ABSTRACT

This research is supported by the Novaterra Trust, a social Trust which aims to reintegrate populations at risk in society through education for work at different stages: providing training in a specific occupation; supporting the person through guidance services while searching for a job; facilitating a contract in a company of the Trust in order to fulfill the educational process and to assure a successful integration into society; and performing evaluation and research on all of its processes. Policies facilitating training for employment in Europe have changed since the mid 80s, in which many programmes were launched in order to combat high rates of youth unemployment. Nowadays the unemployment rates are not so high, and more emphasis is laid upon continuing educationa and training. Lifelong learning is acknowledged as a right of all Europeans in the Treaty of the Union which is being approved by all countries in the next couple of years. Unemployment approaches 5%, which is considered as a desired amount for the wealth of the economy; and Europe aims to be the most competitive knowledge economy by 2010.

Nevertheless, there is still a considerable amount of people out of the labour market and, which is worse, there is a good amount with hardly any chances to enter it. Young people suffering social exclusion, and adult people who have gone through processes of drug addictions, have been imprisoned or who suffer other forms of stigmatization like immigration or AIDS find many difficulties to enter back in the labour market. Indeed, their problems are not only those of lacking a training or not having a job, but a mix of many variables which make them difficultly or even hardly employable.

First, we want to examine the connections between employability and citizenship, and we want to consider the role of vocational education and training policies in contributing to both, in the context of the knowledge economy, under the principle of lifelong learning, and considering that the role traditionally attributed to compulsory education has to be widened nowadays.

We want to examine the different policies run at European, national and regional levels who address the employability of such populations, and we want to compare them in terms of their weight and their impact. In order to do so, we want to consider education and training policies, but also other policies specifically addressed to combat social exclusion and which take into account education and training processes related to the world of work.