future economic and social development, particularly in the aftermath of the coronavirus disease.
Despite its vital role in development to increase access to sustainable income, skills training has been experiencing severe problems worldwide, such as lack of physical, legal and educational infrastructure, absence of a win-win based cooperation between the private sector and vocational education and training agencies as well as matters of financing. The state and development agencies on their own are limited in their capacity to tackle these problems. It is difficult to close the gap between the supply of labour and the demands of the market, which exacerbates the exclusion of the base of the pyramid from the economy, especially in a globalizing world where the technological requirements are changing rapidly. Private sector, on the other hand, has significant potential to address the deficiencies in skills development and bridge the gap between what the labour force has to offer and what the industry demands. The companies can contribute to the skills training process, which in turn can provide the required skilled employees for the market and offer employment opportunities, particularly to the disadvantaged. Private sector will not only help to improve national competitiveness and realize an increase in its profitability due to the availability of a better trained staff, but also improve the inclusiveness of the market. The publication is intended to be a first step towards generating knowledge on the role of private sector in skills generation for increased inclusiveness and employability. It includes several case studies from Turkey, in which the private sector has created significant added-value through private sector-led or PPP models of skills design and delivery. It elaborates on the lessons-learned from these cases to pave the way for further action and research on how business actors can contribute to skills development, especially for the disadvantaged. The publication will lead to further research products and reports, and eventually toolkits on how to mobilize and engage the private sector in skills generation for better development results. Workshops will be organized for the private sector, governments and other relevant stakeholders based on these toolkits to facilitate knowledge-sharing and encourage innovation.
More young people live in India than in any other country and their numbers are projected to increase for decades to come. More than 12 million enter the workforce each year yet few have the skills required for employment. The Government of India has set a target to skill 400 million people by 2022 and established the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) as part of this mission. Through NSDC, government is engaged with private sector partners to advance strategic approaches in skills development by creating public-private partnerships with companies involved in skill training. This is at the centre of a skills business “ecosystem” in India through which all players interact to produce a positive, productive system to skill millions. Momentum for the skills development movement comes not only from the urgent need to provide livelihoods for youth but also from the need to act before a window of opportunity closes. The “youth bulge” in India’s population is poised to deliver a demographic dividend, a transformational boost in economic productivity associated with growing numbers in the workforce relative to dependents. Only through investing in up-to-date education, health and decent work for youth can India harness this dividend. India requires skills to sustain its rapid economic growth, to integrate its large working-age population into the economy in an inclusive and sustainable manner and, ultimately, India needs skills in order to become a global supplier of human resources. This study focuses on 12 skills delivery initiatives led by the private sector and carried out to support the national skills mission of the Government of India. The objective of this study is to generate lessons from India’s experience in skilling, namely to identify and analyse impactful business models and their practices and innovations, to highlight challenges, and to provide insights on how the private sector could contribute even more to skills acquisition and employability.
There has been a burgeoning of public-private partnerships in different parts of the world. The partnerships differ in form and structure, in the extent of public and private participation, and in the forms of their engagement. The essays in this volume are written mainly from the perspective of providers. They provide valuable insights into the purpose, trend and impact of public-private partnerships in different parts of the world, as well as an understanding of the barriers they face.
How can today's workforce keep pace with an increasingly competitive global economy? As new technologies rapidly transform the workplace, employee requirements are changing and workers must adapt to different working conditions. This volume compares new evidence on the returns from worker training in the United States, Germany, France, Britain, Japan, Norway, and the Netherlands. The authors focus on Germany's widespread, formal apprenticeship programs; the U.S. system of learning-by-doing; Japan's low employee turnover and extensive company training; and Britain's government-led and school-based training schemes. The evidence shows that, overall, training in the workplace is more effective than training in schools. Moreover, even when U.S. firms spend as much on training as other countries do, their employees may still be less skilled than workers in Europe or Japan. Training and the Private Sector points to training programs in Germany, Japan, and other developed countries as models for creating a workforce in the United States that can compete more successfully in today's economy.
