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This policy brief examines the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on vocational education and training (VET) systems and how VET systems are responding in OECD countries. The brief also presents steps that governments can take in the context of this crisis to build foundations for tomorrow’s strong and resilient VET systems.

In the recent past, the analysis of plant transients and the analysis of reactor core behaviour were performed separately. Usually, the core was represented by a point kinetics model to analyse plant transients and, for the core physics calculations, boundary conditions were imposed at the inlet and the outlet of the core. In reality, these boundary conditions depend on the power generation in the core. To ensure a realistic description of the physical phenomena in an accident analysis, the application of coupled codes is required. In recent years code developers began coupling three-dimensional (3-D) neutron kinetics codes with advanced thermal-hydraulics system codes. Such complex computer codes allow modelling of the entire reactor system, including a 3-D neutronics core. When reactivity initiated accidents with an asymmetric neutron flux distribution in the core are analysed, only such coupled codes are capable of estimating the real feedback effects. These codes can perform safety analyses in order to replace the conservative estimations with best-estimate calculations.

This report presents the VVER MOX Core Computational Benchmark Specification and Results, which was proposed as a benchmark within the OECD/NEA Expert Group on Reactor-based Plutonium Disposition (TFRPD). Benchmark results, obtained using three computer codes, are presented. The codes include: the MCU Monte Carlo code (Kurchatov Institute, Russian Federation), RADAR (Kurchatov Institute, Russian Federation), and the MCNP Monte Carlo code (GRS, Germany). The codes use different methods and different nuclear data. A comparison of the results shows good agreement among the various codes.

Global value chains (GVCs) in agriculture and food sectors have the potential to influence trading relationships and the gains from trade for different sectors along the value chain. This report explores the way in which value from trade and GVC participation is created for the agriculture sector. It examines differences in returns to the sector from participation in GVCs and trade either directly in contrast to participation that relies on downstream domestic processing. The study makes use of a database on trade in value added for 22 agro-food sectors derived from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database. The evidence presented in this paper suggests that aggregate value to the agriculture and to the economy overall from direct participation in trade and GVCs generates at least as much value as participation that relies on domestic downstream processing. Similar overall gains from primary exports are associated with greater volumes and the value created from ‘value addition’ to these exports – the embodied service and other inputs. Indeed, countries that specialise in primary exports have higher shares of service value added in these exports, with this also being a determinant of value growth for middle-income countries.

Values and ethics are automatically incorporated into any teaching/learning environment or endeavour, whether or not they are consciously stated objectives. The focus on “quality of education” has sharpened as people have become concerned about a perceived rise in materialism as standards of living have improved; materialistic ambitions increasingly fill the ideological gap created by the move to a pluralistic society in which there is a less general consensus of values and ethics. There is increasing demand for insight into the potential of the formal teaching/learning process for inculcating, learning/unlearning (as the case may be) and consolidating values. The manner in which teachers are trained has far-reaching implications for the youth in schools, and a systemic inquiry into the structure, role, responsibilities, aims and curricular objectives of teacher education is the obvious starting point. This paper tries to delineate the global normative aims of education as a model for assessing the composition of the teacher education curriculum in Pakistan. It looks at the intended curriculum, bearing in mind that the formal and the active curricula may not necessarily converge. The paper accepts that ethics and values education is still in a formative stage. However, one critical question that will remain open at the philosophical level is “which values should be included?” and this needs to be vigorously researched to establish guidelines that have global consensus. The next crucial question will then be “how best to teach to ensure that these ethics and values are internalised by learners?” 

This paper is based mainly on responses – nearly 300 – to a web-based survey of academic staff in UK higher education. The survey examined their personal and professional values and their views on the values that should underpin higher education. Their perceptions of current reality in terms of national policy and processes and of institutional management expectations, with examples provided of events that disturbed them, raise questions about the longer term health of higher education as it has been understood. The project was seen as a pilot aiming to provoke debate about how well traditional values and standards “fit” with mass levels of higher education provision, and government emphases on the economic role of higher education. The findings are set in a theoretical context drawing on models by Clark (1983), Becher and Kogan (1992) and the author (McNay, 1995, 2005a).

This working paper proposes a methodology to monetise five aspects of employee well-being (wage inequality, being employed, excess working hours, relationships with management and job security) using theoretical and empirical frameworks drawn from welfare economics. Preliminary results highlight a large loss of welfare arising from within-firm wage inequality as well as a strong impact of working conditions on workers’ well-being. On the aggregate, suppressing the negative externalities of the firm linked to excess working hours, tensions with management and job insecurity would yield an increase in social welfare equivalent to a 25% increase in household income, representing many years of economic growth. Greater transparency on company wage distributions and working conditions is necessary to apply these methodologies to real firms.