Educating for innovative societies

Professor Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, answers questions posed by educationtoday's editor Cassandra Davis during his visit to OECD to present at the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation conference on Educating for Innovative Societies.

Cassandra Davis: In your book “Five minds for the future”, you call for the development of five types of thinking: the disciplined, synthesizing, creative, respectful and ethical. In your opinion, are schools equally responsible for the development of these minds? How could schools best develop these skills?

Howard Gardner: The traditional role of school is to develop minds that are disciplined—both in the sense of mastering the major disciplinary ways of thinking and in the sense of working steadily towards the development of any intellectual skill.  Synthesizing and creating are also intellectual/cognitive capacities, and thus within the purview of school, and they are more important in the 21st century than ever before. But educators have less experience in training these ‘habits of mind’ and unless teachers themselves have these latter skills, they will not be able to inculcate them effectively in students.

Ideally, the challenges of respectful and ethical minds would be taken up by the larger society—political leaders, media creators, parents, and workers. But in countries like the United States, we cannot count on much help from these individuals and institutions. Respect and ethics cannot be conveyed didactically—they have to be embodied in the behaviors and attitudes of the adults and older children in schools.  The creation of ‘common spaces’, where members of a school community can discuss challenging issues is one  step that can and should be taken.

CD: If you could change one thing in school practices, what would it be? Why?

HG: In psychology, we distinguish between the Figure and the Ground. The Figure is the dominant focus in a graphic presentation—for example, a portrait of a royal figure—and the Ground consists of the background shadows and patterns which support, rather than divert attention from, the Figure.  Throughout the developed and developing world, the Figure in recent years has become scores on standardized tests—and OECD has contributed to this focus. There is nothing wrong with having good test scores, but there is something VERY WRONG when societies prioritize scores over everything else.

And so, if I could change one thing, it would be to put another Figure at the center of our educational landscape: the kinds of human beings we want to nurture and the kind of society we want to create.  Everything in the background—including test scores—should contribute to those overarching goals.  Most of the problems in the world are not created by teachers or students with low test scores. They are created and magnified by individuals with high test scores—and that includes those of us who are reading (and in my case writing)  those words—who push self aggrandizement and power  ahead of the creation of a healthy society populated by ethical individuals. In the United States, we refer ironically to ‘the best and the brightest’—the Harvard and Yale graduates who brought us into the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, and the financial crises of 2001 and 2008.

If you think I have strong opinions about these matters, you are right!

CD: In your latest book "Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed," you stress that, with technological advances, factual information has become readily available, and the need to memorize is no longer that important. How can students today develop critical thinking, and understand what is true and why?

HG: Yes,  when the answers to factual questions are available at the movement of a mouse or the click of a button, there is no point in spending time committing the information to memory. Recently, a talented student said to me “Why bother to go to school, when the answers to all questions are contained in my hand held device?”  I responded to him, rather pointedly, ‘”Yes, the answer to all questions, except the important ones.”

The student reflected an increasingly widely held view that either a question can be answered by a computer or it is not worth asking or it cannot be answered decisively and so should not be tackled at all.  But as your question indicates, we cannot and should not accept all information obtained ‘online ‘ or ‘offline’ as true—even if the authority is thought to be reliable.

And so, going forward, our focus in schools (and outside of school) should be on understanding the METHODS whereby assertions are made, the way that a question is posed, how relevant data and arguments are marshaled, what kinds of challenges have been considered, how have they been responded to, etc.  One should never read a single account of the causes of the French revolution or the role of heritability in the distribution of human traits.  Instead, one needs to probe deeply on how various accounts and graphics and data arrays have been created and used as a foundation for a conclusion.

Ironically, we live at a time in the history of the world where it is MORE POSSIBLE than ever before to determine what is true and what is not.  But one has to be willing to take the time to interrogate sources of all sorts and to change one’s mind if the data and arguments point in another direction.   In the future, we will pay increasing attention to those sources of information that are known to be DISinterested—not pushing a particular agenda, being ready to consider alternative points of view, to admit error and to publish corrections. Alas, these are not the first descriptors that come to mind when one considers the average blog!

Links:
For more information on Professor Howard Gardner visit his website: www.howardgardner.com
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation

Photo credit: Ammit / © Shutterstock

How can education help tackle rising income inequality?

