Flexibility and security: an asymmetrical relationship?
trast, appears to have opted for a cheap mass tertiary education, characterised by the steady growth
of enrolments and the decreasing expenditure per student (Karamessini, 2008b). Despite high youth
educational attainment, the youth unemployment rate in Greece remains 3 times higher than the EU
average.
Participation in lifelong learning programmes has grown over the past years in Spain, but has
remained extremely low in Greece. The creation of paths between the education and the training
systems and the links between initial and continuing training have been established in both Spain
and Greece since the early 1990s. Yet the participation of the adult population in lifelong learning
programmes has remained in both countries much lower than in the EU-15, particularly so in Greece,
where it stood at just 2.1% of the population in 2007, as compared to 10.4% in Spain, 16.6% in the
Netherlands and an impressive 29.2% in Denmark (Eurostat, 2007). The lack of training oppor-
tunities for adults and the absence of a system of official recognition of non-formal and informal
learning constitute the main shortcomings of a fragmented approach to the education and training
systems in Greece, as well as a most ineffective use of the generous EU funds directed to this goal.
In Denmark, the upper secondary completion rate stands at 81% for the adult population aged
25-64 and 87% for the younger cohorts aged 25-34 (OECD, Education at a glance, 2007), slightly below
the EU average and national targets for 2010 and 2015 (85% by 2010, 95% by 2015). The share of
the adult population (aged between 25-64) having completed tertiary education is also one of the
highest in the OECD and stood at 34% in 2005 (ibid.)According to the recent EU Annual Progress
Report, however, high spending on education does not appear to yield the level of results that would
be expected; efforts are still needed to bridge the gap to the national target for tertiary youth comple-
tion rate of 50% and take measures to enhance the quality of labour supply in the future. Even so,
it remains that the Danish public training and education system is one of the most comprehensive
in Europe and thus is able to correct —as it has been argued- the “market failure” resulting from the
high mobility rate of the workforce (Bredgaard et al., 2005).
In the Netherlands, the rate of adult population having completed upper secondary education in
2005 was 72% and that of the younger cohorts aged 25-34 was 81% (OECD, 2007), still below the
EU target of 85% by 2010. The percentage of adults aged 25-64 having completed tertiary education
stood at 30% in 2005, slightly above Spain (ibid.) However, one of the major challenges facing the
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