This publication is a summary of the proceedings of a French Presidency of the EU conference supported by the European Commission's Directorates for Education and for Employment. The conference aimed to identify the challenges, to set out common findings, and to outline measures taken to make lifelong learning more effective. Lifelong learning was seen as at the heart of the flexicurity principle.

As you will see from the proceedings, most of the time was devoted to issues concerning initial and continuing vocational training: access by SMEs, by older, disabled, migrant, unskilled; employer or employee led;  partnerships, motivation; costs and benefits.

The importance of career guidance and counselling was underlined by Heléne Clark, director of the EC's DG for Education, and was also underlined in the French Secretary of State for Employment's discourse on training system reform.

This 2008 report describes some of the definitional, conceptual and historical foundations of the concept of social inclusion. It summarises the strengths and limitations of Australian and international approaches to the topic so far, and sketches some of the scope of exclusion in terms of locational disadvantage, intergenerational disadvantage, children at risk, child poverty and jobless families, employment, mental health, disability and homelessness. It also discusses the relational dimension of exclusion. The report provides elements of policy approaches to move from exclusion to inclusion.

Career guidance is often used as part of multidimensional strategies to address exclusion issues; indeed in its origins it was part of a social reform movement. In order to see where it may or can play a role, this report is essential background reading.

Recommendation 195 concerning human resource development - education, training and lifelong learning - has 11 chapters including:

• development and implementation of education and training policies
• education and pre-employment training
• development of competencies
• training for decent work and social inclusion
• framework for the recognition and certification of skills
• training roviders
• career guidance and training support
• research
• international and technical cooperation.

Members agreed through social dialogue to formulate, apply and review national human resource development, education and training, and lifelong learning policies which are consistent with economic, fiscal and social policies. Career guidance is positioned as central to national HRD policies.

School dropout prevention continues to exercise the mind of policy makers in many countries. The European Ministers of Education (2003), for example, established several reform targets for education systems in Europe for the year 2010 including increased participation in the upper end of second level schooling and the reduction of non-completion rates. In the USA the Department of Education established within its confines the Institute for Educational Sciences (IES), one of whose units is known as "What Works Clearing House" (WWC). The role of WWC is to be a central and trusted source of scientific evidence for what works in education. It reviews extant research about programs, policies or practices and assesses the "quality" of the research. Based on the research that meets particular standards, the WWC then reports on what the research indicates about the effectiveness of the program, policy or practice, which can be abbreviated as "the intervention".

The WWC produces three types of reports and a guide:

• intervention reports which assess all studies of a specific intervention within a topic area, rating each of them on WWC evidence standards;
• topic reports which compile the information from intervention reports within a topic area and enable WWC users to easily compare the ratings of effectiveness and sizes of effects for numerous interventions in one area;
• quick reviews designed to provide education practitioners with timely and objective assessments of the quality of the research evidence for recently released research papers and reports, and
• practice guides that contain practical recommendations for educators to address challenges in their classrooms and schools.

School dropout prevention is one of the topic areas of the WWC. Evidence for following three outcomes is rated for effectiveness:

• Staying in school
• Progressing in school
• Completing school.

Educational and vocational guidance are to be found as part of many dropout prevention strategies but they are only one element of a multidimensional approach to proving solutions to school dropout.

The WWC section on school dropout prevention is essential viewing for all policy makers, researchers and practitioners concerned with this problem.

Given the increasing policy importance being paid to the development of the skills to manage one's career, learning and work pathways in a lifelong learning context(Council of European Ministers of Education, 2008), this Australian publication is very timely to provide guidance on what exactly these skills look like. A joint initiative of the federal, state and territorial governments, and published by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, and Training and Youth Affairs, this recently released document provides a framework for the design, implementation and evaluation of career development rogrammes for young people and adults. It identifies the skills, attitudes, and knowledge that individuals need to make sound choices and to effectively manage careers.

It is divided into three sections:

• What are career management competency skills?
• Who uses the Blueprint?
• What is the Blueprint used for?

There is a very useful Blueprint toolkit included - a series of resources to be downloaded to inform and enhance career development programmes and activities.

This is a joint strategy and implementation plan for career guidance services in Northern Ireland of two government ministries/ the Department of Education and the Department for Employment and Learning. Based on extensive consultation exercises on its proposals of 2007, the document outlines a new comprehensive strategy for the delivery of career guidance services and the challenges involved. It articulates a vision for the future and maps the actions required to deliver it.

The vision is subdivided into five themes:

1. Careers education
2. Access to careers information
3. Improving careers advice and guidance
4. Improving quality
5. Improving professional development.

This is the Danish translation of the European Council of Education Ministers' Resolution (2008) on better integrating lifelong guidance in strategies for lifelong learning. The Resolution defined four key areas/axes to guide national reforms of policies and systems:

This is the German translation of the Council of Education Ministers' Resolution (2008) on better integrating lifelong guidance into lifelong learning strategies.

It defines 4 key axes of action for the reform of guidance services in Member States:

This Report was presented by Deputy Guégot to the French National Assembly in December 2008. It examined:

• problems in initial and continuing training supply: quality, transparency, funding, governance
• inequalities for young people and adults in accessing training
• difficulties in career guidance provision to support youth and adult participation in training.

It presents 16 propositions to address these issues.

O Conselho da Uniao Europeia de Novembro de 2008 convidam os estados-membros a:

• favorecer a aquisicao da capacidade de orientacao ao longo da vida
• facilitar o acesso de todos os cidados aos servicos de orientacao
• desenvolve a garantia de qualidade dos sericos de orientacao
• incentivar a coordenacao e cooperacao dos diversos intervenientes a nivel nacional, regional e local.