Taking stock of education and skills: the youth perspective

With his vantage point at the helm of the largest youth platform in the world, European Youth Forum (YFJ) President Peter Matjašič is well placed to assess the state of education and skills across Europe. Indeed, the YFJ represents millions of young people by way of national councils from Iceland to Azerbaijan, lobbying such important international bodies as the European Union, the Council of Europe and the United Nations to adopt policies that are in the best interests of European youth.

Educationtoday met with him at the OECD Forum to get his views on the state of young people's education and skills across the continent today.

educationtoday: How can today's students and young workers prepare themselves for rapidly evolving labour markets? 

Peter  Matjašič: The YFJ has been working on education since its inception fifteen years ago, focusing on quality and equality of access. We have a holistic view of education. Formal education must be supplemented by non-formal education, by which I mean you still have an organised activity, but one that is not organised by universities or colleges but by youth organisations, for example. Plus informal learning, which is what you gain from life experience.

Education is not necessarily enough. What we strive for is what we call youth autonomy. And to make the transition to the labour market, there are certain tools, such as internships.

The Youth Guarantee is another measure to ensure no young people are out of employment, school or training for more than four months. It means there are public programmes that ensure young people can get an internship or be retrained.

educationtoday: How do you ensure companies don't simply use internships as a means to get skilled young workers at little cost? 

Matjašič: First of all, for us it was important to put things into perspective. To do this, we carried out a survey of 4 000 interns across Europe last summer. We found the majority of interns enjoy being an intern, but at the same time they are aware of their precarious status. So, internships can be good tools if they're managed properly. For example, interns should be paid at least the minimum wage of the country they work in. To ensure this, we developed the European Quality Charter On Internships and Apprenticeships and pushed EU policymakers to propose it. The commission picked it up and will present a proposal themselves.

educationtoday: You mentioned entrepreneurship. This involves a certain measure of independent-mindedness and creativity. How do you think schools can better equip young people with these qualities?

Matjašič: The so-called life skills, or soft skills, are not being acquired through education. The value of peer-to-peer education you get in youth organisations is immense. Education needs to be hands-on with analytical thinking, which tends to be more the case in Northern Europe, whereas in Southern Europe teaching is often more ex-cathedra, where students simply learn what the teacher tells them. And this model in times of crisis fails young people in that studying hard is no longer enough to get a job.

I would also add that the way society sees entrepreneurship needs to be changed. Today, too many young people see it as solely about profit.

educationtoday: To what extent do you feel there is a skills mismatch today in Europe? 

Matjašič: The problem is in part because there's a disconnect between education and jobs. But at the same time, we aim to foster autonomous and active citizens. We don't want young people to be told, for example, they have to study mechanics because that's where jobs are. They need to be informed to make the right decisions. Proper career orientation in schools is key.

educationtoday:  Do you think there is a problem of over-skilled or over-educated young people today?

Matjašič: From a technical perspective, in terms of the level of education they have, yes. However, if you look at the actual knowledge young people have, I have my doubts as to whether they're over-skilled. They're definitely over-educated for certain things. But I would say it's more up to the individual today. People feel they need a master's degree because a bachelor's is not good enough anymore, so you have a proliferation of degrees, which makes them less valuable. The knowledge is no longer the focus, and I see this as a danger. We don't want education to just be a tool to enter the labour market

educationtoday: What can be done to ensure young people today have a broad education that allows them to be active citizens? 

Matjašič: Non-formal education, informal learning and volunteering need to be recognized. People can then have specific knowledge from formal education and life skills from youth organisations, for example. Interdisciplinary approaches are also important.

Links:
European Youth Forum
OECD Skills Strategy
OECD Forum 2012
Photo credit: OECD Video Invest in skills to boost jobs and growth

Discussing education and skills with the 2012 OECD Global Youth Competition winners

The winners of the 2012 OECD Video Competition hail from no fewer than three continents and four very different countries: Uganda, India, South Korea and Australia. Yet despite this, the videos they made on education and skills all highlight the need for major change in education systems if they are to provide young people with the skills necessary to thrive in the 21st century.

Kato Jonan, 24, (Uganda) Rachit Sai Barak, 20 (India), Sharon Chan, 24 (Australia), and Young Bu Kwon, 25 (Korea), sat down with us to expand on their views on education and skills.

educationtoday: Your videos all touch on the inadequacies of formal education. In what ways can schools better equip young people with the skills they need to have successful careers and be engaged citizens?