By Ji Eun Chung
Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education

See instructions below for how to read the chart

The gap between the rich and poor has widened in OECD countries over the past 30 years. As the latest issue of the OECD’s new brief series Education Indicators in Focus describes, the average income of the richest 10% of people in OECD countries was about nine times greater than the income of the poorest 10% before the onset of the global economic crisis. This ratio was 5 to 1 in the 1980s.

What’s more, existing income inequality may also limit the income prospects of future generations in some countries. In countries with higher income inequality – such as Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States – a child’s future earnings are likely to be similar to his or her father’s, suggesting that socio-economic background plays a large role in the development of children’s skills and abilities. Meanwhile, in countries with lower income inequality – like Denmark, Finland, and Norway – a child’s future income is not as strongly related to his or her family’s income status. In these countries, the development of children’s skills and abilities has a weaker link with socio-economic factors.

The implications for education policy are clear. Education policies focusing on equity in education may be a particularly useful way for countries to increase earnings mobility between generations and reduce income inequality over time. Countries can work towards this goal by giving equal opportunities to both disadvantaged and advantaged students to achieve strong academic outcomes – laying a pathway for them to continue on to higher levels of education and eventually secure good jobs.

Four top performers on the 2009 PISA reading assessment show the potential of this approach. Canada, Finland, Japan, and Korea all have education systems that put a strong focus on equity – and all have yielded promising results. In each of these countries, relatively few students performed at lower proficiency levels on the PISA reading assessment, and high proportions of students performed better than would be expected, given their socio-economic background.

Yet while each of these countries focuses on equity, they’ve pursued it in different ways. In Japan and Korea, for example, teachers and principals are often reassigned to different schools, fostering more equal distribution of the most capable teachers and school leaders. Finnish schools assign specially-trained teachers to support struggling students who are at risk of dropping out. The teaching profession is a highly selective occupation in Finland, with highly-skilled, well-trained teachers spread throughout the country. In Canada, equal or greater educational resources – such as supplementary classes – are provided to immigrant students, compared to non-immigrant students. This is believed to have boosted immigrant students’ performance.

Income inequality is a challenging issue that demands a wide range of solutions. In a world of growing inequality, focusing on equity in education may be an effective approach to tackle it over the long run.

For more information
On this topic, visit:
Education Indicators in Focus: www.oecd.org/education/indicators
Equity and Quality in Education - Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators: www.oecd.org/edu/eag2011
Divided we stand: Why inequality keeps rising: www.oecd.org/els/social/inequality
On the OECD’s Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme, visit:
INES Programme overview brochure

Chart source: Source: D'Addio (2012, forthcoming), “Social Mobility in OECD countries: Evidence and Policy Implications”; OECD (2008), Growing Unequal?, www.oecd.org/els/social/inequality/GU; OECD Income distribution database.


How to read the chart: This chart shows the relationship between earnings mobility between generations of a family, and the prevalence of income inequality in different countries. Overall, countries with higher levels of income inequality tend to have lower earnings mobility between generations, while countries with lower levels of income inequality tend to have higher earnings mobility.

Helping your Child Adjust to Nursery School

Has your child come of the age when it has to be sent to nursery school? Parting with your child can cause a lot of strife to the parents; remember unless you are totally comfortable with the concept of sending your child to pre-school, your child will also not be very happy to go to school.

Your child is going to an environment which is full of unfamiliar people, the teachers and other kids. While the school will play its fair role in making the child comfortable, even you have to ensure your child is mentally ready to go to school. The child is already apprehensive of the new environment; you on your part can reduce that. You should be totally comfortable with the concept and start talking to your child about pre-school. Familiarize your child with the activities that will happen in the playschool. For instance, let it work with paper and crayons, so that your child feels comfortable when he sees the same things at his school.

Visit your child’s classroom, before school starts, talk to the teachers so that you can talk to the teachers about the activities that will happen in the school. Start the same activities at home; this will make the child totally comfortable with those activities.

Go with your child to the school and let it decide whether it wants to interact with other kids or not. Allow your child to explore the class and its activities. Make sure the child is familiar with the class and the activities that happen there.

To make yourself more comfortable with the concept of sending your child to kindergartenschool, ask the teacher, how they handle the children in the first week? This will not just make the move smoother for your child, but reassure you as well, that your child is in good hands.

