Introduction

There is now widespread consensus that in a globalised society knowledge has become the most important commodity of exchange. Indeed, along with technological growth, the valorisation of information has marked every sector. Policy makers also recognise the value of this collective good, acknowledging that the quality of a nation's human resources is at least as important for national growth as the quantitative level of income it produces.

The nature and development of the professional skills needed in today's labour market have also changed. From an individual perspective these new skills particularly concern the capacity to handle progressive autonomy in terms of self-motivation, responsibility, and the work process itself. In addition, rather than accumulating skills in a linear fashion over time, workers are instead expected to increase and diversify their capabilities transversally through experiences in various contexts. These transformations have been noted and incorporated into numerous European Union documents, where policy makers aim at guaranteeing citizens not only the professional skills necessary for entering the labour market, but also those that allow for shifting from one type of job to another. Training, then, becomes a crucial phase in the acquisition of the skills necessary for autonomous and positive insertion into everyday working life: the thick web of opportunities and constraints from where most citizenship rights are derived (Sen, 1986, 1994; Dahrendorf 1995). This development has two important implications. First of all, training constitutes a factor of social identity, membership and progression. It is a priority for the personal development of citizens within cognitive society. Second, it becomes a necessary condition for avoiding marginalisation and subsequent under-employment in an ever more competitive international labour market.

In this scenario, schools and the education system in general are responsible for encouraging the acquisition and development of fundamental skills that individuals can subsequently use to adapt to changes in their existential situations (Colombo, 2001). These requirements have motivated a number of the important changes recently seen in professional training and education programmes in Europe. Regardless of the diversity of education policies, states have reached a common diagnosis of what is afflicting the labour market, and educational reforms reflect a fair amount of convergence.