Rachit: Schools are competitive and stressful in India. The government treats young people as a future resource rather than treating them as a stakeholder. The focus should be on providing youth with life skills.

Kato: Students see education as something they have to go through without thinking of what it can help them become or what jobs it can help them get. The government should put aside some funds to create institutions to teach young people practical skills when they're not in school.

Sharon: Schools focus too heavily on books and studying. They need to look at skills outside of the classroom and help students apply those skills and fine-tune them. They should create a strong relationship with the community to see what skills are required.

Young Bu: Many Koreans think education is the only way to get a job, but then when they get a job they are disappointed. They learn and learn but they don't know what their goals are.

Kato: What I think should be done is to provide mentors to young people so they can decide what they want to do.

 

educationtoday: Do you think focusing on providing young people with the right skills for the job market is a good approach? 

Sharon: I think you can talk to employers to see what they require and try to build that into students' education, but at the same time what students require should be considered. That could be achieved through mentoring programmes.

Rachit: Education is not just about skills and jobs, it's about knowledge. I think the Better Life Index is a great example to look at. It would be good to give that wide perspective to children.

Kato: If the government wants to encourage people to take up certain professions, they have to start from childhood. But students should not have to pay for their education, as is the case today in Africa.

Rachit: The focus should be on potential not skills.

educationtoday: In your opinion, what are the key skills young people should be taught? 

Sharon: Decision making, the ability to innovate, problem solving and critical thinking are all important.

Rachit: Government should focus on life skills and practical skills.

Kato: I think we need entrepreneurial skills and computer literacy.

Young Bu: The most important thing for young people is to know themselves.

 

educationtoday: The need for creativity and innovation is a common thread in your videos. How can schools encourage creativity and and ultimately foster entrepreneurship?

Sharon: My school had a lot of competitions and projects where I had to think for myself and solve different problems. In my opinion, it's something schools can't teach you; they can help you develop it.

Rachit: In India, you see almost no use of music or dance in school. They can be used to help children learn, but they're not considered important. Using these arts to teach can help young people think differently.

Kato: They need to put students in concrete situations. In Uganda, we have a subject called Entrepreneurship, but you don't acquire any practical skills, you simply memorise information to pass an exam.

Young Bu: In Korea, students spend around 12 hours per day studying. We're not taught to discuss, to communicate; we're just taught to study. We learn by memorising, so there is little creativity. There should be free time at school where students can do what they want.

Sharon: There should be an environment that provides support and allows students to take risks.

Kato: Children who have non-academic skills should also be given a chance.

 

educationtoday: Your videos also touch on the power of co-operation to help children learn effectively. How do you think schools can be made more co-operative?

Sharon: Teamwork is the ideal scenario for encouraging co-operation.

Rachit: There should be collaboration among different fields, such as science, commerce and humanities.

Kato: It should be introduced in lower levels. It's often considered cheating when students work together, but that's what happens in companies.

Links:
OECD Video Competition
OECD Forum 2012
OECD Skills Strategy
OECD Better Life Index

Another perspective on teachers’ pay

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Directorate for Education

Thanks largely to the OECD’s work in compiling internationally comparable data on education,  the issue of teachers’ pay has quietly crept up the political agenda in more than a few countries (take the recent French presidential election and the current US presidential campaign, to name just two). PISA takes the discussion a step further. It asks: does basing teachers’ pay on their effectiveness as teachers help to improve an education system’s overall performance?

As this month’s PISA in Focus notes, about half of OECD countries reward teacher performance in different ways. For example, in the Czech Republic, England, Mexico, the Netherlands, Sweden and Turkey, outstanding teaching performance is a criterion for decisions on a teacher’s position on the base salary scale. In the Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and the Slovak Republic, it is a criterion for deciding on supplemental payments that are paid annually. In Austria, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Turkey and the United States, outstanding teaching performance is used as a criterion for deciding supplemental incidental payments.

A look at the overall picture shows no relationship between average student performance in a country and the use of performance-based pay schemes. In other words, some high-performing education systems use performance-based pay while others don't. But the picture changes when taking into account how well teachers are paid overall in comparison with national income. In countries with comparatively low teachers’ salaries (less than 15% above GDP per capita), student performance tends to be better when performance-based pay systems are in place, while in countries where teachers are relatively well-paid (more than 15% above GDP per capita), the opposite is true.

