Although education and training should be a source of relative advantage for Australia, the competitive benefits expected from the nation's "clever country" strategy have been slow to emerge. When 22 countries including Australia, Germany, Singapore, the United Kingdom, United States, and New Zealand were compared from the standpoint of 8 factors contributing to national competitiveness, 17 countries were deemed more competitive than Australia. Three factors (infrastructure, government, and people) were identified as likely drivers of Australian competitiveness, and three others (internationalization, domestic economic strength, and science and technology) were identified as likely restraints on competitiveness. The following strategies for improving the competitiveness of Australian work skills were proposed: match qualification growth of key competitors; develop an integrated qualification framework that can be applied to post-compulsory schooling and vocational programs; address Australia's post-compulsory profile gap and profile age gap; improve the alignment of education and training and industry work skill priorities; and use ongoing benchmarking and evaluation processes to implement effective continuous improvement strategies for education and training. (Thirty-one tables/figures are included. Appended are the following: comment on the development of comparative qualification frameworks; alternative Australian qualification measures; and procedures for measuring the relationship between qualification stocks and national competitiveness.) (MN)