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The appraisal of the substantial investments which are made in educational facilities remains a largely unexplored field of research. Is it possible to develop reliable and effective criteria for evaluation, given the wide range of parameters from planning and cost-effectiveness of buildings to their impact on the performance of the educational system as a whole?

These questions, which are facing every modern educational system, are of concern to investors and funding bodies, as well as those who are responsible for planning, managing and designing educational facilities.

The OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) represents a comprehensive international comparative assessment of the information processing skills of adults vital for the full participation in social and economic life in the 21^st century. PIAAC is now in its second cycle and continues a series of international assessments of adult skills that began in the mid-1990s with the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS).

The Assessment Frameworks for Cycle 2 of PIAAC provide an essential background for understanding the skills assessed by the PIAAC assessment and for interpreting the results of the study. The Assessment Frameworks define and describe the skills assessed in the study – literacy, numeracy and problem solving – and outline the key features of the assessment of these skills. In addition, the relationship between Cycle 2 of PIAAC and previous assessments of these skills among the adult population is explained and an overview is provided of the changes that have occurred in the conceptualisation of these skills in the different international assessments of adult skills implemented over the last two decades.

This report provides a systematic review and empirical evidence related to the experiences of middle-income countries and economies participating in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), 2000 to 2015. PISA is a triennial survey that aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. To date, students representing more than 70 countries and economies have participated in the assessment, including 44 middle-income countries, many of which are developing countries receiving foreign aid. This report provides answers to six important questions about these middle-income countries and their experiences of participating in PISA: What is the extent of developing country participation in PISA and other international learning assessments? Why do these countries join PISA? What are the financial, technical, and cultural challenges for their participation in PISA? What impact has participation had on their national assessment capacity? How have PISA results influenced their national policy discussions? And what does PISA data tell us about education in these countries and the policies and practices that influence student performance?

The findings of this report are being used by the OECD to support its efforts to make PISA more relevant to a wider range of countries, and by the World Bank as part of its on-going dialogue with its client countries regarding participation in international large-scale assessments.

This publication provides a comprehensive analysis of the most important issues facing teachers during the early stages of their careers. The effectiveness of teachers fresh to the profession is an important policy issue, especially knowing the impact that teachers have on student learning.

The OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) is the first and only international survey on the conditions of teaching and learning. This report uses the TALIS 2008 dataset to analyse key aspects of new teachers’ work and highlight policy implications.

This report on the funding of school education constitutes the first in a series of thematic comparative reports bringing together findings from the OECD School Resources Review. School systems have limited financial resources with which to pursue their objectives and the design of school funding policies plays a key role in ensuring that resources are directed to where they can make the most difference. As OECD school systems have become more complex and characterised by multi-level governance, a growing set of actors are increasingly involved in financial decision-making. This requires designing funding allocation models that are aligned to a school system’s governance structures, linking budget planning procedures at different levels to shared educational goals and evaluating the use of school funding to hold decision makers accountable and ensure that resources are used effectively and equitably.

This report was co-funded by the European Commission.

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What do we know about how people learn? How do young people’s motivations and emotions influence their learning? What does research show to be the benefits of group work, formative assessments, technology applications, or project-based learning and when are they most effective?  How is learning affected by family background? These are among the questions addressed for the OECD by leading researchers from North America and Europe. This book brings together the lessons of research on both the nature of learning and different educational applications, and it summarises these as seven key concluding principles.  

Among the contributors are Brigid Barron, Monique Boekaerts, Erik de Corte, Linda Darling-Hammond, Kurt Fischer, Andrew Furco, Richard Mayer, Lauren Resnick, Barbara Schneider, Robert Slavin, James Spillane, Elsbeth Stern and Dylan Wiliam.

The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice is essential reading for all those interested in knowing what research has to say about how to optimise learning in classrooms, schools and other settings. It aims, first and foremost, to inform practice and educational reform. It will be of particular interest to teachers, education leaders, teacher educators, advisors and decision makers, as well as the research community

Solving non-routine problems is a key competence in a world full of changes, uncertainty and surprise where we strive to achieve so many ambitious goals. But the world is also full of solutions because of the extraordinary competences of humans who search for and find them. We must explore the world around us in a thoughtful way, acquire knowledge about unknown situations efficiently, and apply new and existing knowledge creatively.

The Nature of Problem Solving presents the background and the main ideas behind the development of the PISA 2012 assessment of problem solving, as well as results from research collaborations that originated within the group of experts who guided the development of this assessment. It illustrates the past, present and future of problem-solving research and how this research is helping educators prepare students to navigate an increasingly uncertain, volatile and ambiguous world.

In 2000 commentators everywhere were hailing the boom in some western economies as the dawn of a new economy. In 2001, with a slowdown biting in the US economy, dot.coms folding and information and communications technology firms feeling the pinch globally, the headline writers have swung the other way, saying that it was all a myth. Was it?

The New Economy: Beyond the Hype looks past the elation and gloom to help policymakers think and act with the facts. It explores the causes of the discrepancy in economic performance in the OECD area. It shows that while technology has had a pervasive and profound effect on economies and societies, it alone was not the reason for fast growth. What counts more is how that technology is put to work. The book argues forcefully that whatever the outlook for the business cycle, we are now faced with a new economic environment. It urges policymakers to adopt a comprehensive growth strategy combining five policy areas that can engage ICT, human capital, innovation and entrepreneurship in the growth process alongside policies to mobilise labour and increase investment for the long term. Naturally, good fundamentals -- macroeconomic stability, openness and competition, as well as sound economic and social institutions, and proper social protection -- are a prerequisite for success.

How might we know whether our schools or system are set up to optimise learning? How can we find out whether we are getting the most from technology? How can we evaluate our innovation or think through whether our change initiative will bring about its desired results? Teachers and educational leaders who grapple with such questions will find this handbook an invaluable resource. It draws on extensive reports and materials compiled over a decade by the OECD in its Innovative Learning Environments (ILE) project. Its four chapters – The learning principles; The innovative learning environment framework; Learning leadership and evaluative thinking; and Transformation and change - each contain a concise, non-technical overview introduction followed by a set of tools. The handbook makes good the ILE ambition not just to analyse change but to offer practical help to those around the world determined to innovate their schools and systems.

“If there has been one lesson learnt about innovating education, it is that teachers, schools and local administrators should not just be involved in the implementation of educational change but they should have a central role in its design.” Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director for Education and Skills.