But deciding on whether or not to have performance-based pay for teachers is only the first step. Measures of teacher performance must be clearly defined and be considered by teachers themselves to be fair and accurate. School systems also have to decide whether to reward individual teachers, groups of teachers or schools. And they also have to consider whether to create one “pot”, of a pre-determined sum, out of which rewards will be paid, or to be flexible enough to allow more teachers to earn rewards.

In the end, though, salary is only part of the work environment. Countries that have succeeded in making teaching an attractive profession have often done so not just through pay, but by raising the status of teaching, offering real career prospects, and giving teachers responsibility as professionals and leaders of reform. This requires teacher education that helps teachers to become innovators and researchers in education, not just civil servants who deliver curricula.

Links:
For more information:
on PISA: www.pisa.oecd.org
PISA in Focus: Does performance-based pay improve teaching?
Preparing Teachers and Developing School Leaders for the 21st Century: Lessons From Around The World
Photo credit: Performance / 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.

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

Increasing higher education access: one goal, many approaches

by J.D. LaRock
Senior Analyst, Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education

Few would dispute that having a higher education is more important than ever to help people build positive economic futures and strengthen the knowledge economies of countries. Yet as the second issue of the OECD’s new brief series Education Indicators in Focus explains, OECD countries have adopted dramatically different strategies for increasing higher education access – both in terms of how higher education is financed, and in the level of financial support they provide to individuals seeking a degree.

For example, in countries with more progressive tax structures, such as Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, students pay low or no tuition fees and have access to generous public subsidies for higher education. Tuition fees are much higher in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands and the United States, but students in these countries also have access to significant financial support.

Before recent reforms in Japan and in Korea, students paid comparatively high tuition fees, but had relatively low access to public subsidies. Meanwhile, in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, Spain and Mexico, students pay little or nothing for higher education, but have limited access to financial aid.

At a time when most OECD countries are experiencing surges in higher education enrolments – but also face significant budget constraints – which model stands a better chance of promoting higher education access and positive outcomes for students in the most equitable way? As it turns out, there’s something to be learned from several of them.

As detailed in the OECD’s thematic review of higher education, charging a moderate level of tuition fees – while simultaneously giving students opportunities to benefit from comprehensive financial aid systems – is an effective way for countries to increase access to higher education, stretch limited public funds, and promote equity by acknowledging the significant private returns that students receive from higher education.

In particular, access to robust financial aid seems to be the key.  For example, countries with especially well-developed student support systems – like Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States – all have above-average university entry rates, even though they also have comparatively high tuition fees.

At the same time, the type of financial aid countries offer is also critical. The OECD’s review suggests that financial aid systems that couple means-tested grants and loans that have income-contingent repayments not only promote access and equity at the front end of higher education, but also lead to better outcomes for students at the back end. Australia and New Zealand have used this approach to mitigate the impact of high tuition fees, encourage disadvantaged students to enter higher education, and reduce the risks of high student loan indebtedness. Other OECD countries that use this strategy include Chile, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Increasingly, countries are adjusting their higher education financing and support systems in other ways as well. For example, more countries have raised tuition fees for international students in recent years, in part to shore up the finances of their higher education systems. At least 14 OECD member and partner countries differentiate tuition fees among fields of study to account for the higher cost of operating some academic programmes.  Some countries like Australia have even attempted to link higher education charges to labour-market opportunities by lowering tuition fees for fields with skills shortages.

In an era of booming enrolments and tightening belts, it won’t be surprising if still more changes are on the horizon.

For more information
On this topic, visit:
Education Indicators in Focus
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators  www.oecd.org/edu/eag2011
On the OECD’s Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme, visit:
INES Programme overview brochure

Related blog post:
Higher education: an insurance policy against global downturns

Chart excludes OECD countries for which specific data on public subsidies is not available.
Source: Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators, Indicator B5 (www.oecd.org/edu/eag2011).

Cooking up success: why Finns learn better

by Hannah von Ahlefeld
Analyst, OECD Centre for Effective Learning Environments

Has well-known Finnish cartoonist B. Virtanen hit on the recipe for success in Finland’s exemplary education system? The OECD / CELE conference in Finland this week will reveal all.

Consistently, Finnish students have earned top marks from the OECD’s landmark PISA study, which tests the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students in more than 70 countries. Finland has won recognition as an international reference point for best practice in educational improvement, creating a wave of so-called PISA tourism. 

