Evaluation and assessment policies are key in Australia’s national school reform agenda. The Australian approach combines the development of goals, monitoring and reporting at national level with local evaluation and assessment practices shaped by jurisdiction-level school improvement frameworks

The OECD’s latest edition of Health at a Glance shows that medical care is improving in OECD countries, but better prevention and management of chronic diseases is required to reduce costs.

This country note provides information on latest trends in income inequalities as well as key findings from the 2011 OECD report "Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising".

This note is taken from Chapter 2 of Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth 2012.

This case study describes the policy-making process in Australia leading to the public release of information on every school in Australia through the My School website. Policy lessons are described to provide insight for OECD member countries which may be grappling with similar issues.

Australia’s labour market continues to perform well in comparison with other major developed countries. The unemployment rate, at 5.1% in May 2012, is among the lowest in the OECD.

Australia’s education system achieves good outcomes overall - attainment of upper secondary education by adults aged 25 to 34 was 85% in 2010, above the OECD average of 82%

Australia’s enforcement of its foreign bribery laws has been extremely low, with just a single case leading to prosecutions out of 28 referrals in 13 years. Cases may have been closed prematurely. Australia must vigorously pursue foreign bribery allegations.

Australia’s labour market reforms over the past 15 years have boosted employment and cut welfare benefit dependency.

The Australian economy is robust and faces a solid short-term outlook, but it must continue adapting to ensure that its privileged place in the Asia-Pacific region contributes to long-term sustainable growth, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Survey of Australia.

Australia delivered USD 5.44 billion in official development assistance (ODA) last year, or 0.36% of its gross national income. It is the eighth most generous country in the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC), which groups the world’s major donors. Australia’s goal is to reach 0.5% of GNI by 2017 – a goal the DAC encourages it to follow through on, given its good track record and relatively strong economy.

Australians continue to enjoy one of the highest levels of health across the developed world but need to address Australia’s growing obesity problem, according to a new OECD report.

Slower growth in key markets like China and India is reducing momentum across the Australian economy, cutting into employment opportunities and putting more pressure on the government to ensure that public policy delivers optimal results for growth and job creation.

This note presents key findings for Australia from Society at a Glance 2014 - OECD Social indicators. This 2014 publication also provides a special chapter on: the crisis and its aftermath: a “stress test” for societies and for social policies.

Country notes highlight some key findings from TALIS 2013 for individual countries and economies

PISA 2012 financial literacy results focusing on the performance of Australia amongst 17 other countries and economies who participated in the assessment: Belgium (Flemish Community), Shanghai-China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Israel, Italy, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain and the United States.

The ability to measure innovation is essential to an improvement strategy in education. This country note analyses how the practices are changing within classrooms and educational organisations and how teachers develop and use their pedagogical resources.

According to a new OECD report, variation in rates of health care activity between geographic areas within a country may be a cause for concern. Wide variation suggests that whether or not patients receive a particular health service depends on the region where they live within a country.

Over the past few years we have witnessed some challenging times. When Australia took the reins of the G20 presidency nearly a year ago, the global economy was still recovering from one of the most severe recessions of modern times.

Each G20 presidency faces its own challenges. A presidency must respond to global economic conditions, it must build on previous work, and it must seize opportunities to progress with reforms where members can reach consensus.

This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).

Going for Growth 2015: Country note for Australia

Water resources allocation determines who is able to use water resources, how, when and where. Capturing information from 27 OECD countries and key partner economies, the report presents key findings from the OECD Survey of Water Resources Allocation and case studies of successful allocation reform.

Levels of alcohol consumption in Australia are close to the OECD average. After a decrease from 1980 to 1992, consumption has rebounded to some extent. In 2011, 10 litres of pure alcohol per capita were consumed in Australia, on average, compared with an estimate of 9.5 litres in 2011 in the OECD.

This country note provides information on latest trends in income inequalities as well as key findings from the 2015 OECD report "In it Together: Why less inequality benefits all".

Biographical note of Australia's Permanent Representative to the OECD.

In a boost for international efforts to strengthen co-operation against offshore tax evasion, seven new countries have joined the agreement to exchange information automatically under the OECD/G20 standard.