On the first day, introduce the teacher to your child and then let the teacher form a bond with the child. Let them handle your child. If you show familiarity with the teacher, your child too will accept the teacher quickly.

If your child is clinging to you and refuses to let go, quickly say a goodbye and leave. If you continue with a long farewell or just sneak out, your child will cry all the more.

Irrespective of whether your child is ready to leave for play school or reluctant to go that a staff member from the school is ready to help you with the transition. Your child will adjust faster once you leave.

Some nurseryschools begin with some familiar games such as forming a circle by holding hands and then each child tells what it did the previous day. This may be a familiar activity but ithelps in instilling a sense of routine in the child. Any activity that familiarizes school for the child is good. It will help the child accept the school more.

The beginning of school for your child is a beautiful phase in your life as a parent, selecting the correct school and ensuring your child is absolutely ready for school is the will give you joyous memories of this phase.

Why send your child to nursery school

Often stay at-home moms think that it is absolutely unnecessary form them to send their children to pre-school. They feel as long as a child has learnt the alphabet, and can count the child doesn’t need to go to any school. If you are one of those moms, you can’t be more wrong. Children learn more than nursery rhymes and counting in playschool. Their personality is moulded in a playschool. Moreover in the present scenario, when everything is globalized and information and technology is controlling our lives, can you afford to deny nursery education to your child? There is no sensible reason to question sending your child to a nursery school. Repeated research has shown that pre-primary education has a deeply positive effect on the personality of your child. In this article, I’m going to highlight the reasons why you should send your child to a pre-primary school:

1.     Helps your child socialize and interact with others

Most kids are comfortable in their home environment, with their parents, but they are shy when meeting outsiders. While the shyness of kids appears cute on face value, it hampers the healthy growth of the child. This problem should be tackled early so that this shyness does not hamper his ability to communicate with his peers. Nursery school education encourages children to interact with each other and provides a perfect arena for children to socialize. Children love interacting with kids who are of the same age as they are. They will happily mingle with children of the same age and have fun.

2.     Pre-primary school provides a friendly atmosphere for children to grow

Children happily learn in a friendly atmosphere. So in order for them to learn, the environment around them should be friendly and comfortable. Pre-schools provide an atmosphere for them, which makes them, feel at home, without it actually it being their home. The nursery education trained teachers are especially trained to create a playful atmosphere for children to learn. The friendly atmosphere they create helps children especially to learn.

3.     Pre-schools emphasize the importance of learning and teamwork

Once your child has learnt the basics and is well-adjusted to its surroundings the time has come for it to start learning. Pre-schools create that urge in a child to learn. In pre-schools a child not only develops new learning skills and improves its existing skills, it also learns the importance of teamwork. Nursery School teachers teach children to work in groups. While working together children not just learn to interact and socialize, but also the importance of teamwork. They learn that in order to complete a task, everybody must work together. Learning to appreciate team work makes children better students, better colleagues and also better citizens in the long run.

4.     Your child will be ready for regular School

Once your child has attended nursery school, it will be ready for regular school as it is no longer afraid to go out in the world without you. It is hard task for you to separate your child from you, but once the child has adjusted to pre-school, it will happily go to school.

Insights of Education

The first 6-8 years of a child's life are globally acknowledged to be the most critical years of lifelong development at a very rapid pace.
Child development is a continuous and cumulative process, so that what proceeds influences what follows.

             Choosing a correct primary school for your child is a very important matter, which has to be carefully and thoughtfully analysed.
There are a lot of factors you need to bear in mind, while selecting a pre primary school.
Getting your kid into the right preschool is an issue many parents are worried about.

               Here are some guidelines you must follow to make it easier for you, as parents to make the appropriate decision.
Making a checklist could help, but a checklist is simply a guide that flags the many things you should consider while deciding what to do and how to go about it during the process of choosing a school.

One of the main things that you must check in any pre school is the student - teacher ratio. It should not exceed more than 1:10, this kind of ratio will give your child personal attention and will also help the teacher in knowing your child better, to bring out the best in him.

While selecting a pre school the other factors which may be considered are

The team which will work along with your child.
The program through which the learning will take place.
Lastly, the place where the learning will be imparted.

