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The OECD’s new Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) has been designed to provide data and analyses on the conditions needed for effective teaching and learning in schools. As the first international survey with this focus, it seeks to fill important information gaps that have been identified at the national and international levels of education systems.

This TALIS Technical Report describes the development of the TALIS instruments and methods used in sampling, data collection, scaling and data analysis phases of the first round of the survey. It also explains the rigorous quality control programme that operated during the survey process, which included numerous partners and external experts from around the world.

The information in this report complements the first international report from TALIS, Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments: First Results from TALIS (OECD, 2009) and the User Guide for the TALIS International Database.

Do teachers spend more time on actual teaching and learning in a typical lesson compared to previous years? Do they feel prepared to teach when they start teaching? What sort of continuous professional development programmes do they participate in and how does it impact their practice? This report looks first at how teachers apply their knowledge and skills in the classroom in the form of teaching practices, with an accompanying assessment of the demographic makeup of those classrooms and the school climate to provide context on learning environments. The volume then assesses the ways in which teachers acquired their knowledge and skills during their early education and training, as well as the steps they take to develop them through continuous professional development over the course of their career. Based on the voice of teachers and school leaders, the report offers a series of policy orientations to help strengthen the knowledge and skills of the teaching workforce to support its professionalism.

The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) is the largest international survey asking teachers and school leaders about their working conditions and learning environments, and provides a barometer of the profession every five years. Results from the 2018 cycle explore and examine the various dimensions of teacher and school leader professionalism across education systems.

Understanding teachers and school leaders as “professionals” means having high expectations of them as advanced knowledge workers. It means they should not only conduct their work in an effective manner, but also strive to improve their skills throughout their career, collaborate with colleagues and parents to work towards school improvement, and think creatively about the challenges they face. However, if we expect teachers and schools leaders to act as professionals, we should treat them as such. This report aims to provide an in-depth analysis of teachers’ and school leaders’ perceptions of the value of their profession, their work-related well-being and stress, and their satisfaction with their working conditions. It also offers a description of teachers’ and school leaders’ contractual arrangements, opportunities to engage in professional tasks such as collaborative teamwork, autonomous decision making, and leadership practices. Based on the voice of teachers and school leaders, the report offers a series of policy recommendations to help strengthen the professionalisation of teaching careers.

The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) is the largest international survey asking teachers and school leaders about their working conditions and learning environments, and provides a barometer of the profession every five years. Results from the 2018 cycle explore and examine the various dimensions of teacher and school leader professionalism across education systems.

Alcoholic beverages, and their harmful use, have been familiar fixtures in human societies since the beginning of recorded history. Worldwide, alcohol is a leading cause of ill health and premature mortality. It accounts for 1 in 17 deaths, and for a significant proportion of disabilities, especially in men. In OECD countries, alcohol consumption is about twice the world average. Its social costs are estimated in excess of 1% of GDP in high- and middle-income countries. When it is not the result of addiction, alcohol use is an individual choice, driven by social norms, with strong cultural connotations. This is reflected in unique patterns of social disparity in drinking, showing the well-to-do in some cases more prone to hazardous use of alcohol, and a polarisation of problem-drinking at the two ends of the social spectrum. Certain patterns of drinking have social impacts, which provide a strong economic rationale for governments to influence the use of alcohol through policies aimed at curbing harms, including those occurring to people other than drinkers. Some policy approaches are more effective and efficient than others, depending on their ability to trigger changes in social norms, and on how well they can target the groups that are most at risk. This book provides a detailed examination of trends and social disparities in alcohol consumption. It offers a wide-ranging assessment of the health, social and economic impacts of key policy options for tackling alcohol-related harms in three OECD countries (Canada, the Czech Republic and Germany), extracting relevant policy messages for a broader set of countries.

 

Greater integration into the world economy and important policy reforms have resulted in Brazil, China, India and South Africa becoming major actors in the globalisation process, with impressive results in terms of economic growth, social development and poverty reduction. But the benefits of stronger growth have not always been shared equally and income inequality has remained at very high levels. 

Existing evidence suggests that the evolution of the distribution of income in these four countries is the result of many forces. These include demographic change, migration, unequal access to education, informal employment, existing regulations and their enforcement, social norms and cultural legacy. These forces are often interlinked and reinforce one another. However, as employment is the primary source of income for most households, understanding the impact of labour market outcomes is crucial.  

This book focuses on the role of growth and employment/unemployment developments in explaining recent income inequality trends in Brazil, China, India and South Africa, and discusses the roles played by labour market and social policies in both shaping and addressing these inequalities. It includes the papers presented at the joint OECD and European Union High-Level Conference on Inequalities in Emerging Economies held in Paris in May 2010. This work is part of OECD’s ongoing dialogue and co-operation with non-member economies around the world.

What are the recent trends and prospects for investment in power generation? What are the main drivers and barriers? This book assesses these issues and gives special emphasis to the question of how uncertainties may affect investment decisions. Uncertainties on CO₂ constraints, on power plant licensing, on acceptability of nuclear power, on local opposition to any new energy infrastructure, on government support for specific generation technologies and on government policies on energy efficiency are particularly disturbing. Market liberalisation can also be a key uncertainty, but this may be greatly reduced and deliver considerable benefits if liberalisation is implemented whole-heartedly and backed by on-going government commitment.  