Australia has been successful at reducing the mortality due to cardiovascular diseases. The mortality from cardiovascular diseases (CVD) has decreased over the past 50 years at a faster pace than the OECD average, reaching 208 per 100 000 population, 30% lower than the OECD average of 299 in 2011.

Australia performs well in terms of overall population health status. At 82.2 years, life expectancy is the sixth highest in the OECD, and the country’s record on breast and colorectal cancer survival is among the best. Australia has one of the lowest rates of tobacco consumption (12.8% of the population aged 15 and over), but it is the fifth most obese country in the OECD (28.3% of the population aged 15 and over).

Australia should improve the integration of care across the patient pathway to prepare for a rise in chronic disease and make the health system less complex for patients, according to a new OECD report.

The 2015 edition introduces more detailed analysis of participation in early childhood and tertiary levels of education. The report also examines first generation tertiary-educated adults’ educational and social mobility, labour market outcomes for recent graduates, and participation in employer-sponsored formal and/or non-formal education.

The OECD welcomes Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s announcement at COP21 that Australia intends to ratify the Kyoto Protocol’s second commitment period, which sets mitigation targets and reporting requirements for 2013-2020.

The recent mental health reform is an important step towards better services for people with mental ill-health, but Australia needs to do more to help people with mild to moderate mental health issues at and into work, according to a new OECD report.

In 2012, 20% of students in Australia were low performers in mathematics (OECD average: 23%), 14% were low performers in reading (OECD average: 18%), 14% were low performers in science (OECD average: 18%), and 9% were low performers in all three of these subjects (OECD average: 12%)

The Australian health system is a complex mix of federal and state government funding and responsibility, making it difficult for patients to navigate. Despite its complexity, Australia’s universal health system achieves good results relatively efficiently.

Australia should provide early access to more intensive employment services for disadvantaged laid-off workers to help them find a new job more quickly, according to a new OECD report.

Australia should follow up on the reform of its vocational education system by improving quality control in the VET sector and step up career guidance for young people to boost young people’s job prospects and reduce the share of under-30-year-olds who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs), according to a new OECD report.

This country note provides an environmental tax and carbon pricing profile for Australia. It shows environmentally related tax revenues, taxes on energy use and effective carbon rates.

The number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs) remains elevated in many countries since the crisis. This country note examines the characteristics of those at risk of being NEET in Australia along with policies to help meet the challenge. It also includes many new youth-specific indicators on family formation, self-sufficiency, income and poverty, health and social cohesion.

This country note presents student performance in science, reading and mathematics, and measures equity in education in Australia. The interactive charts allow you to compare results with other countries participating in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

The OECD’s latest Economic Survey of Australia, to be published at 00.01 am on Friday, 3 March 2017 AEDT (13.01, GMT; 14:01 Paris time Thursday), looks at Australia’s current macroeconomic situation, as well as the steps that can be taken to ensure stronger and more inclusive growth in the future. The Survey’s two in-depth chapters focus on innovation.

Australia’s strong economy has helped drive a healthy job market. But to avoid a future shortage of labour as the population ages, further efforts are needed to help older women, indigenous Australians and mothers with young children into work, according to a new OECD report.

The city of Newcastle is fast emerging as a smart, liveable and sustainable city.

Selected findings for Australia from the report "The Pursuit of Gender Equality: An Uphill Battle"

Selected findings for Australia from the report "Preventing Ageing Unequally"

This note presents selected country highlights from the OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2017 with a specific focus on digital trends among all themes covered.

Key findings for Australia from the report "Pensions at a Glance 2017"

Australia has stepped up its enforcement of foreign bribery since 2012, when the OECD Working Group on Bribery last evaluated Australia’s implementation of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, with seven convictions in two cases and 19 ongoing investigations.

Australia’s active global engagement on development and its focus on fragile small island states and disaster risk reduction are commendable. However successive cuts to the country’s aid budget since 2013 are impairing its efforts, according to the latest DAC Peer Review of Australia.

This note presents marginal effective tax rates (METRs) that summarise the tax system’s impact on the incentives to make an additional investment in a particular type of savings. By comparing METRs on different types of household savings, we can gain insights into which assets or savings types receive the most favourable treatment from the tax system.