Ø

The critical role of training in furnishing badly needed skills to improve productivity, incomes and equitable access to employment opportunities seems particularly obvious and straightforward.

However, a particularly striking feature of most government and donor poverty reduction strategies in developing countries is that the role of vocational education and training (VET) in its wide variety of forms is largely absent.
There is a danger that the logic of learner-centered acquisition of core skills leads to a weakening of the crucial role played by instructor modeling of appropriate techniques and behaviours.

Basic education for all covers "all the skills and knowledge that people need if they are to lead a decent life". These "basic learning needs" include early childhood education, primary schooling, and non-formal literacy and other programs for youth and adults including vocational training that helps to provide basic life and employment skills.

In Latin America, many national vocational training institutes have set up specialist divisions to respond directly to the training needs of the poor and disadvantaged in the informal sector.