Higher level vocational education and training (VET) programmes are facing rapid change and intensifying challenges. What type of training is needed to meet the needs of changing economies? How can employers and unions be engaged? The country reports in this series look at these and other questions. They form part of Skills beyond School, the OECD policy review of postsecondary vocational education and training.

This review report for the Netherlands provides, from an international perspective, an independent analysis of major issues facing the Dutch evaluation and assessment framework in education, current policy initiatives and possible future approaches. This series forms part of the OECD Review on Evaluation and Assessment Frameworks for Improving School Outcomes.

PISA Data Visualisation Contest

Most teachers enjoy their job, despite feeling unsupported and unrecognised in schools and undervalued by society at large, according to a new OECD survey.

This publication offers insights and advice to teachers and school leaders on how they can improve teaching and learning in their schools. It is both a guide through TALIS and a handbook for building excellence into teaching.

This report examines the sustainability of social institutions and their ability to absorb and cope with short-term shocks and longer-term trends by providing risk sharing and expenditure smoothing, focusing on pension, health care and unemployment insurance schemes.

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Education has one of the highest shares of innovative jobs for tertiary graduates of all sectors of the economy in Europe, and a higher proportion than in other public sector areas such as health and public administration.

This report explores the association between school innovation and different measures related to educational objectives. This book is the beginning of a new journey: it calls for innovations in the field of measurement – and not just of education.

October 5 marks the 20th anniversary of UNESCO’s World Teachers' Day, a day devoted to “appreciating, assessing and improving educators of the world”. This gives us a great opportunity to reflect again on how schools can celebrate and develop great teaching. One way to do that is through critical exchanges – building constructive feedback systems within the schools.

In 1973, Martin Cooper, a researcher at Motorola, made the first call from a handheld mobile phone prototype. This phone weighed 1.1 kg, took 10 hours to re-charge and was limited to 30 minutes of talking time. When it was commercialized in 1983, the phone cost approximately 7,000 USD.

Korea has made significant progress towards decentralising the management of employment and training programmes, but can still do more to create stronger links with employers at the local level, according to a new OECD report.

How can mathematics education foster the skills that are appropriate for innovative societies? Mathematics education is heavily emphasised worldwide, nevertheless it is still considered to be a stumbling block for many students.

How can mathematics education foster the skills that are appropriate for innovative societies? Mathematics education is heavily emphasised worldwide, nevertheless it is still considered to be a stumbling block for many students. This book is designed to assist practitioners, curriculum developers and policy makers alike in preparing today’s students for tomorrow’s world.

OECD Education Today - Addressing inequities in the Slovak Republic through evaluation and assessment

How big should schools be? Is bigger better? Or do all the best things come in small packages? For education systems, the question of how school size influences quality and efficiency has long been an important issue.

The report New insights from TALIS 2013: Teaching and Learning in Primary and Upper Secondary Education presents an overview of teachers and teaching in primary and upper secondary education for a sample of countries that participated in the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) in 2013.

Looking at teachers at all levels of education, we learn that the majority of teachers are women. In all countries, the percentage of male teachers is particularly low in primary schools where teaching is still seen as a women’s job. As a result young children are missing out on role models of both sexes.

The quality of an education system today shapes the economic and social prosperity of the country tomorrow. Chile has embarked on wide-ranging reform to improve the quality and equity of its education system on several fronts, including early childhood education and care (ECEC), school funding, student selection, school governance, teacher career pathways, vocational education and training (VET) and tertiary education.

Teachers can certainly face challenges in the classroom. In TALIS participating countries and economies, almost one in three teachers report having more than 10% of students with behavioural problems in their classes.

Almost one in three teachers across countries participating in the 2013 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) reports having more than 10% of potentially disruptive students with behaviour problems in their classes. Teachers with more than one in ten students with behaviour problems spend almost twice as much time keeping order in the classroom than their peers with less than 10% of such students in their class.

Between 2000 and 2012, the proportion of young adults (25-34 year-olds) with a tertiary qualification has grown by more than 3% per year on average in OECD countries. On average across 24 national and sub-national entities participating in the OECD Survey of Adult Skills, 39% of adults have achieved a higher level of education than their parents.

The United Arab Emirates is identified by PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) as one of the most rapidly improving education systems in the world. However its students still perform well below the levels expected in advanced economies.

Education systems have made major strides to close gender gaps in student performance but girls and boys remain deeply divided in career choices, which are being made much earlier than commonly thought, according to a new OECD report.

An analysis of PISA data reveals how student performance is affected by such “intangibles” as behaviour in and outside of school, and self-confidence, and how, in turn, students’ behaviour and confidence can be influenced by parents’ and teachers’ attitudes and expectations.