While some success factors, or ingredients, are relatively simple to identify and measure – such as a well-paid, well-trained and highly valued teaching force, a homogenous society, and a focus on equity and inclusion – others are not so simple to define. And the way in which those ingredients are mixed together is all important.

There is intense interest today in the nature of learning and creating the environments in which it can flourish. Although we lack conclusive empirical evidence, ongoing OECD studies have made important contributions towards highlighting the role of innovation in fostering effective learning environments. Experience from Australia, the UK and Portugal, as well as Finland has given us ideas to discuss and learn from.

But too many of today’s schools still operate with traditional approaches that do not encourage deep collaborative learning, innovation or provide the capacity for lifelong learning. So, is a major paradigm shift required in order for learning environments to catch up with 21st century needs and demands? How can communities initiate major endeavors of vision and innovation? 

In Finland from 22-24 February 2012, more than 170 people will have the great fortune to observe, experiment, and learn first-hand some of the many approaches to effective learning environments used in Finnish schools at an OECD conference entitled “A Recipe for Success: Transforming Learning Environments through Dynamic Local Partnerships”. 

The conference will bring together a range of local, regional and international players from universities, local businesses and school communities to discuss the catalysts and drivers for transforming today’s learning environments into dynamic learning communities of the future. The conference settings – a comprehensive school in Turku, and the well-reputed Department of Teacher Training at the University of Turku, Rauma; speakers including OECD Director for Education, Barbara Ischinger; and experiential workshops, are sure to stimulate. 

The conference commences on the evening of 22 February. To register, contact  Hannah.vonAhlefeld@oecd.org or go to the web site http://congress.utu.fi/CELE2012.

Links:
“A Recipe for Success: Transforming Learning Environments through Dynamic Local Partnerships”, Turku, Finland, 22-24 February 2012
Website for the OECD Centre for Effective Learning Environments
Follow us on twitter @ OECD_Edu  #CELEFinland

Related blog posts:
Inspiring education through great design

Photo credit: B.Vartanen

All that money can’t buy

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Directorate for Education 
                                                    

We can now add something else to the growing list of things money alone can’t buy: love, happiness–and strong performance in PISA. Results from PISA 2009 show that there is a threshold beyond which a country’s wealth is unrelated to its overall score in PISA.

Among moderately wealthy economies whose per capita GDP is up to around USD 20 000 (Estonia, Hungary, the Slovak Republic and the partner country Croatia, for example), the greater the country’s wealth, the higher its mean score on the PISA reading test. But PISA results indicate that above this threshold of USD 20 000 in per capita GDP, national wealth is no longer a good predictor of a country’s mean performance in PISA. And the amount these high-income countries devote to education also appears to have little relation to their overall performance in PISA. PISA looked at cumulative expenditure on education–the total dollar amount spent on educating a student from the age of 6 to the age of 15–and found that, after a threshold of about USD 35 000 per student, expenditure is unrelated to performance. For example, countries that spend more than USD 100 000 per student from the age of 6 to 15, such as Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland and the United States, show similar levels of performance as countries that spend less than half that amount per student, such as Estonia, Hungary and Poland. Meanwhile, New Zealand, a top performer in PISA, spends a lower-than-average amount per student from the age of 6 to 15.

So what is it that makes a country a strong performer in PISA? Its decisions on how it spends the money that it does invest in education. PISA results show that the strongest performers among high-income countries and economies tend to invest more in teachers. For example, lower secondary teachers in Korea and the partner economy of Hong Kong-China, two high-performing systems in the PISA reading tests, earn more than twice the per capita GDP in their respective countries. The countries that perform well in PISA tend to attract the best students into the teaching profession by offering them higher salaries and greater professional status. They also tend to prioritise investment in teachers over smaller classes.

Successful PISA countries also invest something else in their education systems: high expectations for all of their students. Schools and teachers in these systems do not allow struggling students to fail; they do not make them repeat a grade, they do not transfer them to other schools, nor do they group students into different classes based on ability. Regardless of a country’s or economy’s wealth, school systems that commit themselves, both in resources and in policies, to ensuring that all students succeed perform better in PISA than systems that tend to separate out poor performers or students with behavioural problems or special needs.

So when it comes to money and education, the question isn’t how much? but rather for what?