                   The team of the pre primary school are the teachers. The quality of the program highly depends on the people who manage and work with your kids. Teachers should be warm and affectionate, they should communicate through conversations, not command. A good teacher will always get down to the child's level while helping him out during the time spent at school.

The new age pre school " Little millennium " has taken a lot of care while selecting their team of teachers. They at millennium give the teachers extensive training and provide constant opportunity to upgrade their knowledge, so that their skills help each and every child that attends their primary school.

The next factor one should look out for is the program a pre school runs, a high quality program with purposeful daily plan is essential.

A program that offers language development, socio-emotional development, personal awareness, fine motor skills development, cognitive development and a program which nurtures individual potential.

-Language development supports the child's ability to communicate, express and understand their feelings, also supports them in thinking and problem- solving.

-Cognitive development is an ability to learn and solve problems.

-Motor skill development is an ability to use small muscles, specifically fingers and hands. 

  -Young children have much to learn about themselves and their surroundings. The child in the early years gets affected by parents, teachers and peers. Socio - emotional development helps children to be confident about them.

-Personal Awareness develops in children by how others see them. Helping children at pre school to have opinions and express interests that are different from yours.

-Every child has uniqueness in them, nurturing the individual potentials helps to bring out the special qualities in each child.

“Little millennium " pre school offers a 7 petal approach that includes the above discussed  features in their curriculum to optimise child development.

 Last but not the least; your child's surroundings have to be carefully chosen. A school which takes precautions for child safety measures, a friendly environment that does not put any pressure on the child while they interact and learn. It is a must to check on the hygiene level maintained at the primary school.

Education is the right of every child and choosing a correct medium for it is the duty of every parent!

How “green” are our children?

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Directorate for Education

Anger over an oil spill off the coast of California prompted a US senator to call for a day-long national “teach-in” to raise awareness about the environment. More than four decades after the first Earth Day (22 April) was celebrated, in 1970, the day is commemorated around the globe as a time to draw attention to environmental issues and
(re-)commit to protecting the planet’s natural resources.

For this 42nd Earth Day, we wanted to find out how “green” today’s students are and where most of their information about the environment comes from. According to the latest issue of PISA in Focus, students who have high levels of environmental literacy are still the minority; but all students get most of their information about environmental issues at school.

Results from the PISA 2006 survey, which focused on science, indicate that an average of 19% of 15-year-olds across OECD countries perform at the highest level of proficiency in environmental science. This means that they can consistently identify, explain and apply scientific knowledge related to a variety of environmental topics. At the other end of the spectrum, an average of 16% of students perform below the baseline level of proficiency, meaning that they cannot answer questions containing scientific information related to basic environmental phenomena or issues. In four OECD countries, 20% or more of students score below this baseline level.

While PISA results indicate that schools are students’ main source of information about such crucial environmental issues as air pollution, energy, the extinction of plants and animals, deforestation, water shortages and nuclear waste, they also show that the vast majority of schools do not offer stand-alone courses in the environment. Most students acquire their knowledge about environmental science through related subjects, such as natural science or geography.

But PISA finds that, when the subject is the environment, teaching and learning methods are often innovative. For example, 77% of students in OECD countries, on average, attend schools that offer outdoor classes on the environment, 75% are in schools that organise trips to museums, and 67% are in schools that conduct visits to science centres. And better-performing students also use the media and the Internet to broaden and deepen their knowledge about the environment.

When “teach-in”s inspire teach-ourselves, we can say that some progress has, indeed, been made. Given the urgent – and informed – action needed to address climate change and biodiversity loss, not to mention the considerable estimated savings to the global economy that come from adopting low-carbon energy systems and from improving people’s health by ensuring that they have access to clean air and water, the greening of our students couldn’t happen soon enough.

Links:
For more information:
on PISA: www.pisa.oecd.org
PISA in Focus: How “green” are today’s 15-year-olds?
OECD Green Growth website
Photo credit: © sextoacto / Shutterstock

Bridging the socio-economic divide between public and private schools

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Directorate for Education

Several months ago, we described how PISA results show that, when it comes to the question of private versus public schooling, it’s the students who make the school. Both private schools and public schools with student populations from socio-economically advantaged backgrounds benefit the individual students who attend them. But PISA results also showed that there is no evidence to suggest that the proportion of private schools in a country, in and of itself, is associated with higher performance of the school system as a whole.

