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For the first time, the OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 project conducted comprehensive curriculum analyses through the co-creation of new knowledge with a wide range of stakeholders including policy makers, academic experts, school leaders, teachers, NGOs, other social partners and, most importantly, students. This report is one of six in a series presenting the first-ever comparative data on curriculum at the content level summarising existing literature, examining trends in curriculum change with challenges and strategies, and suggesting lessons learned from unintended consequences countries experienced with their curriculum reforms.
This report highlights that economic, societal and environmental changes are happening rapidly and technologies are developing at an unprecedented pace, but education systems are relatively slow to adapt. Time lag in curriculum redesign refers to the discrepancies between the content of today’s curriculum and the diverse needs of preparing students for the future. The OECD Learning Compass can serve as a guide for adjusting to the new demands of education systems with regards to curriculum, pedagogies, assessments, governance structure, educational management, and the role of students. Innovative approaches to curriculum design that may minimise time lags include: digital curriculum; personalised curriculum; cross-curricular content and competency-based curriculum; and flexible curriculum.
The World Energy Outlook, the IEA’s flagship publication, provides a comprehensive view of how the global energy system could develop in the coming decades.
This year’s exceptional circumstances require an exceptional approach. The usual long-term modelling horizons are kept but the focus for this new Outlook is firmly on the next ten years, exploring in detail the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the energy sector and the near-term actions that could accelerate clean energy transitions.
The analysis targets the key uncertainties facing the energy sector in relation to the duration of the pandemic and its implications, while mapping out the choices that would pave the way towards a sustainable recovery.
The strategic insights from the WEO-2020 are based on detailed modelling of different potential pathways out of the crisis, covering all regions, fuels and technologies and using the latest data on energy markets, policies and costs.
This report presents the most up-to-date and comprehensive cross-country assessment of long-term care (LTC) workers, the tasks they perform and the policies to address shortages in OECD countries. It highlights the importance of improving working conditions in the sector and making care work more attractive and shows that there is space to increase productivity by enhancing the use of technology, providing a better use of skills and investing in prevention.
Population ageing has outpaced the growth of workers in the long-term care (LTC) sector and the sector struggles with attracting and retaining enough workers to care for those dependent on others for care. Non-standard work is widespread, pay levels tend to be lower than similar-qualification jobs in other health sectors, and LTC workers experience more health problems than other health workers. Further, educational requirements tend to be insufficient to perform more demanding and growing tasks of LTC. With growing demand for care at home, better co-ordination between the health and long-term care sectors and between formal and informal careers is needed.
The worldwide economic shock caused by the Covid-19 pandemic is having widespread and often dramatic effects on investments in the energy sector. Based on the latest available data, the International Energy Agency's World Energy Investment 2020 provides a unique and comprehensive perspective on how energy capital flows are being reshaped by the crisis, including full-year estimates for global energy investment in 2020.
Now in its fifth edition, the World Energy Investment report is the annual IEA benchmark analysis of investment and financing across all areas of fuel and electricity supply, efficiency, and research and development. In addition to a full review of the 2019 trends that preceded the crisis, this year’s analysis highlights how companies are now reassessing strategies – and investors repricing risks – in response to today’s profound uncertainties and financial strains.
The energy industry that emerges from this crisis will be significantly different from the one that came before. The vulnerabilities and implications vary among companies, depending on whether they are investing in fossil fuels or low-carbon technologies, as well as across different countries. The new report assesses which areas are most exposed and which are proving to be more resilient. The analysis also provides crucial insights for governments, investors and other stakeholders on new risks to energy security and sustainability, and what can be done to mitigate them.
