Upskilling Pathways: New Opportunities for Adults - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 484/1

In today’s society everyone needs to have a wide set of skills, knowledge and competences, including a sufficient level of literacy, numeracy and digital competence, in order to achieve his or her full potential, play an active part in society and undertake his or her social and civic responsibilities. Such skills, knowledge and competences are also crucial for accessing, and progressing in, the labour market and for engaging in further education and training.

Increasingly, job openings require both a higher level and a broader range of skills. In the future there will be fewer jobs of an elementary nature. Even jobs which traditionally required low-level qualifications or no qualifications at all are becoming more demanding. A large majority of jobs will require some level of digital competence, and an increasing number of elementary jobs require some core or generic skills (such as communication, problem-solving, teamwork and emotional intelligence).

In 2015, there were 64 million people, more than a quarter of the Union population aged 25-64, who had left initial education and training with at most a lower secondary education qualification. While there are no means to measure the basic skill levels of those people, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Survey of Adult Skills (‘PIAAC’), which tested levels of literacy, numeracy and problem-solving in technology-rich environments, indicates that similar proportions of adults aged 16 to 65 performed at the lowest level of proficiency in 20 Member States.

Furthermore, 2013 data from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) highlight the significant proportion of 15-year-olds who underachieve in reading (17,8 %), maths (22,1 %) and science (16,6 %). Those results remain above the Education and Training 2020 (ET 2020) benchmark of 15 %.

PIAAC indicates that adults with higher proficiency in literacy, numeracy and problem-solving in technology-rich environments tend to have more success in the labour market. At the same time, 20 to 25 % of European adults aged 16 to 65 with low levels of proficiency in those skills are less likely to take part in learning or to participate fully in the digitally driven economy and society. They face a higher risk of unemployment, a higher incidence of poverty and social exclusion, higher health risks and a lower life expectancy, while their children face higher risks of educational underachievement.

Low-qualified people with fundamental weaknesses in basic skills may constitute a high proportion of the unemployed (in particular long-term unemployed) and other vulnerable groups, for instance older workers, economically inactive people and third-country nationals. Such weaknesses make it more difficult for them to enter or return to the labour market.

Member State policies to reduce early leaving from education and training in accordance with the Council Recommendation of 28 June 2011 (1) and the Council conclusions of 23 November 2015 on policies to reduce early school-leaving, based on prevention, intervention and compensation measures, are having a positive effect. In 2015, the Union average rate of early school-leaving among those aged 18 to 24 was around one percentage point below the Europe 2020 headline target of 10 %, but with wide variations across Member States....