Why is it commonly believed that young people today are less well equipped for work than their parents were? Could educational standards have declined? Do technological changes mean that work requires higher skills levels? If these perceptions are wrong, why are they so widely believed?

2.  Is there a youth unemployment crisis or just an unemployment crisis? Are young people unemployed because they lack skills or because they are at the back of the queue for a diminishing number of jobs?

3.  What are skills? How and where are they best acquired? How can we know what knowledge and skills will be of most value to individuals?

4.  How different are the three narratives of skills and livelihoods? To what extent and in which ways do they support each other, and to what extent and in which ways do they contradict each other?