Education-and-training systems are increasingly focusing on inclusion issues. Among the issues addressed are helping people to stay in school, allowing second chances to dropouts, better preparing for transitions between work and training, and addressing the needs of migrants, older workers, and other vulnerable groups.

But as Ms Bulgarelli underlines, even the most up-to-date vocational education and training system is not a universal remedy for social exclusion. Other support measures, with the full involvement of the social partners, are equally important.

Measures to combat social exclusion include:

• Providing lifelong guidance and counselling for learners and workers. Cedefop's most recent publications on this topic are -œGuiding At-risk Youth through Learning to Work- and -œAccess to Success: Lifelong Guidance for Better Working and Learning in Europe-.
• The anticipation of future skill needs, such as the European skill forecasts Cedefop regularly publishes. These can be powerful tools for policy makers, helping them to build better long-term skill strategies.
• Developing methods of documenting skills can play an important role in this process, as the popularity of the Cedefop-managed Europass project clearly testifies.
• Creating systems for the validation of skills acquired outside formal systems: their value has been widely acknowledged, especially as a way of helping groups at risk.
• Finally, Cedefop supports research on the benefits of training, which will be the topic of its forthcoming fifth research report.