A majority of workers in the world are informally employed and contribute to economic and social development through market and non-market activities that are not protected, regulated, well-recognised or valued. This study provides an in-depth diagnosis of informality and the vulnerability prevailing in the informal economy. It explores new ideas to improve the lives of workers in the informal economy based on the ILO indicators of informality and the new OECD Key Indicators of Informality based on Individuals and their Household (KIIbIH).

The report contributes in four ways to the global debate on the transition from the informal to the formal economy: 1) by examining the multiple faces of informality in a large sample of countries representing diverse conditions, locations and stages of development; 2) by presenting new empirical evidence on the links between informality and the development process; 3) by assessing risks and vulnerabilities in the informal economy, such as poverty and occupational risks, which can be mitigated with social protection and appropriate risk management instruments; 4) by showing that the transition to formality is a complex issue that touches on a wide range of policy domains.

This book contributes to the current debate on migration policy, focusing on three main elements in the standard migration policy dialogue: the regulation of flows, the integration of immigrants and the impact of labour mobility on development.
In particular it argues that the current governance of international migration is both insufficient and inefficient. Restrictive and non-cooperative migration policies not only affect development in sending countries but also have counterproductive effects in the countries that implement them. Likewise, the lack of integration policies generates costs for society. In this respect, the book focuses on South-South migration and highlights the specific risks of neglecting integration in developing countries. It also analyses the effects of emigration on origin-country labour markets and underlines the externalities of immigration policies in migrant-sending countries.

The book explores the feasibility of implementing a coherent governance framework centred on three complementary objectives: i) a more flexible regulation of international migration flows; ii) a better integration of immigrants in developing countries; and iii) a higher impact of labour mobility on development.

This International Energy Agency (IEA) energy sector review of Tajikistan was conducted under the auspices of the EU4Energy programme, which is being implemented by the IEA and the European Union, along with the Energy Community Secretariat and the Energy Charter Secretariat.

With abundant water potential from its rivers, natural lakes and glaciers, Tajikistan is almost exclusively reliant on hydro for electricity generation. It is home to some of the world’s largest hydropower plants and is ranked eighth in the world for hydropower potential with an estimated 527 terawatt-hours (TWh). Currently only 4% of the country’s hydro potential is exploited. Tajikistan’s geographic proximity to some of the world’s fastest-growing energy markets means that investing in developing its hydropower potential can contribute to regional energy security and the clean energy transition, in addition to addressing Tajikistan’s high vulnerability to climate change and natural disasters.

Coupled with the IEA roadmap on cross-border electricity trading for Tajikistan, published in October 2021, this report aims to give a holistic overview of Tajikistan’s energy sector and to assist policy making at all levels in order to facilitate the effective delivery of the National Development Strategy for 2030 and its ambitious goals, which include increasing hydropower generation capacity by 10 gigawatts and raising annual electricity exports by 10 TWh. It also supports government efforts for ongoing energy sector reforms, aimed at restructuring the state-owned vertically integrated electric utility with financial viability issues, introducing market mechanisms to alleviate power sector challenges and updating its regulatory and tariff regimes.

The report commends the government of Tajikistan for setting clear goals for its national development strategy and the subsequent sectoral development programmes, caveats the introduction of domestic coal as a key support for national energy security structures, and advocates for the introduction of other renewable sources and enhanced regional co operation for achieving energy security and sustainable development goals.

What does PISA actually assess? This book presents all the publicly available questions from the PISA surveys. Some of these questions were used in the PISA 2000, 2003 and 2006 surveys and others were used in developing and trying out the assessment.

 

After a brief introduction to the PISA assessment, the book presents three chapters, including PISA questions for the reading, mathematics and science tests, respectively. Each chapter presents an overview of what exactly the questions assess. The second section of each chapter presents questions which were used in the PISA 2000, 2003 and 2006 surveys, that is, the actual PISA tests for which results were published. The third section presents questions used in trying out the assessment. Although these questions were not used in the PISA 2000, 2003 and 2006 surveys, they are nevertheless illustrative of the kind of question PISA uses. The final section shows all the answers, along with brief comments on each question.

More than three million individuals who were born in Germany lived in another OECD country in 2010/11. To assess the potential that this group represents for the German labour market, this review establishes the distribution of German emigrants over OECD countries, as well as their age, sex, and educational attainment. Shifts in the German diaspora towards European destination countries and higher educational attainment are documented. The largest German diaspora still resides in the United States, but the diaspora in Switzerland and Spain has grown particularly quickly. International students from Germany have even come to represent the largest group of international students from any OECD country. While German emigrants experience less favourable labour market outcomes than their peers in Germany, the emigrants work disproportionately often in high-skill occupations. Survey evidence suggests that many Germans in Germany consider emigration and that many German emigrants are open to return. Those who have returned in recent years, however, appear to have a lower educational attainment than those leaving.