Browse by: "2011"

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) can bring a wide range of benefits – for children, parents and society at large. However, these benefits are conditional on “quality”. Expanding access to services without attention to quality will not deliver good outcomes for children or long-term productivity benefits for society.

This new publication focuses on quality issues: it aims to define quality and outlines five policy levers that can enhance it in ECEC. In addition, it provides busy policy makers with practical tools such as research briefs, international comparisons, country examples, self-reflection sheets, etc. in order to successfully implement these policy levers.

Innovation holds the key to ongoing improvements in living standards, as well as to solving pressing social challenges. Skilled people play a crucial role in innovation through the new knowledge they generate, how they adopt and develop existing ideas, and through their ability to learn new competencies and adapt to a changing environment.

This book seeks to increase understanding of the links between skills and innovation. It explores the wide range of skills required, ranging from technical to "soft", and the ability to learn; it presents data and evidence on countries' stocks and flows of skills and the links between skill inputs and innovation outputs. Given the importance of meeting the demands of knowledge-based economic activity, the book investigates the issues of skill supply, education, workplace training and work organisation. It highlights the importance of enabling individuals to acquire appropriate skills and of optimising these at work.

Lower secondary education is key for success in overall education attainment, because it is where students can either “make it or break it.” It is the last level to consolidate basic skills and to enter either upper secondary education or the labour market with the adequate competences. This report develops comparative knowledge on lower secondary education across OECD countries and tailors it to the context of an OECD country: Norway.

Despite diversity in provision across countries, lower secondary education faces some similar challenges: some countries have difficulties ensuring high academic achievement, and many students fall behind at this stage, resulting eventually in drop out from upper secondary. Selected evidence shows that there may be lack of student motivation and that the configuration and practices in schools at this age may not cater adequately to the specific development needs of early adolescents.

After analyzing the comparative evidence and country practices, this report provides a strategy to support teachers, schools and students that can contribute to raise student attainment in this level (or to make this level more effective) in Norway.

At a time when OECD and partner countries are trying to figure out how to reduce burgeoning debt and make the most of shrinking public budgets, spending on education is an obvious target for scrutiny. Education officials, teachers, policy makers, parents and students struggle to determine the merits of shorter or longer school days or school years, how much time should be allotted to various subjects, and the usefulness of after-school lessons and independent study. 

This report focuses on how students use learning time, both in and out of school. What are the ideal conditions to ensure that students use their learning time efficiently? What can schools do to maximise the learning that occurs during the limited amount of time students spend in class? In what kinds of lessons does learning time reap the most benefits? And how can this be determined?

The report draws on data from the 2006 cycle of the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) to describe differences across and within countries in how much time students spend studying different subjects, how much time they spend in different types of learning activities, how they allocate their learning time and how they perform academically.

This sixth volume of PISA 2009 results explores students’ use of information technologies to learn. For PISA 2009, the framework for reading literacy has been developed to encompass reading electronic texts. This has led to an expansion of the description of text types to take account of the electronic environment, as well as a redefinition of the aspects of reading, to embrace, for example, the requirement for integration of information from multiple unrelated texts, as well as other features. The PISA 2009 reading framework and the assessment instrument together provide an operational definition and description of the distinctive structures and types of both text and task that constitute electronic reading, allowing an exploration of factors that contribute to difficulty. PISA 2009 therefore provides an opportunity to investigate electronic reading on a large scale. This book presents some initial findings.

Learning for Jobs is an OECD study of vocational education and training (VET) designed to help countries make their VET systems more responsive to labour market needs.

In Texas, secondary level career and technical education (CTE) is provided within a comprehensive high school framework. Texas has encouraged a wide variety of innovative learning initiatives, established good articulation between high school CTE and postsecondary programs and benefits from a strong network of community colleges and universities. At the same time the state faces some challenges in ensuring minimum quality standards in CTE, in providing sufficient good quality career advice, and providing an adequate range of workplace learning opportunities.

The OECD review assesses the main challenges faced by the CTE system and presents an interconnected package of policy recommendations. For each recommendation, the report describes the challenge, the recommendation itself, supporting arguments, and issues of implementation.

Learning for Jobs is an OECD study of vocational education and training (VET) designed to help countries make their VET systems more responsive to labour market needs.

South Carolina offers career and technology education (CATE) programs in high schools and career and technology centers, with relatively good status and linked to expectations of strong general skills. A reform agenda reflected in the ‘Education and Economic Development Act’ includes the development of high quality career guidance. There is also a strong technical college system. Wider challenges include an underlying problem of resources for schools, the need to further develop workplace learning, and the lack of basic skills both among school-leavers and adults.

The OECD review assesses the main challenges faced by the CATE system and presents an interconnected package of policy recommendations. For each recommendation, the report describes the challenge, the recommendation itself, supporting arguments, and issues of implementation.

Literacy for Life is the second report from the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey. It presents additional results on the nature and magnitude of the literacy gaps faced by OECD countries and how these gaps have evolved over the medium term.

It offers new insights into the factors that influence the formation of adult skills in various settings – at home and at work – for the eleven countries participating in the first and last round of data collection between 2003 and 2008. The study offers comparative evidence on the impact of various factors on the supply of skill. The study offers a special focus on numeracy skills and problem solving skills. It explores the relationships between numeracy and key socio-demographic factors as well as labour market outcomes and earnings.