Long waiting times for health services is an important policy issue in most OECD countries. Reducing the time that people have to wait to get a consultation with a general practitioner, or a diagnostic test or treatment, can go a long way in improving patient experience and avoiding possible deterioration in their health. Governments in many countries have taken various measures to reduce waiting times, often supported by additional funding, with mixed success. This report looks at how waiting times for elective treatment, which is usually the longest wait, have stalled over the past decade in many countries, and have started to rise again in some others. It also analyses the differences in how long people have to wait to get a consultation with general practitioners or specialists across countries. The report reviews a range of policies that countries have used to tackle waiting times for different services, including elective surgery and primary care consultations, but also cancer care and mental health services, with a focus on identifying the most successful ones.
Canada has introduced a set of programmes to test novel approaches to skills development. This report analyses the potential of these programmes to improve the future-readiness of Canada’s adult learning system. Further, it outlines how these programmes might be expanded to promote optimal skills use and learning within workplaces, through the use of high-performance work practices.
The staff working in schools are the most important resource for today’s education systems, both educationally and financially. This report aims to provide guidance for the design of human resource policies that strengthen, recognise and preserve the positive impact that teachers, school leaders and other school staff have on their students. It offers an in-depth analysis of how human resource policies can make the best use of available resources to create supportive working environments and build both individual and collective professional capacity in schools. This includes the design of entry requirements, career structures, salary schedules and working time arrangements to attract, retain and motivate high-quality staff; the effective and equitable matching of staff with schools through fair and transparent staff funding and recruitment; and informed investments in professional learning, from initial preparation to continuing development. Throughout its analysis, the report looks at implementation challenges and considers under which conditions human resource policy reforms are most likely to have the desired effects on schools and their staff. This report is the third in a series of thematic comparative reports bringing together findings from the OECD School Resources Review.
The World Energy Outlook series is a leading source of strategic insight on the future of energy and energy-related emissions, providing detailed scenarios that map out the consequences of different energy policy and investment choices.
This year's edition updates the outlooks for all fuels, technologies and regions, based on the latest market data, policy initiatives and cost trends.
In addition, the 2019 report tackles some key questions in depth:
- What do the shale revolution, the rise of liquefied natural gas, the falling costs of renewables and the spread of digital technologies mean for tomorrow's energy supply?
- How can the world get on a pathway to meet global climate targets and other sustainable energy goals?
- What are the energy choices that will shape Africa's future, and how might the rise of the African consumer affect global trends?
- How large a role could offshore wind play in the transformation of the energy sector?
- Could the world's gas grids one day deliver low-carbon energy?
Ensuring long-term water security is essential in the pathway towards sustainable development in Argentina. Floods cause 60% of all critical events in the country and are responsible for 95% of economic losses. Severe droughts, in a country where the agricultural sector accounts for 6.4% of GDP as compared to a global average of 3.6%, have a strong impact in the economy. The country is also home to some of the most polluted basins worldwide. Furthermore, climate change will likely shift further water availability, uses and demand. The report is the result of a policy dialogue with more than 200 stakeholders at different levels in Argentina. It assesses water governance in Argentina, identifies several key challenges to effective, efficient and inclusive water policies, and provides a set of policy recommendations to enhance water governance as a means to address relevant societal challenges, both within the scope of water management and beyond. In particular, ways forward for Argentina include strengthening the co-ordination between national and provincial water policies, setting up a multilevel water planning and investment framework, improving basin management practices, and enhancing economic regulation for water services.
This report revisits the rationale and methods for estimating the value of reductions in travel time. In doing so, it considers changes in the way people use time and specifically explores whether the value of time will fall towards zero as connected technologies allow a wide range of activities while travelling. The report also reviews evidence and methodologies to account for the utility derived from such activities, as well as implications for modelling, appraisal and policy planning. It summarises the findings of an ITF Roundtable held with 30 experts from 14 countries in September 2018 in Paris.
This report provides a cross-country review of waste, materials management and circular economy policies in selected OECD countries, drawing on OECD’s Environmental Performance Reviews during the period 2010-17. It presents the main achievements in the countries reviewed, along with common trends and policy challenges, and provides insights into the effectiveness and efficiency of waste, materials management and circular economy policy frameworks. As the selected reviews were published over a seven-year period, information for some countries may be more recent than for others. Nevertheless, the policy recommendations emerging from the reviews may provide useful lessons for other OECD countries and partner economies.
