This environmental scan has been prepared by the Australian National Training Authority (ANTA), to inform the development of the national strategy for vocational education and training 2004 - 2010. The environmental scan is based on a desktop literature review of recent international and national research about socio-cultural, economic, employment, governance and education and training issues. It relies on research undertaken by ANTAâs key research centres, the Research Centre for Vocational Education and Training and the Centre for the Economics of Education and Training as well as recent International Labour Office research presented in the 2002 publication Learning and Training for Work in the Knowledge Economy. This document simply seeks to summarise some of the recent thinking on what sort of society we might become. [Introduction, ed]