It highlights the importance of problem solving skills by defining this foundational skill and by exploring its determinants as well as its relative role in influencing important labour market outcomes.

The report offers also an analysis of performance across multiple skill domains. It investigates the skill profiles of various population groups defined in terms of the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of those who score at levels deemed to be low in one or more skill domains and explores the resulting consequences.

The report concludes by investigating the issue of skill mismatch in the labour market and its relationship to adult learning. The extent and distribution of mismatch between the day-to-day literacy related requirements of workers and the literacy skills they have obtained is an important issue that is being explored in this study.

US President Obama has launched one of the world’s most ambitious education reform agendas. Under the heading “Race to the Top”, this agenda encourages US states to adopt internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the workplace: recruit, develop, reward, and retain effective teachers and principals; build data systems that measure student success; and inform teachers and principals how they can improve their practices and turn around their lowest-performing schools.

But what does the “top” look like internationally? How have the countries at the top managed to achieve sustained high performance or to significantly improve their performance? The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) provides the world’s most extensive and rigorous set of international surveys assessing the knowledge and skills of secondary school students. This volume combines an analysis of PISA with a description of the policies and practices of those education systems that are close to the top or advancing rapidly, in order to offer insights for policy from their reform trajectories.

This report presents a summary of the trends in Mexico’s performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and considers them in relation to the PISA target established by the Mexican government. Trends regarding access to education by 15-year-olds and equity as indicated by the impact of socio-economic background on students’ performance are also examined.

The report shows that the performance gains that Mexico has achieved since Mexico’s President Calderón established the PISA performance target have been significant and Mexico seems well on track to meet its 2012 target. In addition, the report reviews Mexico’s performance compared to other countries in the OECD, the G20, and to similar economies to also highlight that improvement is still needed. Based on a comparison of performance between Mexican schools, the report also shows that relatively higher performance is not dictated by socio-economic background.

The report concludes by drawing together evidence from PISA and an examination of a selection of today’s highest performing education systems in order to provide a long-term perspective for educational improvement in Mexico.

This book examines the transition of young adults with disabilities from school to tertiary education and work. It analyses the policy experiences of several OECD countries and identifies recent trends in access to education and employment as well as best transition policies and practices. Which factors foster or hinder the transition to tertiary education and work? What are the strengths and weaknesses of policies and support given to young adults with disabilities? What strategies exist in upper secondary schools and tertiary education institutions to smooth this transition and what are their strengths and weaknesses?

It shows that access to tertiary education for young adults with disabilities has improved significantly over the past decade. However, despite the progress that has been made, the transition to tertiary education is still harder for young adults with disabilities than it is for other young adults. Students with disabilities are also less likely than their non-disabled peers to successfully complete their studies, or to access employment.

The book also provides policy recommendations for governments and education institutions. These recommendations are designed to give young adults with disabilities the same success and transition opportunities that other young adults already enjoy and to improve hereby their right to education and to inclusion.

Israel has developed a strong economy with entrepreneurial drive and high tech driven growth, but the socio-economic divide between population groups is growing. In the Galilee, about half of the population is Arab. A key challenge for the Galilee and Israel is the disparity between Arab and Jewish populations in terms of employment and education outcomes.
 
How can the government ensure that investment in education is equitable for different population groups? How can universities and colleges fuel local growth by developing relevant skills and improving educational attainment levels across the multi-ethnic, multi-religious population?

This publication is part of the series of OECD reviews of Higher Education in Regional and City Development. These reviews help mobilise higher education institutions for economic, social and cultural development of cities and regions. They analyse how the higher education system impacts upon regional and local development and bring together universities, other higher education institutions, and public and private agencies to identify strategic goals and to work towards them.

This publication reviews higher education and economic development in the State of Penang, Malaysia. It finds that Penang is one of Malaysia’s most industrial states. Its long-term economic growth has been based on manufacturing and foreign direct investments. Strong dependence on multinational corporations has brought growth and development but also an underdeveloped local industry, limited indigenous innovation and a lack of dynamic new entrepreneurship.

It examines how Penang could move up in the value chain, away from manufacturing to knowledge-driven economy and how it could capitalise on its diverse population, the co-existence of three cultures and the UNESCO cultural heritage site. It shows how Penang’s diverse tertiary education sector could be mobilised for regional and local development.

Paraná is one of the most prosperous states in Brazil and has invested in higher education, science and technology, and public-private partnerships. Its higher education scene is dominated by federal and state universities, but the private sector enrolls a much higher number of students, particularly from low socio-economic backgrounds.

Faced with growing global competition, how can Paraná build its capacity as an internationally attractive place to live, work, invest and study? How can it promote business formation and develop its existing industry and small and medium-sized enterprises? How can it address the long-term challenges of poverty and inequality? How can its higher education sector support this development?

This publication is part of the series of OECD reviews of Higher Education in Regional and City Development. These reviews help mobilise higher education institutions for economic, social and cultural development of cities and regions. They analyse how the higher education system impacts upon regional and local development and bring together universities, other higher education institutions, and public and private agencies to identify strategic goals and to work towards them.