This article focuses on the complex interplay between education and labour market participation in the European Union (EU) and its Member States, supplementing a companion article on youth unemployment.
In the case of young people, participation in education and in the labour market interact in complex ways going beyond a straightforward one-way transition from school to work. In some countries, young people start working much earlier than in others, e.g. in the form of summer jobs or jobs for students. It is also possible to be in education and on the labour market at the same time, leading to an overlap. It is important to be aware of these issues when interpreting and assessing youth unemployment rates. Read more...

On 24 July research ministers of the EU member states, during the informal meeting of the Competitiveness Council in Vilnius, will discuss what skills are needed now and in the future to ensure EU competitiveness in the field of science and innovation.
“Europe's future depends on its knowledge and innovation economy. This not only requires investments in research, but should also be accompanied by developing the necessary skills. If we are to solve the problems in the current EU labour market and pave the way for Europe's competitive future, we need to identify the lacking skills and enable science and business together those necessary skills develop”, says Lithuanian Minister of Education and Science Dainius Pavalkis. Read more...

Misdeberes.es is a social network aiming to promote and develop collaborative e-learning and knowledge sharing among Spanish-speaking students. Users of this free portal may place the doubts and questions related to their homework, which will be answered by their peers and/or trained professionals. A system based on gamification techniques (rankings, achievements and points) motivates users to offer mutual help and to progress in their studies. Misdeberes.es has recently launched a mobile application. Read more...

Until the government aligns secondary and higher education policy, HEIs must support learners' transition from school to the world of work, says Zahir Irani.
The recent coverage of concern over the quality and consistency of GCSE and A-level examinations is the latest manifestation of a long running, low level dispute between the different stages of education. It goes like this: each stage up the chain often complains that new entrants aren't prepared, whether it's secondary schools saying they get pupils with poor literacy and numeracy skills, universities concerned at the quality mark of GCSEs and A-levels, or employers dealing with graduates they feel lack job-readiness. On the face of it, it could seem universities and schools are simply content with passing the buck to those next in line, rather than working out how a more seamless process of progression – from school to university to employment – can be engineered.
In reality, universities and schools are not helplessly standing back. Many are adopting their own interpretation of what needs to be done to improve employability prospects, and I believe higher education can learn lessons from other sectors sharing similar complexities. Take the National Health Service's sharp focus on the 'patient pathway' – the many stakeholders during the complex, often fraught patient journey are now better considered, leading to improved patient experience and final prognosis. In a similar way, educators need to focus on the common cause of the 'student pathway', thinking creatively and looking beyond the realms of our own educational boundaries, whether school, college or university.
Universities assess the achievement of learning outcomes, as opposed to teaching students to achieve a particular grade or pass an exam. This is the foundation upon which higher education differs from schools or further education. It is therefore not surprising that students find the re-orientation from school to university quite a challenge, where the game they have become accustomed to playing their whole life changes. These differences in pedagogy represent significant challenges or even barriers to widening participation, even, arguably, an incompatibility between higher and further education, with the learner caught in the middle. Universities are accustomed to having their students mentor each other or being mentored by their alumni. New ways to support this seamless progression could possibly include undergraduates using technology and social media to mentor those preparing for a university education.
In universities such as my own, Brunel Business School at Brunel University, we take a very pragmatic approach and offer a residential 'Boot Camp' experience where students are given a taste of what to expect before becoming an undergraduate. We provide an experience in developing the need for critical reflective skills, working as a team towards a group outcome, and recognising the need for aptitude as well as the right attitude to succeed. Until the sixth-form experience can be better aligned with higher education, school leavers will continue to lack many of the skills needed to have a rewarding university experience and be equipped to deliver the needs of industry. That is why it is ever more important for those professionals working in the further and higher education sectors to bridge this divide through influencing study skills and creating a proprietary university environment that supports the transition of the learner, from school to university and then university to industry.
Similarly, universities need to do more to help their students develop a work ethic in preparation for the world of work. After all, attendance at a 9am lecture is optional, but turning up for work isn't. The misalignment in policy between secondary and higher education is further exacerbated by schools and universities being led by different government departments, which certainly doesn't help with strategy formulation and knowledge exchange. Only by recognising and addressing these differences can we contribute to helping future generations become employable, talented and versatile graduates that will be able to contribute towards economic growth. Professor Zahir Irani is head of Brunel Business School at Brunel University. He is also a governor at Slough Grammar School.

The Science Education for Diversity (SED) project commenced in January 2010 and ran until December 2012, funded by the European Union’s (EU) Seventh Framework Programme. The partners engaged in the work sought to improve the quality of science education in Europe through transnational collaboration. The ultimate aim of the SED project was to understand how countries in both Europe (England/Netherlands) and the partner countries of India, Turkey, Lebanon and Malaysia were addressing the issue of gender and cultural diversity in regard to engaging young people in science education. The final series of trials and results is being published through papers, journals and books. All of the outputs from the project are available on the SED’s website. Full article...

The PLEDS project aims to analyse the use of digital technologies, more specifically the web 2.0 tools, in order to respond to two main needs identified in doctoral education in sub-Saharan Africa: 1) the supervision of doctoral students and 2) the visibility of research.
Launched in June 2013 by the Open University of Catalonia (Spain), Kenyatta University (Kenia) and the Catalan Association of Public Universities, the project explores the use of Personal Learning Environments for Doctoral Students (PLEDS), a lifetime personal web space equipped with software, communication, search, social and multimedia tools that allows students to gather and organise relevant learning information from the web and to disseminate their own material. Read more...

Part of the Phillipps-University Marburg (Germany), the Virtual Linguistics Campus (VLC) is the world's largest e-learning platform for linguistics, offering fully certified linguistic courses and course material for theoretical and applied linguistics.
The Virtual Linguistics Campus (VLC) has been operational since 2001 and the experience it has gained through the years has now been applied to the world's most recent concept of computer-based learning and teaching, the free Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Read more...

The 2013 Ubiquitous Learning Conference will be held at the Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia (UNED) in Madrid, Spain, on November 14-15, 2013. The conference will examine the ways in which new technologies are changing how, where and when learning takes place. It will consider, for example, how computing and networking devices might benefit learning not only in the classroom but well beyond the times and places traditionally considered the purview of education. The e-Learning Conference will feature plenary sessions by some of the world’s leading thinkers and innovators in the field, as well as numerous parallel presentations by researchers and practitioners. Read more...

Philipp Schmidt is executive director and co-founder of Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU), the grassroots community for social open learning. An open education activist, he co-authored the Cape Town Open Education Declaration and served as a founding board member for the OpenCourseWare Consortium. A Shuttleworth, Ashoka, and MIT Media Lab Director's fellow, he delivered one of the keynote speeches at Edulearn13, the 5th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies, held in Barcelona (Spain) on July 1-3, 2013. Read more...