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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 influenced by the costs and entry criteria. The decisions they make about what to study and where will have a long-term impact on their earnings and employment prospects.

Although girls and boys perform similarly in the PISA science assessment at age 15, girls are less likely than boys to envision a career in science and engineering, even in countries where they outperform them.
Current gender disparities in the labour market will not be addressed by the inflow of new graduates: in all OECD and partner countries, women significantly outnumber men in education while men largely outnumber women in engineering, manufacturing and construction in both fields of study and the labour market.
Male-dominated fields of study such as engineering, manufacturing and construction have high employment rates but also the greatest difference between the employment rates of men and women.

From the onset of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, most refugee arrivals have been women and children, creating unique challenges for integration. The share of women among adult refugees is around 70% in most host countries and many have arrived with children, with the share of minors around 30%. Most OECD countries are supporting the socio-economic integration of Ukrainian refugee women through their pre-existing mainstream integration systems. Refugee integration policies have been, however, often created with different gender and educational profiles in mind, which may weaken outcomes in the longer term. There are some promising targeted measures available in OECD countries to support the socio-economic integration of Ukrainian refugee women. These include counselling, networking opportunities, training, and work placements, but also general community-building activities aimed at women.

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 countries, they earn more than teachers and other full-time tertiary-educated workers. However, more than half of school heads in the OECD countries are not satisfied with their salary and feel quite stressed due to heavy administrative workloads and responsibilities other than leadership and management.

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 high-quality vocational education and training can make a major contribution to economic competitiveness. In an unpredictable future where jobs will either disappear or transform, vocational education and training, together with work-based learning, can respond to this challenge by offering an excellent opportunity to nurture the skills employers require.

The paper investigates two – often disconnected – policy questions: how can we scale the use of evidence in teaching practice, and how can we generate and scale innovation? Both questions necessitate understanding how teachers and schools connect with each other, and with other organisations and professionals. The paper thus explores the role of networks in scaling evidence and innovation through a review of literature and a number of short case descriptions. Through the lens of networks, the analysis shows how the mobilisation, construction and diffusion of knowledge are of central importance in both policy issues. It suggests that scaling evidence and innovation should be treated as one ecosystem, in which mechanisms that allow effectively blending research and practical knowledge are key. Further, the paper proposes a framework for studying knowledge dynamics in networks to better understand how their context, characteristics and devices can contribute to facilitate these dynamics.

This paper reviews evidence on the interplay between professional standards for teachers, the content of teacher education and educational sciences, and provides three case studies to illustrate these interactions from Estonia, Australia and Singapore. In particular, it investigates what aligning teacher education programmes to standards really mean; and what conception of educational sciences is reflected in the standards and the curriculum. Analyses suggest that alignment, as an explicit, direct and consistent correspondence, is difficult to achieve, in part due to different conceptualisations of professional knowledge. However, this paper argues that the main value of standards as policy tools lies in their capacity to create mutual dialogue between different artefacts (standards’ requirements, curriculum, course descriptions, accreditation standards, etc.), as well as among stakeholders. Regularly renegotiating the standards as a result of such dialogue and reflections should be a crucial part of the policy process.

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 2022. However, salary levels are just one of the many factors contributing to the attractiveness of the profession. In addition to raising salaries, decision makers should also take steps to raise the status of the profession in society, and offer teachers more opportunities for professional development and mobility to ensure that the profession remains intellectually stimulating throughout their careers.