Geoff Hayward is the Associate Director of the ESRC Research Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) based at the Universities of Oxford and Warwick, and a Lecturer in Educational Studies at the University of Oxford.Susan James is a Research Officer at SKOPE, Department of Educational Studies, University of Oxford.

• Producing skills: conundrums and possibilities ~ Geoff Hayward and Susan James; Fit for purpose? Sixty years of VET policy in England ~ Geoff Stanton and Bill Bailey; The European policy regarding education and training: a critical assessment ~ Jean-Luc De Meulemeester and Denis Rochat; 'I can't believe it's not skill': the changing meaning of skill in the UK context and some implications ~ Ewart Keep and Jonathan Payne; Qualifying for a job: an educational and economic audit of the English 14-19 education and training system ~ Rosa M. Fernández and Geoff Hayward; Does apprenticeship still have meaning in the UK? The consequences of voluntarism and sectoral change ~ Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin; Tradition and reform: modernising the German dual system of vocational education ~ Hubert Ertl; Learning in the workplace: reappraisals and reconceptions ~ Stephen Billett; Interests, arguments and ideologies: employers' involvement in education-business partnerships in the US and the UK ~ Suzanne Greenwald; Compatible higher education systems and the European labour market: Bologna and beyond ~ Guy Haug; The expansion of higher education: economic necessity or hyperinflation? Cécile Deer; Becoming a chef: the politics and culture of learning ~ Susan James and Geoff Hayward.

"... provides an in-depth understanding of many complexities of skills development, which are often over simplified or ignored by policy makers ... the real value of this text is its critical perspective, as well as the range of issues explored that provides a wide spectrum of views on education, learning and training policy." Work, Employment and Society