For more information:
on PISA: www.pisa.oecd.org
PISA in Focus N°13: Does money buy strong performance in PISA?
Full set of PISA in Focus: www.oecd.org/pisa/infocus
Video Series: Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education

Video: Singapore: Building a strong and effective teaching force
From the series of videos on Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education, produced jointly by the OECD and the Pearson Foundation

Improving equity in education: a critical challenge

by Ben Levin
Professor University of Toronto and Canada Research Chair in Education Leadership and Policy

Improving equity in student outcomes remains a critical challenge for every country in the OECD.  Even those countries with the lowest levels of inequity must still be concerned with gaps in outcomes that are not related to students’ motivation and capacity, while in other countries the inequities are so large as to pose a fundamental challenge to ongoing security and prosperity.

The new report, Equity and Quality in Education: Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools, provides a cogent analysis and many ideas for addressing these issues.  The report provides a blueprint for any country that wishes to make genuine progress in promoting equity while also improving quality.  These ideas are well grounded in the best available research evidence (though in some cases that evidence is not as strong as one would want, simply due to insufficient research on many important educational issues).

The larger issue is whether countries will have the will and skill to make these changes.  As outlined in my 2008 book, ‘How to Change 5000 Schools’, knowing what to do is important but not enough.  In many cases we already know what to do, but we do not do it.  As a simple example, consider physical exercise and good eating habits.  Everyone knows these are essential to health, yet many people simply do not do them.  How much more difficult to make changes in a large and complex institution like a school system!

There are two aspects to effective implementation of the right changes.  The first is whether the will exists to make the changes.  In many cases the beneficiaries of the status quo will be vocal in opposing anything that they think might diminish the relative advantage of their children.  Less streaming is one good example of this situation, often opposed by parents and teachers who benefit from a streamed system despite the strong evidence that this practice is, overall, a bad one.  There can be very difficult politics around making some of the changes that would actually benefit students.  These conflicts cannot be ignored; they must be faced directly.

Second, and just as important, is whether systems have the capacity to bring real change about.  As the report notes, real improvement requires real changes in classroom practice.  These do not occur through issuing policy statements, developing new curricula, or even through changes in accountability and testing.  Changing people’s daily behavior takes sustained and relentless attention to the way daily work is done.  This attention must extend over time and take into account everything the organization does.  Very few countries have this capacity.  Very few ministries of education have much capacity to lead and support school improvement.  Very few school leaders know how to do this work.

Countries that are serious about greater equity – and greater quality – will need to consider carefully how they can support real and lasting implementation of the necessary changes.  Luckily, the OECD does offer some examples, in its higher performing countries, of the kinds of organizational measures that are needed to achieve these important goals.  We know this can be done; the question is how many countries will make the required effort.

Links:
More information about OECD work on equity in education: www.oecd.org/edu/equity
Executive Summary: Equity and Quality in Education - Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools

Photo: School wall mural painting by students, Ontario 

Boys, girls and hypertext

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Indicators and Analysis Division, Directorate for Education

Computers, cell phones and tablets are now so much a part of our lives that we can’t even remember what life was like before them—much less figure out how we managed to get through the day without consulting them. The youngest students now surf the Net with the skill of cyber beach boys and text friends as easily as waving at them.

Or do they?

In 2009 PISA conducted a groundbreaking survey of digital literacy  among 15-year-old students. PISA wanted to find out whether boys and girls are as ready for the digital age as they—and we—think they are. As the latest issue of PISA in Focus shows, while many students may have the technological skills, not all have the cognitive skills to fully capitalise on technology to access, manage, integrate and evaluate digital information.

On average, PISA results show that student performance in digital reading is closely related to performance in print reading, meaning that those students who are proficient in reading texts on paper are also proficient in reading texts on a screen. But in some countries, such as Australia and Korea, students score significantly higher in digital reading than in print reading; while in other countries, notably Hungary, Poland and the partner country Colombia, students are better in print reading than in digital reading.

Perhaps the most interesting finding from this assessment has to do with the difference in digital literacy between girls and boys. Since the beginning of the PISA tests in 2000, girls have always scored higher in reading than boys–and by a substantial margin: the equivalent of one year of formal schooling. While this is still true for reading digital texts, the performance gap is significantly narrower: 24 score points compared with 38 score points in print reading.

A closer look at these results showed that there was a larger percentage of boys at the highest proficiency levels in digital reading than at the highest levels in print reading, and a smaller percentage of boys at the bottom proficiency levels in digital reading scale than at the bottom level in print reading.

