Productivity, Education and Training

The continuing development of automated production methods, combined with increasing competition in manufactures from low-wage developing economies, is likely to reduce yet further the scope for the employment of low skilled and inexperienced personnel in advanced economies if Britain is to benefit from advanced technology. Higher standards of schooling and of vocational training are now widely recognised as essential in Britain - as in the United States and many other industrialised countries. This book provides a realistic analysis of what needs to be done, based on visits by expert teams to matched samples of manufacturing plants, as well as to schools and vocational colleges in Britain and Continental Europe. The policy emphasis derived from these studies is on the need to expand, not the proportion of the workforce with university qualifications, but those with craft and vocational qualifications. Concern with schooling attainments and the focus of school curricula need to be shifted towards helping those of average ability - though not at the expense of the most able who have for long been exceptionally well served by the British educational system.