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Purpose: This chapter aims to analyse the current literature on the supply and demand for skills in the UK labour market to identify key trends and themes around skill mismatch, identify gaps and areas for future research.

Method: Selected articles were analysed to identify key themes and trends in the existing literature.

Findings: The overall finding is that the UK labour market suffers from various forms of widespread skill mismatch, but most particularly in the form of skill shortage. The areas with the most notable skill shortage highlighted in the literature include basic literacy, numeracy and digital; employability including leadership and management; STEM and health-related areas; teaching and training and a range of higher-level skills (including leadership and management, digital and creative, and industry-specific skills in STEM and health-related sectors, financial and business services, technology media and telecommunications, as well as teaching and training). Skill mismatch in the form of skill shortages in these areas is projected to worsen considerably by 2030, with some areas expected to suffer acute shortages by this time. Continued improvements to the education system will help to ensure the pipeline of future workers. However, changes to the education system are unlikely to impact on 80% of the future 2030 workforce who are already working and active in the UK labour market.

Originality/value of paper: The chapter provides a review of key literature in the field and aggregates key findings, so a wider picture of the extent and nature of the UK's skill mismatch challenge can be appreciated.

This chapter concerns itself primarily with questions of how students in higher education studies can best acquire, apply, create, and share knowledge. Over the past several decades, multiple forms of active learning have been proposed in order to increase student engagement and deepen their understanding. This chapter, accordingly, examines the epistemological claims of the supporters and detractors of active learning while simultaneously exploring the nascence and development of some of the major understandings which presently underpin an epistemology of active learning. While the focus of earlier works may have been on changes that higher education instructors should make to improve student understanding of key STEM concepts, this chapter addresses changes in the roles of both students and instructors as the co-creators of active learning environments and learning communities. A particular focus is given to the significance of metacognition as a critical skill that enables students to assess their own learning and also critically assess sources of information. The chapter includes a framework which indicates trends toward high-impact active learning skills for students in STEM higher education and the research which theorizes and supports these new instructional imperatives.

Purpose: The main objective of this study is to provide an overview of the extent of labor and skills shortages that exist in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector in Malta and gain insights into the dependency on foreign labor. Methodology: This study draws upon primary data generated from two research instruments, namely in-depth interviews and an online questionnaire. Various in-depth interviews were conducted with key institutional actors. In addition to the interviews, six locally based companies were requested to complete an online questionnaire. Secondary data from ICT surveys, official documents were consulted. Findings: Findings emerged from this study relate to each of the four seminal thematics, namely, demand and supply, rationale for employing foreign labor, wages, and challenges of foreign labor employment. Practical Implications: This study examined the current contribution of foreign labor in the ICT sector. Unsustainable growth in the ICT sector creates a demand for skilled labor which is currently not locally available. Significance: ICT is one of the most rapidly developing economic sectors in Malta. Labor shortages can slow down economic growth, if not addressed. The annual number of ICT graduates is insufficient. For this sector to continue to thrive and further consolidate itself within the Maltese economy, there will be a continued dependency on the importation of highly skilled foreign labor.

The potential benefits of structuring first-year general chemistry courses around an expert decision model (EDM) to help students develop conceptual understanding and sustainable problem-solving strategies are discussed, as is the creation of the EDM and the challenges faced in doing so. The usefulness of categorizing the course material as either process knowledge, conditional knowledge, or conceptual knowledge is also outlined. The EDM created for the course consists of four fundamental content domains branching out with a series of hierarchal questions and actions designed to guide students toward characterizing a question or solving a problem. The key characteristics of each of these domains are described along with aspects of this EDM structure that have been implemented over the past couple of years in the author’s classes and the impact this has had on the students and the author’s teaching.

This study investigates how university libraries in Nigeria are staffed and presents staff development opportunities and learning activities that sustain staff.

A survey research design was adopted. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 46 universities and 400 respondents consisting of 46 heads of libraries and 354 professionals from federal, state, and private universities. Content of the instrument was based on literature comprising six questions. The 327 (92.4%) usable responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics and presented in simple frequency tables.

The study showed that library workforce in Nigerian universities included different categories of professionals and para-professionals having diversified job opportunities and duties. Most libraries had staff development budget and respondents received various forms of assistance to foster learning. Although all nontransferable skills recorded high mean, respondents accorded less importance to nonlibrary personal skills that can be used to leverage the expectations of recruitment, retention, and sustainability.

The study was limited to practicing professionals but has staffing implications for all libraries across Nigeria.

Many professionals may lack the appropriate multi-skills that would enhance exploring new approaches and breaking out of traditional ways of operation in the different library and outside library settings.

The study contributes to knowledge about sustaining library staff in relation to adopting the recommended skills on a broad scale, and assessing how their acquisition can change the perception of professionals to its immense contributions to sustaining them in the workforce.

This paper investigates the prevalence and distribution of under-skilling across Europe. First, in order to understand why under-skilling occurs, three main theoretical approaches are discussed: (a) Inefficient signaling, (b) Skill shortages, and (c) On-the-job training substitution. Second, in order to measure the real dimension of the problem, we use the Cedefop European Skills and Jobs Survey (ESJS) ¹ to assess whether workers’ skills were lower than required at the point they started their job. Our results are rather mixed. First, we find under-skilling being related to some academic fields such as Health & Medicine, and Engineering. Second, we find that under-skilling is more prevalent among, not surprisingly, young workers but, rather unexpectedly, among permanent workers working in high-skilled occupations.