The Upskilling Pathway

This chapter explores the impact of Upskilling Pathways (UP), a developing European programme adopted by the European Council in 2016. UP targets all people over 25 who may be in employment, or unemployed, or economically inactive, but require uplifting in literacy, numeracy and digital skills. This is at a time when 73 million adults have low levels of education and literacy across Europe. Unlike Youth Guarantee, which focuses on low-skilled young adults, UP has no dedicated funding. Therefore, individual countries may define priority target groups for UP depending on national circumstances and must identify sources of match funding. The chapter examines differing responses through case studies from three European Union (EU) member states: the United Kingdom, Italy and Slovakia.