Individual Learning Accounts : Panacea or Pandora's Box?

A rise in non-standard work in many countries and an increased fragmentation of worker careers have created new challenges for training policies at a time when structural transformation is creating a need for both re- and up-skilling. Individual learning accounts have received renewed attention from policy makers, due to their ability to make training rights “portable” from one job or employment status to another. This report examines past and existing individual learning accounts and other individual schemes to finance training, based on a review of the existing literature as well as six new case studies commissioned by the OECD: The Upper Austrian Bildungskonto, the French Compte Personnel de Formation, the Scottish Individual Learning Accounts/Individual Training Accounts, the Singapore SkillsFuture Credit, the Tuscan Carta ILA, and the Individual Training Accounts in Michigan and Washington in the United States. The report takes stock of these experiences and identifies the advantages and disadvantages of such schemes, as well as the key trade-offs and questions to consider in designing a successful scheme, including targeting, funding, participation of under-represented groups and quality issues.