Teachers report participating in more non-school than school embedded professional development (i.e. professional development that is grounded in teachers daily professional practices). Participation in non-school and school embedded professional development varies greatly between countries.

Last Saturday, 14 April, Equal Pay Day reminded the world again of the large gap between men’s and women’s wages. Eradicating unjustifiable gender inequalities in earnings seems to be very hard to accomplish.

La calidad del sistema educacional de hoy es la base para la prosperidad económica y social del país de mañana.

The Indonesian economy has enjoyed strong and stable growth over the past decade and a half, leading to impressive reductions in poverty and major improvements in living standards. But challenges remain to continue to converge towards higher-income countries, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Indonesia.

This report was prepared by the Educational Policy Institute, Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, as an input to the OECD Review of Policies to Improve the Effectiveness of Resource Use in Schools (School Resources Review).

Analysing the efficiency of education systems and organisations is at the forefront of today’s policy and academic debate.

It’s a well-trodden path to observe that the school systems of today are not preparing children for the jobs of today, let alone tomorrow. But what changes to our school systems are necessary to address this challenge?

More than 35 million 16-29 year-olds across OECD countries are neither employed nor in education or training (NEET) – and around half of all NEETs are out of school and not looking for work. These young people are likely to have dropped off the radar of their country’s education, social and labour market systems.

When it comes to technology, education seems stuck in the age of chalkboards. But at an international conference on technology in education, held in Qingdao, China, last week, I got the feeling that educators and education ministers might finally be ready to join the technological revolution.

The OECD’s Annual Meeting at Ministerial Level reinforced member governments’ support across a broad range of key OECD work.

Educational opportunities have a very important impact on a person’s life. Employment, earnings, well-being, health and trust are all strongly related to education and skills. A lack of high-quality educational opportunities is the most important way in which poverty, social inequality and exclusion are transmitted from one generation to another.

The quantity and quality of resources available to schools improved significantly between 2003 and 2012, on average across OECD countries.

Countries and economies participating in PISA have invested substantial resources and used a wide variety of strategies during the past ten years to improve the quality of their schools. Have these efforts paid off?

Norway’s early childhood education and care (ECEC) system has experienced a strong expansion over the last decade. More children than ever are enrolled in its kindergartens.

One of the most dramatic consequences of the economic crisis has been the soaring levels of youth unemployment in several OECD countries; and the hesitant recovery of the past years was insufficient to improve the job prospects of young people.

In 2012, in more than one-third of OECD countries, over half of all upper secondary students participated in pre-vocational or vocational programmes but less than 30% of those students were exposed to work-based learning. Countries with well-established and high-quality vocational and apprenticeship programmes have improved youth employment opportunities.

This review describes variations in, and evidence for, pedagogical approaches in formal early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings; how pedagogy is monitored; and which policies affect pedagogical practice. Its specific focus is on comparisons of England (United Kingdom) with Japan, France, Germany, Denmark and New Zealand.

In most OECD countries, the large majority of adults had at least an upper secondary qualification in 2013, making the completion of upper secondary education the minimum threshold for successful labour market entry and continued employability or the pursuit of further education.

Human capital is key for economic growth. Not only is it linked to aggregate economic performance but also to each individual’s labour market outcomes. However, a skilled population is not enough to achieve high and inclusive growth, as skills need to be put into productive use at work.

The end of the mining boom has highlighted the urgent need for Chile to diversify its economy away from commodity-intensive sectors, according to a new OECD report presented by Secretary-General Angel Gurría today.

On average across OECD countries, students’ belief that they can solve mathematics problems (mathematics self-efficacy) is associated with a difference of 49 score points in mathematics – the equivalent of one year of school.

Education has become increasingly important worldwide, including politically. Probably the key driver for this is economic – the fundamental role of knowledge and skills in underpinning and maintaining prosperity.

The latest report in the OECD’s Starting Strong series reviews the monitoring systems of 24 jurisdictions and reveals that monitoring does not merely encompass regulatory compliance but is moving towards better understanding what is happening inside an ECEC setting and how a child develops in several areas.

It is difficult for us here in Paris to think about much else beside the innocents who lost their lives last week during the senseless, brutal attack that shook our city. Our thoughts are with their families and loved ones; our spirit remains firmly fixed on the values we cherish: liberté, égalité, fraternité.

This report examines the ongoing development of education policy, practice and leadership in Scotland, by providing an independent review of the direction of the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) and emerging impacts seen in quality and equity in Scottish schooling.