Robots in Fiction, discusses how robots are featured in popular culture, including films and fiction. Also discusses real and imagined advances in robotics, and how realistically the technology is represented.
“A superb new understanding of the dynamic economy as a learning society, one that goes well beyond the usual treatment of education, training, and R&D.”—Robert Kuttner, author of The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy Since its publication Creating a Learning Society has served as an effective tool for those who advocate government policies to advance science and technology. It shows persuasively how enormous increases in our standard of living have been the result of learning how to learn, and it explains how advanced and developing countries alike can model a new learning economy on this example. Creating a Learning Society: Reader’s Edition uses accessible language to focus on the work’s central message and policy prescriptions. As the book makes clear, creating a learning society requires good governmental policy in trade, industry, intellectual property, and other important areas. The text’s central thesis—that every policy affects learning—is critical for governments unaware of the innovative ways they can propel their economies forward. “Profound and dazzling. In their new book, Joseph E. Stiglitz and Bruce C. Greenwald study the human wish to learn and our ability to learn and so uncover the processes that relate the institutions we devise and the accompanying processes that drive the production, dissemination, and use of knowledge . . . This is social science at its best.”—Partha Dasgupta, University of Cambridge “An impressive tour de force, from the theory of the firm all the way to long-term development, guided by the focus on knowledge and learning . . . This is an ambitious book with far-reaching policy implications.”—Giovanni Dosi, director, Institute of Economics, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna “[A] sweeping work of macroeconomic theory.”—Harvard Business Review
Companies like Google and Apple heralded the information revolution, and opened the doors for Silicon Valley to grow into an engine of dazzling technological development, that today champions the free market that engendered it against the supposedly stifling encroachment of government regulation. But is that really the case? In this sharp and controversial expose, The Entrepreneurial State, Mariana Mazzucato debunks the pervasive myth that the state is a laggard, bureaucratic apparatus at odds with a dynamic private sector. Instead she reveals in case study after case study that, in fact, the opposite is true: the state is our boldest and most valuable innovator. The technology revolution would never have happened without support from the US Government. The breakthroughs--GPS, touch-screen displays, the Internet, and voice-activated AI--that enabled legendary Apple products to be smart successes were, in fact, all developed with support from the state. Mazzucato reveals that many successful entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs integrated state-funded technological developments into their products and then reaped the rewards themselves. The algorithm behind Google’s search engine was initially sponsored by NASA. And 75% of NMEs--new, often-ground-breaking drugs not derivative of existing substances--trace their research to National Institutes of Health (NIH) labs. The American government, it turns out, has been enormously successfully at stimulating scientific and technological advancement. But by 2009, just some months following the Great Recession--the US government, constrained by austerity measures, started disinvesting from its holdings in research fields like health, energy, electronics. The trend is likely to continue, and the repercussions of these policies could wreak havoc on our technology and science sectors. But Mazzucato remains optimistic. If managed correctly, state-sponsored development of Green technology, for instance, could be as efficacious as suburbanization & post-war reconstruction in the mid-twentieth century, and unleash a wide-spread golden age in the global economy. The limitations of natural resources and the threat of global warming could become the most powerful driver of growth, employment, and innovation within just one generation--but to be successful, the Green Revolution will depend on the initiatives of proactive governments. By not admitting the State’s role in economic and technological progress, we are socializing only the risks of investing in innovation, while privatizing the rewards in the hands of only a few businesses. This, Mazzucato argues, hurts both future of innovation and equity in modern-day capitalism. For policy-makers, Silicon Valley start-up founders, venture-capitalists, and economists alike, The Entrepreneurial State stirs up much needed debate and offers up a brilliant corrective to spurious beliefs: to thrive, American businesses have always and will need to depend on the support of our country’s most audacious entrepreneur, the state.
The book offers an overview of international examples, studies, and guidelines on how to create successful partnerships in education. PPPs can facilitate service delivery and lead to additional financing for the education sector as well as expanding equitable access and improving learning outcomes.
