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This publication reveals a number of interesting examples of innovative programmes using ICT that can increase access to learning out-of-school youths and adults. The papers show that ICT can be one way -- but by no means the only way -- to improve pathways to learning. It can do this by tailoring learning to the needs and preferred learning styles of the disadvantaged, and it can make learning more interesting by providing immediate feedback. A third message is that just as adult learning itself has been the under-funded and under-appreciated Cinderella of the formal learning spectrum, so the application of ICT within adult learning has tended to lag behind much of the rest of the education system. The present volume provides some cautionary remarks on the recent past and opens up some significant opportunities for the future.
The structure of education systems varies widely between countries. In order to produce internationally comparable education statistics and indicators, it is necessary to have a framework to collect and report data on education programmes with a similar level of educational content. UNESCO’s International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) is the reference classification for organising education programmes and related qualifications by education levels and fields. The basic concepts and definitions of ISCED are intended to be internationally valid and comprehensive of the full range of education systems.
ISCED 2011 is the second major revision of this classification (initially developed in the 1970s and first revised in 1997). It was adopted by the UNESCO General Conference in November 2011. Prepared jointly by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), the OECD and Eurostat, this operational manual provides guidelines and explanatory notes for the interpretation of the revised classification, by each education level. It also includes country examples of programmes and qualifications that have been classified to ISCED 2011.
This manual will be useful for national statisticians collecting and reporting data on education to international organisations, as well as for policymakers and researchers interested in better understanding of these data.
This report represents the second outcome of the collaboration between the Asian Productivity Organization (APO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to improve the measurement and analysis of productivity developments across APO and OECD member economies. The report discusses the potential impact of COVID-19 on productivity and examines the role of Multifactor Productivity (MFP) as a major driver of economic growth and changes in living standards. It then identifies the most important factors influencing MFP growth and describes the most important challenges affecting the measurement of each of these factors as well as the estimation of their impact on MFP. The report provides key recommendations to improve the reliability and interpretation of the empirical evidence for economic analysis.
How school systems respond to immigration has an enormous impact on the economic and social well-being of all members of the communities they serve, whether they have an immigrant background or not. Immigrant Students at School: Easing the Journey towards Integration reveals some of the difficulties immigrant students encounter – and some of the contributions they offer – as they settle into their new communities and new schools.
Results from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) indicate that students with an immigrant background tend to perform worse in school than students without an immigrant background. Several factors are associated with this disparity, including the concentration of disadvantage in the schools immigrant students attend, language barriers and certain school policies, like grade repetition and tracking, that can hinder immigrant students’ progress through school.
But successful integration is measured in more than academic achievement; immigrant students’ well-being and hopes for the future are just as telling. This report examines not only immigrant students’ aspirations and sense of belonging at school, but also recent trends in Europeans’ receptiveness to welcoming immigrants into their own countries – the context that could make all the difference in how well immigrant students integrate into their new communities. The report includes a special section on refugees and education, and an extensive discussion on education policy responses to immigration.
Widespread school closures affected over one billion students during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The vocational education and training (VET) sector has faced particular challenges during the crisis, most notably the fact that the digital learning environments that most education institutions had to rely on during closures don’t work as well for practice-oriented learning – a core component of VET instruction – as they do for academic learning. This report looks at comparative statistics and policy information collected by the OECD across a number of education systems to track the impact of the pandemic on the VET sector.
Early equity for disadvantaged children can be achieved through nurturing, high quality early learning environments. However, without deliberate action, disadvantaged children face a 12 month development gap compared to their more advantaged peers in key early learning areas such as emergent literacy. Data based on direct assessments from 7,000 children in England, Estonia and the United States show what it takes to achieve a level playing field for disadvantaged children. These actions include supporting parents to regularly read with their children, having back-and-forth conversations and providing access to developmentally appropriate books. Links between parents and their early childhood education and care (ECEC) centre are also positively linked to children’s early development, as well as the provision and quality of ECEC. The latter includes a holistic approach to ensure children’s social-emotional skills are fostered, such as curiosity and co-operation, and ensuring children have a level of autonomy over their activities.
How can the state of Puebla improve its education system? Within an international perspective, this report analyses the major challenges facing the state’s education system, current policy initiatives, and innovative practices. It highlights that a long-term strategy, a stronger capacity to lead improvements and reforms in four main policy areas are keystones for educational improvement. With insights from top performing systems and those with a similar reform trajectory, it sets out strategies for action to make change happen.
This symposium proceedings examines three aspects of financial education: monitoring and evaluation, use of behavioral economics, and financial literacy and defined contribution pension plans.
Individuals face an increasing variety of financial risks, including those linked to their retirement. At the same time, public funding has been reduced or is strictly limited in most countries. Private insurance and pensions products therefore play an essential role in social and financial protection. Yet the public might have a low level of awareness of the risks they are exposed to, and lack literacy, knowledge and skills in insurance and private pensions questions and products.
This volume addresses these topical and unexplored issues as part of the ongoing OECD project on financial education. After a comprehensive analysis of the main challenges and presentation of practical solutions, the book highlights good practices, endorsed by OECD governments, to enhance awareness and education on risk, insurance and private pensions issues.
This book, the first major study of financial education at the international level, contributes to the development of consumer financial literacy by providing information to policy makers on effective financial education programmes and by promoting the exchange of views and the sharing of experience in the field of financial education and awareness. It identifies and analyses financial literacy surveys in member countries, highlights the economic, demographic and policy changes that make financial education increasingly important, and describes the different types of financial education programmes currently being offered in OECD countries. Finally, this book evaluates the effectiveness of financial education programmes and introduces the OECD Council Recommendation on Principals and Good Practices for Financial Education and Awareness.