World Energy Statistics provides comprehensive world energy statistics on all energy sources – coal, gas, oil, electricity, renewables and waste. It covers energy supply and consumption for over 160 countries and regions, including all OECD countries, and more than 100 other key energy producing and consuming countries, as well as world totals and various regional aggregates. The book includes detailed tables by country in original units, and summary time series on production, trade, and final consumption by sector.
In the companion publication World Energy Balances, data are presented as comprehensive energy balances expressed in energy units.
World Energy Balances provides comprehensive energy balances for all the world’s largest energy producing and consuming countries. It contains detailed data on the supply and consumption of energy for over 160 countries and regions, including all OECD countries, and more than 100 other key energy producing and consuming countries, as well as world totals and various regional aggregates. The book includes graphs and detailed data by country for all energy sources – coal, gas, oil, electricity, renewables and waste - expressed in balance format. Alongside this, there are summary time series on production, trade, final consumption by sector, as well as key energy and economic indicators and an overview of trends in global energy production and use.
More detailed data in original units are published in the companion publication World Energy Statistics.
People today are living longer than ever before, but what is a boon for individuals can be challenging for societies. If nothing is done to change existing work and retirement patterns, the number of older inactive people who will need to be supported by each worker could rise by around 40% between 2018 and 2050 on average in the OECD area. This would put a brake on rising living standards as well as enormous pressure on younger generations who will be financing social protection systems. Improving employment prospects of older workers will be crucial. At the same time, taking a life-course approach will be necessary to avoid accumulation of individual disadvantages over work careers that discourage or prevent work at an older age; What can countries do to help? How can they give older people better work incentives and opportunities? This report provides a synthesis of the main challenges and policy recommendations together with a set of international best practices to foster employability, labour demand and incentives to work at an older age.
The International Energy Agency’s annual benchmark for tracking energy investment, World Energy Investment 2019 provides a full picture of today’s capital flows and what they might mean for tomorrow’s energy sector. It assesses whether the frameworks and strategies put in place by governments, the energy industry, and financial institutions are spurring timely investment, and how spending across sectors and technologies matches with the world’s energy security and sustainability needs.
This year’s edition looks at trends in investment and financing in 2018 across all areas of energy supply, efficiency, and research & development, key markets and sectors driving these trends, from electricity in Asia to fuel supply in North America, as well as the sectors and regions where energy capital flows are constrained. The analysis also examines how industry is responding to investment risks and opportunities, including through shorter-cycle oil and gas projects, financial risk management strategies for renewable power, financing models for energy efficiency, and in capital allocation decisions across sectors. And it looks at the implications of today’s trends, such as whether investment is sufficient to satisfy the world’s growing demand for energy, and whether enough capital is going into energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other low-carbon technologies to accelerate the pace of global energy transitions.
Women make a significant contribution to West Africa's food economy, perpetuating a long tradition of commerce and participating in cross-border trade and regional outreach. Their activities face numerous obstacles but also present important opportunities, highlighted in this report through an unprecedented relational and spatial analysis of social networks. The study focuses on the rice sector in the Dendi region (Benin, Niger and Nigeria) and on the regional governance networks that support women's entrepreneurship. It confirms that Nigeria occupies a privileged position due to its demographics and growing urbanisation. The report proposes the development of innovative public policies based on the reinforcement of the social capital of women and policy approaches that promote better integration of the initiatives undertaken by governments, international and non-governmental organisations to empower women and strengthen their resilience.
