Vocational Training and the Workforce - Disability Policy Adapted for Vocational Training and Work Integration

Disability policies target a large and heterogeneous group of persons. According to an OECD study in the twenty countries studied, on average about 14% of the working-age population classify themselves as disabled. About one-third of the group of working-age disabled people are severely disabled. Persons with congenital disabilities form a minority of usually less than 10% of the entire group of working-age people with disabilities. Vocational rehabilitation and training is predominantly offered to people below age 45, thus partly explaining the age bias in the disability benefit programs. In this paper after a presentation of some disability policies and an example of s disability police oriented to learning Web-design, an example of a project is done aimed at development of vocational training models for small and medium-sized companies (SMEs). These models are social-oriented and based on e-Learning. 1. Disability policies Disability policies target a large and heterogeneous group of persons. According to an OECD study in the twenty countries studied, on average about 14% of the working-age population classify themselves as disabled. About one-third of the group of working-age disabled people are severely disabled. Persons with congenital disabilities form a minority of usually less than 10% of the entire group of working-age people with disabilities. As one would expect, the prevalence of disability gradually increases with age: disability prevalence rates in the 50-64 age group are around 25%, but only 10% in the 20-49 age range. Some of this increase is explained by the fact that a large part of disabling conditions have a permanent character. The level of education also plays an important role: disability prevalence rates are significantly higher among groups with lower educational attainment, with an OECD average of 19%, compared to 11% among the better educated. Disability policy, in general, faces twin but potentially contradictory goals. One is to ensure that disabled citizens are not excluded: that they are encouraged and empowered to participate as fully as possible in economic and social life, and in particular to engage in gainful employment, and that they are not ousted from the labor market too easily or too early. The other goal is to ensure that those who are or who become