Despite numerous measures, gender stereotypes about abilities in mathematics and reading persist in schools, affecting both boys' and girls' schooling and educational choices. Inequalities also persist outside the classroom, where women, despite...

Private schools cater for around 1 in 5 students from pre-primary to the end of secondary education, a share that has not changed materially since 2015. They enjoy greater autonomy, suffer fewer shortages of all kinds and handled the COVID-19...

Teachers’ salaries are widely debated around the world, with divergent views among the actors of education. Salaries have risen very little over the last decade and have even fallen in real terms in almost half of OECD countries between 2015 and...

Governments vary greatly in the way they decide the level of funding for public primary schools, although typically it involves using a combination of rule-based and discretionary criteria. They also tend to place restrictions on how funding is used...

Women are strongly over-represented among primary and secondary teachers. This can be explained at least partly by gender stereotypes, but also by the attractiveness of the profession to working mothers and by differences in the relative wage levels...

The labour market outcomes for native- and foreign-born adults during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic vary considerably across countries – with inequalities in employment even falling in some cases compared to 2017. In contrast with the 2008...

Understanding the gender dynamics in educational transitions can help target policies to support equitable access to education as well as its quality and labour-market outcomes. In almost all OECD countries, the gender gap in favour of women is wider...

School heads in public institutions are required to work on average 7-8 hours a day, as is the case for most office-based jobs. The hours worked and the list of tasks and responsibilities vary widely across countries. On average across OECD...

A tertiary degree yields better earnings, especially in countries with a small share of tertiary-educated adults in the population. However, this earnings advantage varies significantly by field of study. In some countries, workers with a tertiary...

The transition from tertiary education to work involves substantial uncertainty and changes between education programmes, jobs and industries. The current major disruption in the labour market is only going to increase this uncertainty, making it...

While the economic benefits of education have been demonstrated in a number of areas, greater educational attainment is also positively associated with a variety of social outcomes that are important during the COVID-19 outbreak. Data collected...

Women’s participation in higher education has overtaken men’s. However, women have been historically under-represented in some fields and continue to be so: they predominate in education,and health and welfare as their main fields of study, while men...

First-time entrants to tertiary education are required to make interconnected decisions about their field of study, the fees they will pay and the application requirements they are prepared to face. Their choice of programme and institution will be...

On average in OECD countries, private sources account for a significant share of investment in tertiary educational institutions. Private expenditure on tertiary educational institutions increased faster than public expenditure between 2010 and 2016...

Different regions often display large differences in educational attainment and employment outcomes, highlighting the importance of monitoring regional as well as national indicators and the need for government to develop tailored policy responses to...

The types of services available to children and their parents vary significantly across OECD countries. This makes international comparisons of ECEC more challenging. The revision of ISCED in 2011 was a significant first step towards better...

Across OECD countries, individuals without tertiary-educated parents tend to be considerably under-represented among entrants to tertiary education. However, inequalities tend to accumulate throughout an individual’s educational career. In...

Vocational education and training can play a central role in preparing young people for work and responding to the labour market needs of the economy. While often neglected in the past, an increasing number of countries are recognising that...

The Sustainable Development Agenda is a universal and ambitious agenda that challenges every single country in the world to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 – and this is why it matters for OECD countries. In this context,...

Decreasing class sizes, even by as little as one student, comes with a price tag. It is possible to “pay” for this increase by compensating with one of the other factors influencing the salary cost of teachers: lower teachers’ salaries, less required...