Publication: State of Adult Education in Russia: Ensuring that Older Workers Can Acquire Skills for the Future
Loading...
Published
2015-09-12
ISSN
Date
2015-09-14
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The aging of the Russian population and the rapid shrinking of its labor force in coming decades will make the human capital each worker contributes increasingly vital for sustaining economic output and growth. While improvements in general education are necessary to build the foundation for a productive future labor force, a broad-based and effective system of adult education can provide second-chance opportunities for current workers to enhance their productivity and lengthen their working lives and for low-skilled immigrants to be integrated into the workforce. How well the Russian Federation addresses these multiple needs at and beyond the workplace will depend on how effective its adult education system is. This study targeting policymakers outlines the problems of Russias growing skills gap, especially the shortage of higher-order cognitive and socio-emotional skills, and examines the current state of adult education.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Nellemann, Soren; Podolskiy, Oleg; Levin, Victoria. 2015. State of Adult Education in Russia: Ensuring that Older Workers Can Acquire Skills for the Future. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22612 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Bulgaria : Workforce Development(Washington, DC, 2014)This report presents a comprehensive diagnostic assessment of Bulgaria's workforce development (WfD) policies and institutions. The results are based on a new World Bank tool designed for this purpose, SABER-WfD. SABER-WfD is part of the World Bank's initiative on Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) whose aim is to provide systematic assessment and documentation of the policy and institutional factors that influence the performance of key areas of national education and training systems. The SABER-WfD tool encompasses initial, continuing and targeted vocational education and training that are offered through multiple channels and focuses largely on programs at the secondary and post-secondary levels.Publication Secondary Vocational Education(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-04)According to UNESCO, roughly 120 countries provide some form of technical or vocational secondary education, as distinct from a purely generalist curriculum. An overview of each administration’s secondary vocational education provision is given below under sub-headings suggested by the Terms of Reference (ToR) for this study. The information was gathered through a review of available literature. This varied from administration to administration both in terms of its coverage and of its quality. As a result, the information on each administration is somewhat diverse. This is particularly the case for objective evaluations of administrations’ systems. The report ends by posing nine questions for the Government of India to consider when planning the introduction of vocational education to secondary schools: (i) what is the place of school-based vocational education within India’s National Skills Qualification Framework? (ii) how much choice should be left to school students to decide on the balance of general and vocational education in their learning programme? (iii) what proportion of the vocational education curriculum should be devoted to general education? (iv) how can sufficient numbers of teachers of good quality be found to teach growing number of vocational students? (v) how beneficial is objective careers guidance for school pupils? (vi) what is the role or purpose of work experience for school pupils? (vii) what contribution to vocational education can be expected from employers if the labour market is largely informal with a small manufacturing sector? (viii) what form should assessment take, how would it be carried out and is there a relationship between it and general education? (ix) how can responsibility for vocational secondary education be allocated within a federal system of government? Finally, what should be clear from this study is that administrations develop policies and practices based on their history, their economic and geographic context and their vision, and that these policies will therefore vary between administrations.Publication Tanzania Skills for Competitiveness in the Small and Medium Enterprise Sector(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-07)We examine the question of workforce skills for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Tanzania and find a mixed picture full of potential. On the one hand, education access has expanded at all levels and a more educated cohort is now entering the labor market - signaling the availability of a more skilled workforce for SMEs. On the other hand, acute shortages of secondary and postsecondary graduates persist. Disturbingly, the quality and relevance of primary education has come into question. It is unclear whether increased access to primary education is actually translating into acquisition of crucial basic skills in the country. In light of this, it is unsurprising that education attainment no longer appears to be a reliable proxy for relevant skills, as perceived by employers. Further, SMEs seem to have very little meaningful connection with education institutions for recruitment of workers. A related but equally concerning problem relates to the culture of recruitment among SMEs in Tanzania. It is one of passive hiring, wherein firms rely on networks and referrals to identify employees instead of actively seeking them through open advertising and links with education providers. In this backdrop there is room for cautious optimism. SMEs seem increasingly to realize and emphasize the importance of workforce skills, even though, in relative terms, they are likely to be significantly more pre-occupied with infrastructure constraints. Interestingly, a large share of firms that have recently failed consider inadequate workforce skills to be a contributing factor of above average importance to firm failure.Publication Bulgaria : Raising Skills for Employment, Growth and Convergence(Washington, DC, 2009-09)The Bulgarian labor market has seen remarkable improvements in recent years and has contributed to strong economic growth. The benign environment for job creation is now changing, as the global economic crisis impacts on labor market demand in Bulgaria. Compared to the EU27 averages, activity and employment rates have remained low, and Bulgaria has significant untapped domestic labor reserves. Bulgarian pupils in school also do not acquire the necessary skills and competencies to compete in a high innovation economy. Continued available vacancies suggest that skills shortages remain a barrier to employment even during the crisis and measures to retrain and up-skill the unemployed and those at risk of lay-off is an important policy direction for the short-term. In light of Bulgaria s demographic decline over the coming decades, medium-term growth and convergence require sustained increases in labor productivity and investments in human capital. Short-term measures during the economic crisis ideally combine efforts to keep workers in employment through temporary publicly subsidized short-working hour schemes as well as the use of unemployment benefits and measures to accelerate transitions from old to new jobs. The economic crisis is an opportune moment to address skills shortages both to tackle unemployment and to help the recovery in the short-term and to promote the foundation for medium-term economic growth and convergence. Looking at the medium term, with Bulgaria s labor productivity remaining low in a European comparison, sustained interventions from early childhood to adult education are necessary over the coming years to raise human capital and ensure the increases in labor productivity that Bulgaria needs to accelerate growth and convergence. In satisfying the growing demand for skilled labor and boosting employment, Bulgaria needs to urgently look at promoting the transition of young people from education to the labor market, including through keeping them longer in school and ensuring they earn the skills that are in demand in the labor market as well as promoting part-time employment and internship programs for young people.Publication Skills for Quality Jobs and Development in Lao PDR : A Technical Assessment of the Current Context(Washington, DC, 2013-11-11)Lao has embarked on an ambitious plan to transform its economy, reduce poverty, and graduate from least developed country status by 2020. The objectives of this report are 1) to provide critical information to the Government of Lao PDR (GoL) about existing skills gaps in Lao; 2) to provide the GoL and the steering committee that will revise the Human Resource Development Strategy 2000-2020 (and link it to the 8th NSEDP) with evidence of the current skills situation in the country, to better inform decisions and human resource planning for the future; and 3) to provide the GoL, the World Bank, and other development partners a baseline of skills indicators against which to measure progress going forward. Lao's economic growth has led to increased demand for workers at all skill levels, but employers have a difficult time finding workers to meet that demand. The lack of skills among the workforce is the most commonly cited constraint. The first priority will be to increase the limited flow of students progressing to higher education levels, in part due to high dropout rates among students (especially in rural areas) in primary school or between primary and secondary school. The second priority will be to increase the level of cognitive skills among the population by improving the quality of the education system. The third priority will show as Lao's economy moves forward, skills taught in the higher education system will need to become better aligned with labor market needs. The fourth priority will be to promote lifelong learning and skills upgrading by increasing the incentives and opportunities of workers to skill up, and employers to invest in the skills of their workers.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.