What might account for this? Digital literacy involves more than using a computer and reading words, even if those words are on a screen rather than on a piece of paper. To be literate in digital reading, one must also be able to navigate easily through hypertexts, that is, construct one’s own text using embedded links to other texts and materials, rather than reading a text in predetermined sequence. Boys might be more interested–and have greater experience–in navigating through hypertexts than in reading a printed page.

In turn, that important finding could be used by parents, educators and policy makers to set in motion a “virtuous cycle” whereby encouraging boys to read more on line would lead to better digital reading proficiency which, in turn, would instill greater enjoyment of reading, which, ultimately, could lead to better reading performance in both print and digital media.

For more information:
on PISA: www.pisa.oecd.org
Full set of PISA in Focus: www.oecd.org/pisa/infocus
Students On Line: Digital Technologies and Performance, explores students’ use of information technologies to learn

Photo credit: ©Hemera/Thinkstock 

Making education reform happen

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Indicators and Analysis Division, Directorate for Education

This is the time of year when a lot of us resolve to commit ourselves to self-improvement plans of greater or lesser magnitude. Spend more time reading? On the list. Eat better? Ditto. Reform the education system? Whoa—nice idea; but isn’t that a bit too ambitious? 

What is it about education reform that all-too-often turns resolve into sighs and resignation? If countries really want to keep that resolution, here’s a suggestion: invite teachers to get involved.

On the face of it, it seems elementary: The best—meaning the most sustainable and effective—reforms happen when those who are directly affected support them. You don’t have to take our word for it; just look at how some of the best-performing and rapidly improving school systems got that way. Take Finland,  for example–one of the consistently best-performing OECD countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) since the assessments were first conducted in 2000. While teachers there have long enjoyed high professional status (which should be one of the goals of reform in countries where teachers are poorly trained, poorly paid and not recognised as the professionals they are—or should be), their views on improving student performance are actively solicited and, to the extent possible, used to spur and support change.

Ontario, Canada, initiated a comprehensive reform of its education system in 2003 to improve graduation rates and standards in literacy and numeracy. Those who led the reform effort acknowledge that it couldn’t have been as successful as it has been without the involvement of teachers’ unions and superintendents’ and principals’ organisations. For example, a collective bargaining agreement with the main teachers’ unions there eased the way for a reduction in class size and more preparation time for teachers—changes that, in turn, led to the creation of some 7,000 new jobs.

When teachers, union leaders and education ministers meet again in New York this March for the second OECD co-sponsored International Summit of the Teaching Profession, they will no doubt take as a starting point their conclusion from last year’s Summit: that high-quality teaching forces are created through deliberate policy choices, and by engaging strong teachers as active agents in school reform, not just using them to implement plans designed by others. In other words, the resolve to reform education can only be turned into real reform if teachers are at the forefront of change.

So in these first few days of the new year, be ambitious in your resolutions—and wise in keeping them.

Links:
For a full summary of the evidence that underpinned the first International Summit on the Teaching Profession held in New York in March 2011 see the report:
Building a High-Quality Teaching Profession: Lessons from around the World
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS)
Video Series: Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education

Picture credit: Mark Rogers, fallingfifth.com

Helping immigrant students to succeed

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Indicators and Analysis Division, Directorate for Education

Whether in flight from conflict, with the hope of building a better life, or to seize a social or economic opportunity, people have been crossing borders for as long as there have been borders to cross. Modern means of transportation and communication, the globalisation of the labour market, and the ageing of populations in OECD countries will drive migration well into the next decades. Education is key to helping immigrants and their families integrate into their adopted countries. How are education systems adapting?

Results from PISA 2009 show that although native students generally outperform students with immigrant backgrounds, some countries have been able to narrow the performance gap between the two groups considerably—even as the proportion of immigrant students has grown.

The latest issue of PISA in Focus notes that the percentage of 15-year-old students with an immigrant background grew by two percentage points, on average, between 2000 and 2009 among OECD countries  with comparable data. Immigrant students now constitute more than 5% of the 15-year-old student populations in 13 OECD and partner countries and economies. In Ireland, New Zealand, Spain, the United States, and the partner countries Liechtenstein and the Russian Federation, the percentage of students with an immigrant background increased by five percentage points or more over the past decade, and these students now represent from 8% to 30% of these countries’ student populations.

