Possible solutions

Employers must find innovative ways to encourage governments to pursue strategies that improve the ability of the public training and the education system to integrate new entrants and reentrants into the workplace.

• Policymakers must develop defined educational standards with testing to establish benchmarks in skills acquisition.
  
  
• Apprenticeship training must be closely integrated into the secondary school system to make it an effective method for transition into employment. It should be expanded to include a wide range of occupations in addition to the traditional trades.
  
  
• Employers and educators must work together to develop vocational and technical curricula that focus on developing an awareness of the opportunities and benefits of trade-related careers.
  
  
• Career counsellors must be nationally certified to provide accurate information on occupations, and employers must work with career counsellors to inform them of changes in the workplace.
  
  
• National standards (occupational, skill sets, training) should be developed to provide coherence to our training efforts and a better understanding of the skills needed to satisfy employer needs.
  
  
• Evaluations must be developed to measure the effectiveness of current public training programs, like UIDU.
  
  
• A core curriculum covering language, mathematics, science, and other analytical disciplines must be at the heart of an educational system.