Introduction

Human investment is central to the new knowledge-based economy. In Chapter 4, for example, we saw that human capital occupies a key role within recent neo-Schumpeterian growth theory; and that sociological models of organisational learning give a central place to ‘communities of practice’ which apply skills of practical creativity. Chapter 5, concerned with organisational change, identified the skills of those working at different levels within an organisation as the necessary complement to ICT investment, business strategy and managerial leadership, in securing the dynamics of innovation.

The new economy generates new requirements for human capital and skills, so that the workforce can deal effectively with technological innovation in ICT and with organisational transformation, both in the economy and in public services. This changes the outputs expected from education and training institutions. At the same time, however, these institutions are themselves exploiting the new technologies and they are developing novel organisational and market strategies, in an effort to shape and to benefit from the opportunities which the new economy affords. Finally, of course, these developments also transform the situation in which individuals and households find themselves: the range of skills that are in demand on the job market, the opportunities for learning and the sources of information, by means of which they can make decisions on education and training, and judge the costs and benefits of those decisions.

These transformations are taking place across a global terrain. While the global diffusion of advances in technology and business processes is nothing new, the pace is accelerating, with education and training services themselves subject to these globalising tendencies. The ICT revolution is one contributing element: there are of course others, notably the political drive for open markets under the auspices of the WTO, including GATS (Knight, 2003). Education and training systems are no longer a secure part of domestic national policy (although national independence of education and training regimes prior to the present century can be exaggerated: see Room, 2002). However, the direction and extent of these pressures of globalisation are not uniform: they are shaped by the specific political economies of the countries and regions involved and the position they occupy within the global distribution of economic and cultural power (for further discussion, see for example Cornford and Pollock, 2003).