Paper

The role of subnational governments in adult skills systems

2025

Overview

This paper maps the governance models for adult skills systems across OECD countries, focusing on the role of subnational governments. It shows that adult skills systems in OECD countries are complex, with responsibilities distributed across different levels of government and public and non-public stakeholders. While no single model (centralised, combined and decentralised) dominates, some parts of the adult skills systems are more likely to be devolved to subnational governments than others. The paper also shows how some types of responsibilities (e.g. strategy-setting and intelligence gathering) are more likely to be kept at the national level, while other responsibilities (financing, implementation and delivery) are more often devolved to regional or local levels of government. Finally, the paper considers some benefits and drawbacks of more decentralised approaches to adult skills provision and identifies cross-cutting issues and learning points that can be observed across OECD countries.

• Publisher: OECD Publishing
• Subject: active labour market policies / adult skills / continuous education and training / subnational governments / vocational education and training