Strategies to improve disadvantaged young people's access to and progression within initial vocational training (VT) were identified through a study of relevant experiences within the European Union's member states. The study, which was based on national reports from each country, focused on the following topics: identifying the challenges and problems in compulsory schools and initial VT; improving compulsory education (the need to tackle failure at its roots; curriculum variation; vocational guidance through the curriculum; area-based interventions; Denmark's successful synthesis of guidance and vocational education); increasing readiness for VT (preparatory measures, youth guarantees and outreach measures, alternative institutions as "stepping stones" to training); improving initial VT; implications of training and/or retraining teachers and trainers; and improving cooperation between training providers. Fifteen themes for future cooperation were identified. (Appended are the following: target group definitions; the Netherlands' 1993 plan for reducing early school leaving; "individual programs" in upper secondary school in Sweden; external and internal school "units" in Norway; the "Mission Nouvelles Qualifications" in France; a study of "hard core" disadvantaged young people; discussion of the United Kingdom's "Youth Training" as a model for training of disadvantaged young people in a market system; and labor market measures.) (MN)