The seminar brings together three scholars with deep experience of employment and training in UK, US and Australia:
Main presentation by Prof Ewart Keep: Contexts and drivers affecting individuals' engagement in education and training: what matters to lower paid workers.
Commentary in relation to the US from Prof Eileen Appelbaum: Changes to training arrangements in the US, and the incentives to states from the Obama administration to encourage change.
Commentary from Prof Barbara Pocock: Reflections on contexts and drivers for low-paid workers' skill development from an Australian perspective.
Questions and discussion.
Ewart Keep's paper offers a potential typology for categorising and studying the genesis, impact and inter-relationships between the various forms of incentive that impact on individual decision making about investment in learning (both initial and continuing) especially as they affect low paid workers. Where possible, the consequences of different elements within this framework are explored. This is intended to act as a starting point for discussion, elaboration and development, not as the final word on the topic.
Prof Ewart Keep is Deputy Director of the Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) which examines the links between the acquisition and use of skills and knowledge, product market strategies and performance (measured in a variety of ways) in the UK. He is at the Cardiff School of Social Sciences and is widely published.
Eileen Appelbaum is Professor, School of Management and Labor Relations and Director, Center for Women and Work, Rutgers University, US and Prof Barbara Pocock is Director, Centre for Work + Life.