During the same time period, a few countries narrowed the performance gap between native and immigrant students. In Belgium and Switzerland, for example, the performance gap shrank by nearly 40 score points, even though native students still outperform students with an immigrant background by 68 score points in Belgium and by 48 score points in Switzerland. And Switzerland was able to reduce the performance gap despite the fact that the percentage of students with an immigrant background rose during the period. Germany, New Zealand and the partner country Liechtenstein also show a narrowing of the performance gap between these two groups of students.

What these trends tell us is that there are ways that governments and schools can help students from immigrant backgrounds to overcome some of the disadvantages associated with that background. Often, students with an immigrant background are socio-economically disadvantaged. On average across OECD countries, the performance gap is reduced from 43 to 27 score points when comparing students of similar socio-economic status, regardless of whether they are from immigrant backgrounds or are native to the country in which they were tested.

But the fact that a 27-point performance gap–equivalent to well over half a school year–persists, even after accounting for socio-economic status, implies that other factors also have an impact on student performance. These may be related to whether the students were born in the country in which they were tested or elsewhere, or whether, when they’re at home, they speak the same language as that used in the PISA test. Yet given that the performance gap varies so widely across countries, even taking into account these other characteristics, and given that in some countries the performance gap has changed markedly over time, it is clear that public policy can make a difference to these students’ progress in school.

For more information:
on PISA: www.pisa.oecd.org
Full set of PISA in Focus: www.oecd.org/pisa/infocus
PISA 2009 Results: Overcoming Social Background
PISA 2009 Results: Learning Trends

Related blog posts:
All immigration is local: How Regional Factors Shape Global Migration

Education does not equal skills

by Julie Harris
Consultant, OECD Department of Education

Mapping skills at the European Youth Forum

I went back 25 years in time yesterday, as I sat with participants at the European Youth Forum, all young, vibrant, educated and driven. I felt as if I were at university with my daughter and 100 of her friends. We discussed the future, skills, and in particular, the skills mismatch, described by Andreas Schleicher as “a lot of unemployed graduates plus a lot of employers looking for skilled workers”.

At the eve of my own career 25 years ago, my current profession did not exist. The Internet did not exist. There were fewer graduates and fewer employers looking for skilled employees. Did we worry about getting jobs? Probably, but back then a degree was the passkey.

Today, as my daughter graduates from college in 2013, the debate for her as well as for the 120 participants we worked with today, centred around jobs, skills and education. Just what is the link? Does a degree guarantee a job? Less and less so. Does work experience play a role? Yes, but the youth in my breakout group felt that unpaid internships amounted to exploitation and rarely provided the learning originally intended. What about the “soft” skills that so many students report are not developed in traditional school settings: clear communication skills, emotional intelligence, problem-solving, collaboration, curiosity, critical thinking and technological skills? How do individuals best acquire these skills – which mean more to long-term professional success than purely occupational skills do – and what do we need to do as a society to develop, value and encourage such skill development?

As Andreas Schleicher pointed out in his introduction to yesterday’s session, we need to build strong generic skills (skills that cross contexts, such as reading, writing, problem-solving, communication and collaboration), better utilise talent pools and skill for future jobs.

So how do we go about that?

Some of the ideas participants in the session came up with were:

1. Link studies to labour market demand. Should governments regulate entry into study programmes, for example when there is a skills surplus and a jobs deficit?
2. Improve career counselling to students and involve parents. Help students and parents know what the jobs of the future will be, where some of the shortages may lie and what skills will best help them succeed.
3. Provide internships/work experience opportunities on a parallel track along with university studies (as in the United States and France).
4. Put more professional, practical skills training into university education. 
5. Encourage entrepreneurship and innovation among youth: communicate that small-business owners are important actors in society and that there is room for thinking outside the box, across disciplines and beyond borders.
6. Build skills locally (rather than outsourcing to cheaper providers).
7. Keep in mind that skills mismatch can begin at school – tracking can lead to rigidity and close down broader skills development. 

In sum, and as one participant put it, skills is a complex issue. It is more than the ability to “do something” and bigger, much bigger than education alone. Education, both formal and informal, at school and in the workplace, gleaned young and old, is a vital piece of the skills puzzle, but education alone does not skills make.

Learn more:
European Youth Forum: Youth Employment: A Call for Change
OECD Skills Strategy
Participate in the 2012 OECD Global Youth Video Competition