In most PISA-participating countries and economies, the average socio-economic background of students who attend privately managed schools is more advantaged than that of those who attend public schools. The PISA team wanted to find out why some school systems seem to be better than others at minimising the socio-economic differences that are often apparent between publicly and privately managed schools.

The team’s findings have just been published in Public and Private Schools: How Management and Funding Relate to their Socio-economic Profile. What the team found out is that the prevalence of privately managed schools in a country is not related to greater or lesser degrees of difference between the socio-economic profiles of public and private schools; but the level of public funding to privately managed schools is.

There are many ways of providing public funding to privately managed schools. One of these is through vouchers and tuition tax credits, which assist parents directly. If school vouchers are available for all students, they could help to expand the choice of schools available to parents and promote competition among schools. School vouchers that target only disadvantaged students can make admission to schools more equitable, which ultimately has an impact on the prospects in life for all children and contributes to social cohesion; but they have a limited effect on expanding school choice and promoting competition among schools overall. When researchers analysed data from PISA 2009, they found that school systems that offer vouchers to all students tend to have twice the degree of socio-economic differences between publicly and privately managed schools as systems that offer vouchers only to disadvantaged students.

Crucially, the results also show that those countries that have smaller socio-economic differences between publicly and privately managed schools also tend to show better overall student performance. That means that policy makers—and ultimately parents and students—do not have to choose between equity/social cohesion and strong performance in their school systems. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Links:

For more information:
on PISA: www.pisa.oecd.org
PISA in Focus N°7: Private schools: Who benefits?


Photo credit: © Stuart Miles / Shutterstock

17 top OECD tweeters to follow on education

by Cassandra Davis and Julie Harris
Communications, Directorate for Education

Like us, you are looking for the best and latest information on education when you trawl blogs and twitter streams, Google search results and RSS feeds from news sites. You're seeking quality content, timely content, new research and answers to age-old questions. Years ago, we ploughed through papers found in online libraries, on websites and links sent by colleagues. Today, we have a number of new, well-informed sources at our fingertips (on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and even Pinterest). Some see these as contributing to information overload. Others have learned to use them as powerful filters.

Some of the most reliable filters are knowledgeable people who care enough to share. So who are the "filters" and sources tweeting here at the OECD on education? Take a look below, follow a few, and let us know who we should be following in the comments below. Together, we will learn, share and tweet the very best in education information from across the world.

@OECD: Our main twitter channel for OECD communications on better policies for better lives.

@OECD_EDU: Bringing you all the latest news on OECD work on education proving information to improve the quality of education world wide.

@YLeterme: Yves Leterme is Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD and tweets on social affairs, education, governance and entrepreneurship.

@SchleicherEDU: Andreas Schleicher advises the OECD Secretary General on education policy and is Deputy Director for Education. He tweets on #OECDskills that matter and how to turn them into better jobs and better lives.

@DebRoseveare: Deborah Roseveare heads the Skills Beyond School Division tweeting on all aspects of #OECDSkills:  the development, utilisation and measurement of skills for youth and adults, and building skills through more effective vocational education and training and higher education.

@RichardJYelland: Richard Yelland heads the Policy Advice and Implementation Division and tweets on education policy across all sectors.

@VanDammeEDU: Dirk Van Damme heads the OECD Education Directorate’s Innovation and Measuring Progress Division and the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation #OECDCERI. He tweets on all educational issues and more specifically on the topics of measuring progress, research, indicators and innovation.

@jhwordsmith:  Julie Harris is a social media consultant to the OECD Directorate for Education. She is passionate about learning, skills for the 21st century, technology and education reform. She tweets on these topics and more.

@Kristen_TALIS: Kristen Weatherby is a former classroom teacher, she is the tweet lead for OECD's Teaching and Learning International Survey, tweeting on issues that affect teachers.

@AlastairBlyth: Alastair Blyth is a former practicing architect and tweets on design, procurement, and use of school & higher education buildings #OECDCELE

@Valafon: Valerie Lafon is the lead for #OECDIMHE the Programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education (IMHE).

@FabriceHENARD: Fabrice is an analyst tweeting on  Higher Education issues including quality teaching, learning outcomes-AHELO, Internationalisation for #OECDIMHE in English and French.

