The Government's Skills for Life programme was launched in 2001, and is a key initiative aimed at improving adult literacy, language and numeracy skills in the UK.

Latest UCAS figures show a 3.5% (-17,184) decrease in the number of students applying by 30 June to UK higher education courses starting in autumn 2006 with 469,731 individuals applying compared with 486,915 at the same point last year.

The National Foundation for Educational Research has recently released a report examining how young people make choices at 14 and 16.

The regulatory authorities for England , Wales and Northern Ireland (QCA, DELLS and CCEA) are working together to develop a jointly regulated credit and qualifications framework through a series of tests and trials.

Call centres are not everyone's favourite institutions. In fact, customer backlash over their incompetence reached such a peak last month that one giant energy supplier switched work back from India to Britain. So it's hard to imagine why anyone would turn to a call centre for careers advice. But since January, 20,000 people have done just that by calling the new personalised consultation service run by the University for Industry's learndirect service.