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Broadening access to learning in the workplace 43

skills. To cope with changes in work organisation and in working processes, it
is critical to nurture the capacity to keep on learning. As the recommendation
on ‘key competences for lifelong learning’ rightly points out:
‘Learning to learn skills require first the acquisition of the fundamental basic skills, such as
literacy, numeracy and ICT skills, that are necessary for further learning. Building on these
skills, an individual should be able to access, gain, process, and assimilate new knowledge
and skills. This requires effective management of one’s learning, career and work patterns,
and in particular, the ability to persevere with learning’ (European Parliament, 2006).

Traditionally, employers neglected key or transversal competences, as
there was no immediate measurable benefit in increased productivity, but the
situation may reverse with the adoption of working methods that favour team
working and increased worker autonomy. A number of national programmes
and sectoral initiatives are encouraging enterprises to provide their staff with
the key competences that open the way to further learning and help in adjusting
to changes in work organisation. In these initiatives, the distinction between
adult learning for personal development and for employment and employability
is fading away, as learning for key competences becomes rooted in the
workplace and in job-related tasks (Keogh, 2009, p. 55). Programmes aiming
at widening access to workplace learning and encouraging the acquisition
of key competences usually combine different kinds of financial incentives,
support services to both employers and employees, and learning strategies
in the workplace, including project-based learning, as illustrated below.

Starting from the principle that ‘every talent counts’, the Flemish Government and the social partners
jointly approved a competence agenda on 14 May 2007 for upgrading the competences of the
workforce. A strategic literacy plan (Strategisch Plan Geletterdheid) promotes the acquisition of
basic skills at the workplace, endorsed by a broad range of key partners, such as the Flemish Public
Employment Service (VDAB), the Flemish Agency for Training in Enterprises (SYNTRA), as well as
training and education providers, employer and employee representatives, and welfare organisations.
Numerous sectoral agreements support the development of key competences in the workplace,
especially literacy for low-skilled workers (Ministry for Education and Training, 2008).
Similarly, Denmark’s strategy for education and lifelong skills requires all relevant players
jointly to maintain high participation levels in adult education and continuing training, as well as
sustained competence development at work. Systematic competence development in small and
medium-sized enterprises is part of the national strategy to promote lifelong learning. Programmes
to upgrade key competences at the workplace reflect developments and demands of sectors
and enterprises, covering job-related competences, more technical in nature, as well as more
generic ones, such as ICT and job-related mathematics, social communication, organisation and
management (Ministry of Education of Denmark, 2008).