Economic Policy and Vocational Training in the United Kingdom Essay

Economic Policy and Vocational Training in the United Kingdom - Essay Example In comparison to other countries in the European Union the United Kingdom lags in literacy and numeracy rates. At age 16 the 'staying on' rate for students transitioning into vocational education is below desired rates with the majority of students not 'staying on' being from poorer or minority families. The United Kingdom's attempt to change the course of decline in educational outcomes has met with limited success. The United Kingdom has made three major policy changes that should affect literacy rates and staying on rates. The U.K. has chosen to lengthen the compulsory education mandate from 5 to 16 to 5 to 18. The U.K. has also mandated a 'literacy hour' each day where students and teachers focus only on literacy education. The United Kingdom has also mandated that public schools follow the National Curriculum so that all students are educated using the same standards. The desired outcome of these changes are higher literacy rates, increased staying on rates, and standardization of curriculum across the U.K. The long term outcomes of policy changes would ideally give the United Kingdom a competitive advantage in the E.U. marketplace. If the United Kingdom continues with current trends businesses in the U.K. may look elsewhere in the E.U. for qualified workers thus taking business away from the U.K. The end of World War Two and the creation of the European Union have brought changes to how children are educated in the European Union. This paper examines those changes and evaluates current policies in place in the United Kingdom. For the purpose of this study three member states and their educational systems have been examined. The United Kingdom is the focus of this paper while data and educational programs in Germany and France have been examined for comparison. All three countries have compulsory education laws that require children attend school during certain years of childhood. All three have tracks that children can follow with some transitioning into vocational education while others transition into higher education (university study for example). And, all three are European Union member states. How these member states prepare their 'human capital' is important to the European Union as a whole. The move toward open borders, open markets, brings forth the need to have qualified workers in all sectors of the economy. It only makes sense to prepare future workers in the European Union in a similar way with those performing the same jobs having attained the same qualifications. This was not so important pre World War Two when each country had its own isolated economy. The completion of the Chunnel connecting France and England and the completion of the land bridge connecting Sweden and Denmark further opened borders to more commerce. Countries are responsible for preparing their 'human capital' to function (work) in the global market place. As the European Union moves closer to social and economic cohesion it is more important than ever for it is for workers to be trained or educated to function in this new marketplace. Human Capital Human capital is best understood as "the physical means of production" (Becker, G 1993). Investing in human capital is much the same as investing in equipment. The equipment desired to

Pay-for-Performance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Pay-for-Performance - Essay Example performance measure’, and ‘Financial Gains and Risks in Pay-for-Performance Bonus Algorithms’, which addressed the challenges of adopting a pay-for-performance approach for ensuring quality and safety in healthcare. In the article ‘Achieving Potential of Healthcare Performance Measure, Berenson, Pronovost, & Krumholz (2013), a number of concerns with the promotion of pubic reporting and P4P are growing. In the U.S., the majority of the prominent applications have not met their performance improvement. One example is the test of the combined use of public reporting and pay-for-performance, called the Medicare Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration. This demonstration has little or no impact on the value of care received for the important clinical condition; such as the reduction of the patient mortality or cost growth. However, the important issues of P4P are the health plans performance that relate to patients with acute health care problems. In addition, the P4P approach faces a great challenge when it comes to measuring the quality of service accurately especially for major manual patient services. The complexity of keeping accurate record poses a big challenge in the measurem ent of quality of service in healthcare units. If it is not possible to measure the quality of service, it becomes a big challenge to offer a proportional reward for services delivered to the customers. Cromwell et al. (2011), in ‘Pay for Performance in HealthCare: Methods and Approaches’, the author identify a wide range of challenges that undermine the results of this service delivery approach. In health care units, the P4P approach involves the setting of achievable targets and working towards them. The development of these targets is an issue that has become posed a challenge to many health practitioners. The question of whether the targets are too low of too high is a controversial issue. Consequently, it becomes hard to define the reward system and how to