Today’s global policy climate underlines the importance of better addressing non-economic dimensions of well-being and social progress such as health, social engagement, political interest and crime. Education plays an important role in shaping indicators of progress. However, we understand little about the causal effects, the causal pathways, the role of contexts and the relative impacts that different educational interventions have on social outcomes.
This report addresses challenges in assessing the social outcomes of learning by providing a synthesis of the existing evidence, original data analyses and policy discussions. The report finds that education has the potential to promote health as well as civic and social engagement. Education may reduce inequalities by fostering cognitive, social and emotional skills and promoting healthy lifestyles, participatory practices and norms. These efforts are most likely to be successful when family and community environments are aligned with the efforts made in educational institutions. This calls for ensuring policy coherence across sectors and stages of education.
Higher education helps learners acquire the knowledge and skills they need to lead productive working lives, and it sparks the innovation that fosters economic growth and social progress. However, creating higher education systems that operate at a high level of research and teaching quality, with responsiveness to social and labour market demands, requires effective public policies and institutional practices. This report, which focuses on funding and governance reforms to improve higher education in the Slovak Republic, is a collaboration between the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM), the Institute for Strategies and Analysis in the Office of the Government of the Slovak Republic and the OECD’s Directorate for Education and Skills. Building on stakeholder engagement and comparative analysis, the report offers an international perspective on the performance of the Slovak higher education system and provides an action plan focused on governance and funding reforms, placing special emphasis on implementation planning to support reform success.
This Toolkit is a professional development tool for individuals or groups. It is designed to help policy makers, practitioners and relevant stakeholders to analyse their current school leadership policies and practices and develop a common understanding of where and how to take action based on the OECD Improving School Leadership policy recommendations.
As countries strive to reform education systems and improve student results, school leadership is high on education policy agendas. But in many countries, the men and women who run schools are overburdened, underpaid and near retirement. And few people are lining up for their jobs. Based on an OECD study of school leadership practices and policies around the world, and offering a unique cross country perspective, this book identifies four policy levers and a range of policy options to help governments improve school leadership now and build sustainable leadership for the future.
This book explores what specialists are saying about system leadership for school improvement. Case studies examine innovative approaches to sharing leadership across schools in Belgium (Flanders), Finland and the United Kingdom (England) and leadership development programmes for system improvement in Australia and Austria. As these are emerging practices, the book provides a first international comparison and assessment of the state of the art of system leadership.
Norway is committed to a high quality and equitable education system, as demonstrated by its high level of public expenditure on education and the dynamic policy activity targeting education quality. Despite progress made in enhancing average student performance in recent years, there still are significant differences between schools in municipalities and between municipalities and regions. In response, Norway has started to implement the new competence development model that sets out to develop teacher professionalism with in-service professional development. With this new policy, the Government of Norway aims to provide municipalities and schools with greater freedom of action and empower them to carry out systematic school improvements at the local level. This decentralised approach would respond to local context and the diversity of needs between Norwegian schools.
This report aims to support Norway in this effort, analysing the features of the new model, the engagement of the different stakeholders and the policy context for its introduction. Building on the OECD implementation framework, the report proposes concrete actions to adapt the implementation strategy for impact.
The report will be valuable not only for Norway, but also to the many countries that are looking to promote school-based professional development and bridge the gap between policy design and effective implementation.
This report develops comparative knowledge for reforms in teacher and school management policies in the context of an OECD member country: Mexico. Mexico’s education outcomes can be improved by enhancing the effectiveness of its schools. The standards gap between the performance of students in Mexico and other OECD countries can only be reduced if schools become good at what they do. This report looks at key issues and challenges faced by the Mexican education system and provides policy recommendations on school management, leadership and teacher policies. These recommendations have been developed by considering the outcomes, quality and standards of education and schools in Mexico in terms of what is known internationally about effective schools, and by adapting this knowledge to the Mexican context.
The report has two audiences: It aims to support the Mexican government and key actors in the education system to develop long-term vision and policy in the areas of school management, school leadership, social participation, selection and recruitment of teachers, teacher education, professional development, and evaluation policies in Mexico. At the same time, it provides valuable knowledge in education policy development and implementation useful for other OECD member and partner countries that are in the process of reforming their education systems.
The COVID-19 crisis has reiterated the importance of adult learning and career guidance services as many adults have lost their jobs and now require upskilling and reskilling opportunities in order to keep pace with the rapidly evolving world of work. Yet, in order to achieve its positive gains, adult training needs to be of high quality and ensure successful learning experiences for all participants. This report therefore aims at supporting public authorities to enhance quality in the field of non-formal adult learning. It provides an overview of quality assurance systems across Europe, highlighting their implementation features, governance structures and success factors. Based on this analysis, the report develops a Quality Assurance in Adult Learning Decision Tree to support the decision-making process of governments that are planning reforms of their quality assurance systems.
Workers’ skills are an essential asset for firms to recover from the COVID-19 shock and succeed in the twin digital and green transitions. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) face special barriers to investing in human capital because of their size and more limited access to information and capital markets. This report identifies policies that are successful in promoting SMEs’ investment in the skills of employees, managers or entrepreneurs. A review of cost-reducing and financial support instruments is followed by an analysis of initiatives that promote innovative HR practices, a learning culture in the firm, and better co-operation among firms and with the education sector. The report describes the design and rationale of these measures as well as their advantages and limitations. It identifies a common set of features that make skill investment policies especially suitable for SMEs.
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.