what can developing countries learn from OECD nations?
Author InfoLeigh, Duane E. Abstract The governments of most industrial countries provide financial support for adult training programs intended to retrain displaced workers. The author draws lessons from the experience of six industrial countries (Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan, Sweden, and the United States) on how to design and implement such retraining programs in low-income developing nations and middle-income countries. By retraining, the author means both improving job skills and remediating deficiencies in basic education. These are the lessons he emphasizes: Training programs should be independent of the educational system, with its rigid ties to degree requirements and academic schedules; links to employers must be developed and maintained so that trainees have marketable skills on completing the program. Training programs should be designed to minimize trainees’foregone earnings; basic education should be relevant to the jobs the trainees might seek. External providers of
