Note summarising the performance of 15-year-old students in Austria in the PISA 2012 assessment of mathematics, reading and science.

Note summarising the performance of Norway in the PISA 2012 assessment of mathematics, reading and science.

Across OECD countries, 18% of students skipped classes at least once in the two weeks prior to the PISA test, and 15% of students skipped a day of school or more over the same period.

The three questions that this Summit will focus on are: How can high quality teachers and leaders be attracted into and retained in schools of the greatest need? What are the levers for achieving equity in increasingly devolved education systems? How are learning environments created that meet the needs of all children and young people?

This book addresses the challenges linked to the introduction of financial education in schools and and provides practical guidance and case studies to assist policy makers.

This conference on 9 April 2014 will provide an opportunity for a mutual sharing of good practice in fostering the better insertion of youth into the labour market through the development of quality apprenticeships. It would also seek to foster a greater commitment by countries to take action to introduce or strengthen apprenticeship initiatives and to take stock of the progress achieved.

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.

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.

The results of the first international assessment of 15-year-old students’ financial literacy competencies were presented in Paris on 9 July 2014.

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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.

Across countries and economies participating in the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), a majority of teachers report receiving feedback on different aspects of their work in their 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.

Quick: Who has more up-to-date textbooks: students in wealthier schools or students in poorer schools? Actually, it depends where you live. As this month’s PISA in Focus explains, not only are some countries better than others in allocating their educational resources more equitably across schools, but students in these countries generally perform better in mathematics.

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.

Many countries have implemented reforms to develop and support doctoral studies and postdoctoral research, stressing the crucial role of doctorate students and degree holders in terms of economic growth, innovation and scientific research.

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

A recent review of the United States concluded that in the decade to 2018, nearly one third of job vacancies will require a post-secondary qualification of some sort, but less than a four year degree.

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 should the programmes be funded? How should they be linked to academic and university programmes?

Want to get involved in shaping the future of education? As the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) reach their 2015 deadline, several international groups, including the OECD, are formulating a new set of goals and targets for sustainable development… and we’d like to know what you think.

Countries where 15-year-old students perform at high standards internationally tend to be the same countries where these young adults tend to perform well at the age of 26 to 28.

Latin America’s GDP growth rate has slowed down in 2014, dropping below 1.5%. This is the first time in a decade that the region grows less than the OECD average, according to the OECD Development Centre, the Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean and the development bank for Latin America. Given the projections in the past weeks, any recovery in 2015 is likely to be challenging.

Skills have become the currency of 21st century economies

Do our education systems offer the necessary support for children growing up in modern families? To what extent should schools be responsible for what have traditionally been thought of as “family matters”?

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.

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.

Over the past decades, education systems have expanded enormously. They provide opportunities for many more students than before to access and succeed in secondary and tertiary education.

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.

by J. Alan McIsaac (Vice-Chair, Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), Minister, Education and Early Childhood Development, Prince Edward Island)

Gender differences still exist in certain fields, with more men studying science, computing and engineering, and with women dominating education and health and welfare.

ISTP 2015 will be held in Banff, Alberta, on March 29–30, 2015, and will bring together education ministers and leaders of teachers’ unions and associations from a number of high-performing and rapidly improving education systems.

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).

The world is living through one of its most extraordinary revolutions, with game-changing implications, many of them still unknown.

The global talent pool has grown over the past decade and is expected to continue growing through to 2030. The number of young people aged 25-34 with a tertiary qualification increased by nearly 45% between 2005 and 2013 in OECD and G20 countries and is expected to keep increasing in the coming decade.

When choosing a school for their child, parents in all participating countries value academic achievement highly; but they are often even more concerned about the safety and environment of the school and the school’s reputation.

TALIS 2013 finds that in many countries, new teachers (with less than five years’ teaching experience) are more likely to work in challenging schools than more experienced teachers.

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

Between 2003 and 2012, the percentage of students who were raised in immigrant families grew by around 3 percentage points across OECD countries. At the same time, as this month’s PISA in Focus notes, migration policies in some countries became increasingly selective while education outcomes in many countries of origin improved considerably.

The share of students with an immigrant background increased between 2003 and 2012, both in traditional and new destination countries. The performance difference in mathematics between immigrant and non-immigrant students decreased, on average, between 2003 and 2012.

The use of ICT for students’ projects or class work is an active teaching practice that promotes skills for students’ lifelong success.

Research shows that programmes to improve adults’ basic skills need to use awareness-raising measures (like the adult education weeks promoted in Denmark and Finland) and national campaigns (as conducted in France and Luxembourg) to encourage interested, but reluctant adults to participate.

Did you ever wonder if education has a role to play in stemming the obesity epidemic sweeping across all OECD countries? Or what the impact of increasing urbanisation might be on our schools, families, and communities?

In just a couple of decades, upper secondary schooling has been transformed from a vehicle towards upward social mobility into a minimum requirement for life in modern societies.

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.

Got a minute? How about 218 of them? That’s the average amount of time students in OECD countries spend in mathematics class each week (although to some, it feels like an eternity). Spare a thought, though, for students in Chile: they spend about twice that amount of time (400 minutes, or 6 hours and 40 minutes) each week in maths class. But who’s counting?