@OECDLive: OECD’s Livestream tweeting our conferences and events in real time.  Tune in for the launch of the #OECDSkills Strategy during #OECDweek on 22-24 May.

Last but not least:
@OECDBerlin; @ocdeenespanol ;@OCDE_Français; @OECDTokyo: the official OECD twitter channels retweeting our news in German, Spanish, French and Japanese.


Photo credit: Julien Tromeur / © Shutterstock

Family Fun Day at Little Millennium Gurgaon

Events and celebrations are an important and integral part of the little millennium Preschool. Family fun day is an upcoming event of preschool. Throughout the year, we do little things to celebrate different festivals and events.

Using events to generate school spirit is a great way to attract involvement from the students, faculty, and parents. There are many ways in which to inspire preschool spirit. Most events may revolve around the athletics associated with the school, but there are activities such as green day, blossoms day and teddy bear day that can be used in place of events.

An easy event to plan is a Dress Up Day. Encourage the students to dress in school colors, let them attend class dressed up and painted. Plan a "Twins Day" where students can dress like a friend. Host a creative uniform day that lets students make modifications to their normal uniform with extra points for uniqueness. Let the students vote on the most interesting outfits.

          Rather than a single event, designate an entire Spirit Week with a lot of activities planned. This can be coordinated with Homecoming Week, where alumni are likely to get involved. Ideas can include having Super Hero Day, Hat or Slipper Day, arts and craft Day, etc. Plan a different activity every day leading up to the main event.

A great way to encourage student involvement is to have organized events such as preschool camp Preschoolers will continue to enjoy indoor and outdoor activities, arts, crafts, and storytime. Children will take turns bringing snacks. Parents will drop off and pickup children at the Springer Cultural Center. A different activity will be offered each day.

Our fun day Program will be held on April 15, 2012 at 1:30 PM in the sec-38 Gurgaon. Invite family and friends to see your child perform in the program.  

Preschool Education is a Necessary Stage of Development!

A Japanese teacher and educationist once expressed that "The destiny of children lies in the hands of their parents.” it is in the parent’s hands to make sure they choose the correct path for their kids in the first few years of the child's life.

 We cannot afford to postpone investing in our children till they become adults nor can we wait until they reach school age - a time when it may be too late to intervene. Learning is a dynamic process and is the most effective when it is began at a young age and continues till the children become adults.

                       Now the question which most parents would ask themselves "Is preschool education important"

It is a very confusing subject for the parents, especially when families and friends are offering different opinions. This entire dilemma will be over, once you have chosen a correct pre primary school for your child. A nursery school which offers high quality early childhood education programs that balance their play time and also makes your child ready for formal schooling.

Firstly, education has a very important role in the society. And the earlier you offer your kids an opportunity to learn the more positive effects will it have on their future. As we all know that the early 8 years of a child's life, is the phase wherein most growth and development takes place. The child spends their first few years in realisation of their own identity and abilities. Children who attend nursery schools learn how to communicate with each other and adjust to their surroundings. Kids school learning promotes high self esteem and helps the child becomes eager learner. They have a dramatic effect on the child's success.

The next vital query of a parent is "how do high quality primary education programs benefit the child's learning and development.

To begin with a young child needs a secure and safe environment where he can spend a happy day with his warm and loving teacher. Pre primary schools do not limit their education to closed classrooms. Earlier in schools knowledge was imparted through books in a restricted classroom. These days’ pre schools offer learning beyond classrooms. Experiences make learning more fun and effective. And these hands on lessons are never forgotten.

For example, organising field trips to parks, grocery stores, bus depots, fire stations, police stations and many other public places depending upon the topics they are learning in school. This stimulates their curiosity, and makes their learning effective.

Pre school education systematically plan their curriculum where they use multi mode learning methods. These modes of learning used, balance all aspects of development like the social, emotional, cognitive and educational.

Art, craft, music and dance are all a part of the learning process set by the play schools. Inclusion of these activities help the kids, express themselves.

Educational aids which are used nowadays in pre nursery schools enhance learning; using props, toys and enacting stories are a few play way methods which broaden their imagination.

Teaching kids the importance of taking care of their body through exercises like yoga. Help the development of their fine and gross motor skills.