This report focuses on the local level integration of migrants in Rome, and provides information on the national framework for integration in Italy. While the study assumes that local authorities are at the forefront of migrant integration – providing information and essential services, ensuring access to education and the labour market, overcoming the barriers for full inclusion in the host society, and managing conflicts – local authorities are not alone. This report stresses the importance of multi-level governance of migrant integration, highlighting the key role of third sector enterprises, NGOs, business, faith-based organisations and unions. It identifies and shares selected local actions and governance practices to manage the short- and long-term effects of migration flows, and provides an international comparative of practices implemented by other EU cities, highlighting the most effective measures and lessons learned.
India’s rooftop solar targets represent a major opportunity for sustainable development and for women’s employment. While India has shown a strong commitment towards a clean energy transition through its renewable electricity installation target for 2022, deployment of rooftop solar technology has been slow. With the potential to create a large number of jobs in general, the rooftop solar sector also generates the types of jobs attractive to highly skilled women in particular, a largely untapped pool in India.
Our analysis, based on a survey of rooftop solar companies as well as qualitative interviews with women currently employed in the sector, seeks to identify opportunities for better gender balance at work, as well as barriers to achieving it. Women currently account for only 11% of the workforce in the companies we surveyed. Participation of women is particularly low in roles involving frequent travel and a required onsite presence at project sites.
We recommend that the government enhance policies to scale up the rooftop solar market by addressing the general challenges facing this sector, and introduce gender-targeted policies to enable and encourage companies to advance actions that effectively support women’s employment in this sector.
In einer Welt, in der das, was einfach unterrichtet und abgefragt werden kann, auch das ist, was sich einfach digitalisieren und automatisieren lässt, kommt es auf unser Vorstellungsvermögen, unsere Sensibilität und unser Verantwortungsbewusstsein an. Mit diesen Eigenschaften können wir die Chancen des 21. Jahrhunderts nutzen, um die Welt zum Besseren zu verändern. Die Schulen von morgen werden den Schülerinnen und Schülern helfen müssen, selbstständig zu denken und anderen mit Empathie zu begegnen – im Arbeitsleben und als mündige Bürger. Dazu gehört es auch, ein ausgeprägtes Rechtsbewusstsein und Verständnis für die Bedürfnisse anderer Menschen zu entwickeln.
Wie können die Schulen das gewährleisten? Andreas Schleicher, Initiator der Internationalen Schulleistungsstudie PISA der OECD und weltweit anerkannte Autorität in Sachen Bildungspolitik, hat Bildungsverantwortliche aus über 70 Ländern bei der Gestaltung und Umsetzung zukunftsweisender bildungspolitischer Maßnahmen begleitet. Die Bildung zu verbessern, ist leichter gesagt als getan. Schleicher zeigt in diesem Buch zahlreiche Erfolgsbeispiele auf, aus denen wir lernen können. Dabei geht es nicht darum, vorgefertigte Lösungen aus anderen Schulen bzw. Ländern zu übernehmen. Ziel ist vielmehr die ernsthafte und unvoreingenommene Auseinandersetzung mit empfehlenswerten Praktiken aus dem In- und Ausland, um herauszufinden, was unter welchen Bedingungen funktioniert. Von Haus aus Physiker, wirft Schleicher einen ganz eigenen Blick auf die Reform der Bildung: Sie ist für ihn Kunst und Wissenschaft gleichermaßen, wie er überzeugend darlegt.
Currently, Japan has the highest old-age dependency ratio of all OECD countries, with a ratio in 2017 of over 50 persons aged 65 and above for every 100 persons aged 20 to 64. This ratio is projected to rise to 79 per hundred in 2050. The rapid population ageing in Japan is a major challenge for achieving further increases in living standards and ensuring the financial sustainability of public social expenditure. However, with the right policies in place, there is an opportunity to cope with this challenge by extending working lives and making better use of older workers' knowledge and skills. This report investigates policy issues and discusses actions to retain and incentivise the elderly to work more by further reforming retirement policies and seniority-wages, investing in skills to improve productivity and keeping up with labour market changes through training policy, and ensuring good working conditions for better health with tackling long-hours working culture.