The industrially advanced countries are currently undergoing a significant change in the trajectory of their industrial development. This is associated with alterations in the way in which work is being organised. Amongst the more important changes are those which relate to skill. The old pattern of increasingly divided tasks and polarised skills is giving way to one in which multi‐skilling and multi‐tasking are becoming the norm. As a consequence education and training is altering in these industrial countries, both within firms and in the formal educational system. This contribution schematically describes these changes and asks what their implications are for developing countries. Are they modelling their education and training systems on outdated patterns of industrial organisation?