Little millennium pre primary has an environment, every parent would dream of, for their child.

A home away from home! is a suitable a way of describing this pre school.

Where they believe that children are God’s gift, and they are the chosen ones to nurture your child.

Bridging the skills gap

by Kathrin Hoeckel
Analyst, Skills Beyond Schools Division, Directorate for Education

If you were to ask someone which countries tend to bear the brunt of a shortage of skills in this era of globalised trade, you couldn't fault them for thinking of developing countries.

While this is certainly true, the problem is by no means limited to poorer countries. Indeed, even in countries at the forefront of the developed world and consistently at the top of the PISA rankings, skills shortages can plague the economy.

Two such countries are Australia and Canada.

The Canadian Council on Learning says there is a clear “gap between the demand for workers with strong literacy and numeracy skills and the supply of Canadians who possess them.” They point out that the growth in the information communication technology industries, coupled with the reduced demand for unskilled workers due to foreign outsourcing, has only served to intensify the need for skilled workers. The question is why there is such a gap when Canadian teenagers do so well on tests such as PISA's. The answer, they posit, lies in the failure of adults to keep up with the “demands of the emerging knowledge society and information economy”. In other words, lifelong learning is as essential to a strong economy as successful schools (as can be seen in the OECD’s Education at a Glance statistics on adult participation in education and learning, job-related training is comparatively low in Canada).

Australian companies are also hard hit by the skills gap. The Australian Institute of Management recently released a study that found 82% of organisations admit to a skills shortage in their workplace, with middle management lacking particularly in leadership and technical skills.

Brian Schmidt, Australia's 2011 Nobel Prize winner for Physics, feels that a key problem is the lack of skilled teachers, particularly in maths and science. He points to the OECD’s Education at a Glance statistics on teacher salaries, which indicates that there tends to be a correlation between well paid teachers and students that excel.

The country's mining industry is suffering, in Mr Schmidt's opinion, from a direct consequence of this. He says that the industry's lack of highly trained engineers threatens the resource boom currently under way in Australia. He relates how the chair of the mining company BHP Billiton told him the biggest problem his company faces is finding highly skilled employees competent in mathematics.

The consequences could be dire for Australia. BHP Billiton predicts that the mining industry alone will require an additional 150 000 workers over the next five years.

Furthermore, Chris Evans, Australia's Minister for Tertiary Education and Skills, estimates that Australia will need over 2 million additional workers by 2015 with higher vocational education and training (VET) qualifications. To meet this challenge, Australia drew up ambitious plans just last year to improve its existing VET system (which, as Learning for Jobs: OECD Reviews of Vocational Education and Training shows, is already quite strong) by investing up to €15 billion by 2020.

In Latin America, an altogether different region of the world, the economic pain from the skills gap – evocatively known in Spanish as “la brecha”, or the breach – is also acutely felt. According to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), youth unemployment has increased across Latin America more than any other region in the world, and this can be directly attributed to young people lacking the skills required by the labour market. Not surprising when time and time again the research shows that poor skills go hand in hand with economic hardship.

In a study released earlier this month, the IDB stated that the youth in Latin America have a long way to go in developing the “interpersonal skills the market requires, such as responsibility, communication and creativity”. Its research shows that the majority of young workers across the region have informal jobs and lack social benefits.

One thing that is common to all these countries is that children from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds are disadvantaged when it comes to foundation skills in reading, mathematics and science (see OECD’s Education at a Glance statistics on equality in educational outcomes and opportunities). However, countries with the very best scores in PISA tend to have schools that are more inclusive. In other words, students can score well regardless of their socio-economic background. This in turn benefits the economy and society as a whole.

For if knowledge and skills are the global currency of the 21st century, countries will do well to stock up on their reserves. They can do so by encouraging people to learn, enticing skilled people to enter their countries, encouraging people to use and build their skills at work, retaining skilled people, matching skills to demand, and finally increasing the demand for high-level skills. That goes for economic heavyweights and flyweights alike.

Interested in learning more? Watch out for the OECD Skills Strategy, coming in May 2012, where we will lay the land for bridging the skills gap, turning brain drain into brain exchange, coping with ageing societies and declining skills pools and more.

Links:
OECD Skills Strategy
Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

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