Preparing students for the future: Trends in evolution of policy priorities

This chapter analyses recent trends in policy priorities related to preparing students for the future, as defined by the Education Policy Outlook’s analytical framework, across a variety of OECD and non-OECD education systems and economies. The aim is to show how policy priorities can be shared by different education systems, how common principles of policy action proposed by the OECD can apply differently, depending on the different contexts and scope of the analysis carried out, and how policy principles recommended in one education system could serve as an inspiration for other systems. Persisting policy priorities to better prepare students for the future include: addressing skills mismatch decreasing early school leaving rates and improving the attractiveness and relevance of vocational education and training. Emerging policy priorities include: increasing the quality and relevance of tertiary education, and managing the internationalisation of the higher education sector.