Education is at the core of a thriving economy and while Australia has historically had a comparative advantage in its highly-educated workforce, this is being eroded. At the same time, the challenges posed by emerging technologies that threaten to make current skills obsolete pose a further threat to our workforce capabilities.

There is a mismatch between investment and opportunity in early childhood policy in Australia. The early years are a critical window for building foundations that enable all children to become creative, entrepreneurial, resilient and capable learners. Yet current policy settings are not meeting the needs of the children who stand to benefit most.

In this paper from the Transitions and Risk: New Directions in Social Policy conference, Megan O'Connell explores the role of training interventions in preventing the labour market exclusion of older workers. She examines the Finnish work-ability project, Swedish individual learning accounts and British skills shortages strategy to highlight the types of interventions that could be...